Adapt training to suit the circumstances

Shoot days and field trials have been deleted from the calendar but that’s no reason to allow your gundog training to lose focus

- JANET MENZIES

DOGS don’t do distancing, social or otherwise. So our gundogs must be baffled by the on-again-off-again shooting season that has wound its way to a confused close. We can hardly blame them or ourselves if dog work has become a bit wayward under the strain. For those who rely on regular days on the peg, or picking-up or beating to keep their dogs happy, fit and on the whistle, working and training feels just about impossible.

Professional trainers and field-trial competitors have been hard hit, with the loss of the various national championships and only a few trials fitted in during periods when lockdown was lifted. Fortunately, they know how to be inventive and adaptable with their training programmes. One successful trials man used to train his dog on a local trading estate, using the lanes between the units to get his dog’s outruns ramrod straight. Another Welsh-based trainer regularly recruited seagulls on the beach to improve his dog’s steadiness. So most of the professionals see solutions where we normal dog-owners lose the plot. Leading spaniel trainer Ian Openshaw has always maintained that, in any case, the typical driven shoot ruins a dog’s steadiness, discipline and precision. So maybe we are better off being forced to do something a bit different.