fabiomilitello

I'm on the Surrey/London border, by Heathrow airport

He still hunts like a gooden so I'll get him finding the dummies in bramble for a couple weeks then, thanks for the advice mate!

Hi all, A bit of a weird issue. Got a 2 and a half year old lab, his first season was the season that's just gone. He did brilliantly hunting in cover, and for the first half of the season was picking up like nobodies business. Towards the end of the season, he got way too excited on the duck drives and I decided to keep him on the lead, otherwise he wouldn't listen. This gave me clear indication that we needed to work on the start and stop whistle a lot more in the off season. Fast forwards a few months, a couple of months ago I was training him on this whistle. I'd throw his dummy ou

This question is so open ended lol, spaniel men will say go for a spaniel and lab men will say go for a lab. There is no right or wrong answer!

He's been on the lead since he began getting brave about running about, and he won't be let off it now for the rest of the season. You should hear the whines! I'm going to just do some strict retrieving training, and hopefully he'll get the idea that the duck drive doesn't mean he can just run amok. Thanks for your advice mate

Hi all, I have been working my 2 year old labrador all season and he has been as good as gold. I work him on the beating line, he stops on the whistle, recalls, and takes basic casting hand signals when he's quartering in bramble. However, on the last drive of the shoot I work him on, it's duck only. As you can imagine, its manic - ducks falling everywhere, being shot or just landing in ponds out of exhaustion. At first, he was fine with this, but as the season went on, it seems he got more and more excited when it came to this drive. It's gotten to the point where I now need to keep

The risk with any purebreed dog is inherited problems. I have a working lab, and he had FTCH in his blood line and great hip scoring parents, but he has HD and elbow displacia and he's only 2! So don't let the "working" line fool you into thinking that they are free from problems. Like I said, any pure breed dog comes with them - working or show.

Right, thought I'd give a little update to the people following this thread. Saturday just gone was the shoot day. I took out the dog, and the way the shoot works is we have 4 pheasant drives and a duck drive at the end of the day. The duck drive is where the dog got nervous last time, so I went with the intention of taking him back to the car if he started getting too scared during that. The first 4 pheasant drives went swimmingly. Asher was working cover crops and bramble, and could hear the gunshots in the distance - but seemingly, they did not bother him at all. He was too occupied

Thank god I stumbled across this thread, that post is absolute comedy gold! Are you being sarcastic or pretending to be dumb? "how do they own the land,because they bought it from someone who bought it from someone etc,etc,etc" Thats your justification for stealing? People own land the same way as they own houses you plonker! Shall I walk into your house, just because you brought it off someone who brought it off someone who brought it off someone etc etc etc? I'll help myself to your flatscreen TV as well! because the land your house was built on once belong

I was with them for a year, waste of my time and money. The only service they provide is an email with a list of Keepers who have shoots that require beaters - regardless of your distance. The only thing I found helpful was the public liability insurance. I wouldn't bother with them again - I'm with SACS this year for shooting insurance and they seem to do a good service to the shooting world as well.

Sounds like a dream job to me! Can't believe someone hasn't bitten your hand off for it.

After re-reading your original post I see the dog had issues with the .22 blanks, which I had somehow not processed before. I have a question. What gun breaking did you do with this dog before you took it out on a shoot? How long/how many gun breaking sessions? I should have probably elaborated on that. My apologies! His first gun breaking sessions were done last winter, where I would take a starter pistol and fire .22 blanks (shorts). This was done at about 100 yards away by a friend, whilst I would stand with the dog and pet him / praise him if he didn't react. At the start, he never got

After re-reading your original post I see the dog had issues with the .22 blanks, which I had somehow not processed before. I have a question. What gun breaking did you do with this dog before you took it out on a shoot? How long/how many gun breaking sessions? I should have probably elaborated on that. My apologies! His first gun breaking sessions were done last winter, where I would take a starter pistol and fire .22 blanks (shorts). This was done at about 100 yards away by a friend, whilst I would stand with the dog and pet him / praise him if he didn't react. At the start, he never got

After re-reading your original post I see the dog had issues with the .22 blanks, which I had somehow not processed before. I have a question. What gun breaking did you do with this dog before you took it out on a shoot? How long/how many gun breaking sessions? I should have probably elaborated on that. My apologies! His first gun breaking sessions were done last winter, where I would take a starter pistol and fire .22 blanks (shorts). This was done at about 100 yards away by a friend, whilst I would stand with the dog and pet him / praise him if he didn't react. At the start, he neve

It's interesting that you're adamant my dog is no good and might as well retire as a household pet at 18 months old already, without seeing it work at all. He isn't afraid of guns, he has not even made the association between guns and the gunshot sound. He gets nervous around very loud bangs. Whether it's a firework, or a dummy launcher being shot next to him, or a gun. Very loud noises make him uneasy. 22 blanks and banging pots and pans is fine. It's like Casso said, I'm going to be going round in circles forever banging pans around my house and shooting blanks in a field. It's not going to