apprenticeships for pickers-up.

[trekmoor]

When oi wert a lad, as some sassenachs would say, unless you had some influential friends, most ordinary folk who wanted to be pickers-up had to serve a sort of apprenticeship as a beater first. Personally I thought doing this worked quite well.

There is now a bloke living very near me who has two labs and he wants to be a picker up but he just wants to waltz straight in there with no experience whatsoever. He has asked if I or the other man near me who goes to shoots would get him in as a picker up and both of us have refused to do this. He says beating would "spoil" his labs and so it might to some degree but speaking as someone who started with a lab as a beating dog and then got her to the Retriever Champs., I know beating may make a lab a bit rough around the edges but it will not ruin it !

Am I being unfair and a bit of a dinosaur about this or do you think this man should learn from the ground up ?

Wullie

[Cambusvale]

Or, tell him to buy training and part of it is picking up. Seen this done a bit but I am old school and worked for my spurs to picking up from the beating line. I got paid for my dogs work.

[Naj]

It was always a bit of a closed shop. But when you broke through though, on merit, you used to get more picking up than you could handle providing you had handy dogs that got on with the job.

Naj

[Contender]

No, I don't think you're being unfair - many (newcomers) forget that it's much less about just picking a dead bird but much more about how to recognise which birds in the air have been hit, which ones might run when they hit the ground, where are the birds likely to go to? and so on. For years, I preferred to go as a beater once or twice if on a new shoot simply to get a better understanding of the ground and see where the birds preferred to go, plus one should never underestimate a good relationship with the beaters

And if he's so afraid to 'ruin' his dogs then leave them at home, he doesn't need to bring them

I'm from a non-shooting background so I have done all the 'apprenticeships': beating, flanking, walked-up shooting, shooting, rearing birds, keepering, snaring/traps, picking-up and I would hate to have been without them.

Natasha

[romanriver]

I think youre being fair to the shoots and keepers, to pick up you need to know the shoot, which drives are which, and where you can or cant pick up, there is also etiquette to learn although you wont find much of that on a beaters cart! If he doesn't want to ruin his dogs then walk them to heel.

[ips]

Eh, i didnt realise picker ups were considered above beaters these days, i believe both disciplines are equaly important and require the same level of dog work, all be it somewhat different.

[Judy]

Pickers up have always been considered above beaters! After all to go beating you just have to walk in a line with other people...

[WGD]

Folk like the lad with the two labs get on my t1ts!

If he feels beating would ruin his labs then proper picking up would certainly do the same, at least when you're beating you can (or should be, in theory!) able to see your dog.

As Natasha said picking up isn't about retrieving as such, all that hanky waving is fine but you only need to do that if you can stand back from the gun line and pick out birds that have taken shot and gone on, dropped a leg or tipped a wing. Or quite simply glided 300 yards and folded. Then you've got to go and find the damn things and you'll only find them if you can say "get out" and have something that will go and do its job.

You get far more out of handling a gundog if you have done your time shooting, beating, keepering and mooching about to understand how game behaves. Standing in grassy park handling a dog onto a two hundred yard retrieve can be done dummies.

So no Wullie, you're bang on.

[Naj]

There’s also a demand and supply thing going on here. You need many more beaters than pickers up and demand for picking up outstrips supply. And I agree that there is no substitute for hard won experience. You do t get that by a first day on the job with no prior experience before that.

This notion that taking a dog shooting is the ruination of it get on my t1ts!! That’s the reason we have these dogs, to do a job, not to wrap them up in cotton wool so there’s no chance of spoiling them. There are many aspects to working a gundog in the field and all require different understanding and often a compromise between control and initiative. Shooting over a dog doesn’t ruin it. Luck, experience and management all play a part, as do unrealistic expectations.

Naj

[ips]

Pickers up have always been considered above beaters! After all to go beating you just have to walk in a line with other people...

Ouch