Are we ready for a bit of the real thing?

[Dan outdoors]

Hi all,
My Sprocker is now about a year old I've been training her since she was 8 weeks old for working, had a few hurdles along the way but she's come along well I'd say, retrieves to hand sits to the whistle, takes direction, great recall, good heal off lead, is fine to gunfire, I'm itching to start taking her out with the gun and taking it from there, I am nervous incase I'm exposing her to game too early and not being able to train her with dummy's after she's had a taste of the real thing, my intension is to use her for roost shooting, decoying, stalked rabbit with rifle and out lamping rabbits, so just rough shooting like.. Was hoping to get a bit of advice as to if I'm on track and if it sounds like I'm ready to take it to that next level?

Cheers

Dan

[Gazelle1000]

Is she steady around game

[DJS]

For me, I would like too be as sure possible things are going to go right. Dogs seem to pick up on moods of handler, so if you think things may go wrong, they may well do.

I would want to make sure she is under your control over areas with game in and comfortable retreating cold game. After that, I would take her out with a friend who is shooting, and you can concentrate on her.

[Cass]

I like a quote made by Rex Carr - "If you train a young dog for momentum, precision will arrive. If you train for precision, demanding perfection, momentum will depart." It's quite easy to take the fire out of a dog, but impossible to put it into one that its been taken out of. Demanding steadiness above all before the dog has learned to love the job it is meant to do seems counterproductive to me. Especially with rough shooting, as long as you have reasonable control over the dog (ie. good recall and sits on the whistle), take it out and let it get some experience. Game is a better trainer than a human. Birds train bird dogs

[allan450]

im with cass on this your spot on.

[Naj]

Presumably you're just using her as a no-slip retriever & not to hunt up stuff? Will she retrieve warm game & has been conditioned to gunshot, & is she steady at heel around game?

[Stihl 090]

My advice would be to concentrate on one disipline. Seems like you want a jack of all trades and may end up, with a master of none.

[jeffD]

I would take the pup but have someone else do the shooting so you can concentrate on the dog. I have to agree with Stihl 090 but don't have problem with this all of my dogs have been multi purpose, they would not have won anything in competition but they sure helped put a lot of game in the bag

[pontbeck]

If we all waited until we were positive that the dog was 100% we wouldn't take any out. I may be speaking personally here
I would take jeffd's advice and take the dog out with someone else shooting. You need all your concentration on the dog.

[Dan outdoors]

Thank you all for your advice and guidance, I'm going to put in a bit more training and look to taking her out with my mate shooting in a couple of weeks, thanks again. D