Gundog Training Forum

Thanks, it’s tough when you have to negotiate health issues. I was talking to a guy this afternoon who has a promising trials dog but it uncharacteristically went a bit flat last year and lost its verve. Turns out it has some serious health problems with its spine and hips and he’ll have to retire i...

Hello Yes it’s been a tad hot, not sure I can manage another heatwave next week as well 🥵🥵 And definitely the young fella has had enough too! He goes out for a short sunbathing session, comes in and mostly flops all day! He’s not a swimmer either, so we don’t bother going to the nearby river for a ...

Thanks, she’s nice, and you’re doing a good job with her. The first blind by the corner. I’d have stopped her on the whistle when, as you anticipated, she deviated from the line. When you correct/grumble at a dog you need to ask yourself … is the dog getting the message? Does she realise what she is...

Lightweights!

I try not to use verbal, and certainly not physical corrections these days so may not be of much help on the No/gruff voice scenario, other than pointing out that you need to be careful over what you think you are correcting. You see a lot of trainers going out to correct a dog after they have told ...

Yes, the memorised hot spots are only an aide and now is the time to move on. In similar fashion, be careful over the visible dummies when she gets to the fall or you might have an issue with getting her to hunt with her nose rather than her eyes. And why not use the stop whistle rather than a NO? I...

Hi David, and sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick, I was worried you were going down the road of shoving your dog into a ‚monastic lifestyle’ of either training or stuck in a kennel all day. Glad to hear that she’s still getting a bit of free time and exercise. Individual dogs respond differen...

Hi, trying to make her miserable just because you are miserable over your glitch in progress isn’t going to make up for shortcomings in training, which are under your control, not the dog’s. And as for a dog taking the piss, that’s just another excuse for shoving the blame on the dog. I’m sure other...

Funnily enough a friend has just got a young border collie as a pet. She is already having problems and asked me if I’d have a look in. Just a word of caution Naj, I have been helping someone with a setter (show bred unfortunately) who is quite a nice dog but had no initial training and is a big st...

Mordor seems stuck in the past and hasn’t moved on from the old traditional correctional model. He bases his training unapologetically on the use of aversives/corrections, but in doing so he often makes hard work out of training the simplest of exercises, at the expense of the dog who has to struggl...