Cherwell Gundog Club
Cherwell Gundog Club 

Training Tips

We have put specific tips here in the past but experience shows that each dog and owner is different and there can be a wide range of reasons for a situation that occurs.

 

Therefore, we have narrowed our tips down to 3 things:

 

1. 'Deal with what you see'

You may have trained your dog to go back 100 yards in a straight line but that doesn't mean it will do it every time like a robot. It is very easy to get cross because the dog is letting you down but there could be a miriad of reasons so, 'deal with what you see'. Go back to early training, even treat the dog like a puppy if necessary and then rebuild. This attitude will keep you in a better state of mind which will increase the chances of success.

2. 'Start on a high, finish on a high'

You want your dog to be confident and bouyant as this is the best state of mind for learning. If your first exercise is one it needs correcting on, it is losing confidence immediately. Start with something which is comfortably within its skills so as to get you both in a good mood. 

If the dog does exactly what you want in the 'main' training, seriously consider stopping there and finishing positively. It is very easy to think 'I'll do it one more time' and find the dog fails (gets bored/loses concentration?). Let its last memory be the lesson learned so this will soak into its brain as latent learning.

Even if the training has gone poorly, finish on something much more straight forward so it's confidence in you and itself is rebuilt then go away and think about what went wrong.

3. Get training from the right person

I heard a very experienced gundog handler, Judge and trainer say 'it is better to travel 5 hours to get 30 minutes training from the right person than travel 30 minutes to get 5 hours training from the wrong one'.

 

We hope this helps. If you have any queries, email us and we will put in contact with a person who we have experience of and can help. 

 

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Gundog training in West Oxfordshire. Copyright of Cherwell Gundog Club.