So you think that you know how to train a gun dog do you? After 55 years on this earth so did I!
Get it completely out of your head that you’ve got a problem dog, you haven’t. It may have developed problems which you now can’t seem to fix but I’ll bet a pound to a penny that like myself the real underlying and fundamental problem was that you’d just not had anyone train you properly on how to get the best from your dogs!
Frank did! Oh, boy did he. after a Sunday morning one on one being square bashed with Frank I had a much better appreciation and understanding of how it felt to be on the end of a lead!
I didn’t touch my young dog Amber for over a week having been with Frank because I had to learn and practice what Frank had shown me (4 times a day walking out with an invisible dog up and down the village street!) until I got it right so that what I was then exposing my dog to made sense to her so she could easily pick up and understand what I wanted to do. My wife described it as pre-Frank Amber getting confused and looking at me gone out, followed by me getting frustrated and then first time with Amber post-Frank Amber looking at me as if to say “is that it? is that all you wanted me to do? oh, daddy that’s easy, why didn’t you just tell me that’s what you wanted me to do and I’d have done it easy peasy for you.” and she did and has done since!
Amber had her first full day out on the beating line (like me she’ll have to muck in and do a bit of everything – sorry purists but this is a real world one rough, game, pigeon, vermin shooting and beating man and his one working dog) and she at 14 months old behaved impeccably even with scatty springers and partridges running around us. Off lead she was always where she was supposed to be and I let her make one retrieve of a clipped partridge which she carried out a treat.
So if any of this has any resonance, or you’d like to be able to work with your dog like this, don’t treat the symptoms, treat the cause, YOU. Wind your neck back in, swallow your pride, stop buggering about (have you understood the message yet?) and go see Frank and let him knock you into shape so that you can get the best from your dogs.
Best lesson I’ve ever learnt with the greatest of rewards possible.
Cheers Frank and thank you.
Alan