Gundog Training or Practising ?

Having just returned from a skiing holiday in France, I was enjoying each day on the mountain with the fresh, cold air and adrenaline infusions, as my friends and I pushed each other to do better.

I used the mantra (sometimes it doubled as an excuse): "if you're not falling, you're not skiing hard enough."

The same might be said of training your gundog: if you're not making adjustments, corrections or changes to your gundog's performance, you might not be training hard enough. You might just be practicing!

Now, I say might because with gundogs it's very subjective and depends upon what you've already done with the gundog.

If you haven't taught the gundog what you expect and then suddenly throw them into a scenario that they have to figure out by trial and error, then corrections, be them verbal, physical, are woefully unfair.

However, if you've gone through the teaching phase, the gundog understands what you're doing and what's expected, then pushing him to do better by challenging him mentally and giving him every opportunity to make the correct decisions is training the gundog.

If you're simply running drills over and over or keep repeating the same scenarios in the same area, then the gundog begins to read the exercise and can react accordingly.

So many people don't train, they just practice. They just go through the motions and the gundog isn't really working or having to try.

Now, practicing can have its benefits. It's great for building a dog's confidence and momentum, as well as re-establishing the basics, but repeating the same scenario or drill over and over in the same place doesn't train the gundog to react accordingly in the future in a new setting.

When people train in the same place, the dog begins to pick up on cues and anticipates what's going to happen. You need to get the gundog out of its comfort zone a little bit and challenge it, or else you're just practicing and not training.

You can push a gundog by changing locations or making a known drill/scenario more challenging by increasing the complexity, distractions, number of dummies, topography or getting out in the rain and windy conditions (after all, shooting rarely takes place during ideal conditions).

I suspect we are all guilty of lazy training (especially after the shooting season).

If you feel you need to be pushed then get booked in with workinggundogs