Keeping Your Gundog Obedient

What do you think happens if you leave your gundog in kennels when the shooting season ends? Unless we spend some time training every week throughout the year it could spell disaster.

There's nothing worse than a well trained working gundog going off the rails, One season she is the best dog you could hope for the next she seems useless. What you don't realise its not the dogs fault it's the owners.

At the beginning of the season when I go shooting, Charlie always excels or he seems to when I compare him with some of the other dogs on their first outing of the season.

The problem stems from leaving your working gundog to do as they wish out of season then expecting them to listen to you after a 6 month break. No chance!

What I recommend you do, is what I do with Charlie. At least twice a week I take Charlie out and make him listen to me. He has to follow every command as if he is on a shoot. It's just me and him for a hour or two, no distractions.

The rest of the time I let him play with the kids and generally have a good time, but when we have our 1-2 hour training sessions he does as I say. I find twice is better than once a week, but three times is not necessary.

You also sometimes have problems with younger dogs which seem really obedient at 4-6 months then seem to get more headstrong.

What you must do to correct this is go back in your training by approximately 2-3 weeks and go over things he already knows. You should find this helps. Always remember you are the master, if you let your working gundog think he can boss you he will. If he gets away with it from your wife, husband or partner, he will try it with you.

If it become a serious problem you need to be the only person who has contact with your hunting friend for a couple of weeks, then after this make sure you let your wife, husband or partner see how you train it. If you both act the same way it will stop being a problem.

A good way for readers who share the ownership of their working gundog, to avoid ever having this problem is to train their dog together, I always advise a dog to only have one trainer as having two can get confusing.

Did you ever take as much notice of your parents as your teacher when learning maths? I Doubt it. Did you ever take as much notice of a supply teacher as your proper teacher? I doubt also. I could keep going but I think you get the picture. But if you had 2 teachers teaching you together did you listen to booth? Yes because they were both singing from the same hymn sheet.

This works the same for hunting dogs, and all dogs, so if you insist that two of you teach your dog, 70% of the time, try to train your gundog together. If this is your first gundog you are going to train whether it's a spaniel gundog, Labrador gundog or other breed you may want to try to follow a routine. Stick to it and do not break the pattern.