First Day

[cantona 310]

I'm going to start sprocker next season , would it be best to leave her on lead first outing , let her quarter only, maybe send for a seen retrieve ? I no it depends on indervidual dog but roughly how much would you start with, her basics are good in the conditions I put her in, not saying she will be good on a shoot because she hasn't been on one!

[the monkey 339]

All dogs are different .first shoot she will probably be a bit quiet with all the dogs ,flags,noise etc

If she was mine first shoot I would let her quarter at the beginning of the drive in woodland ,keep her tight to you as there will be birds running ahead.

After say five minutes put her on the lead, as the drive progresses there will be a lot of birds up ahead and you don't want her running into those

Don't let her hunt in the cover crops as this encourages her to run ahead.especially in maize

[cantona 310]

  On 12/06/2016 at 15:14, the monkey said:

All dogs are different .first shoot she will probably be a bit quiet with all the dogs ,flags,noise etc

If she was mine first shoot I would let her quarter at the beginning of the drive in woodland ,keep her tight to you as there will be birds running ahead.

After say five minutes put her on the lead, as the drive progresses there will be a lot of birds up ahead and you don't want her running into those

Don't let her hunt in the cover crops as this encourages her to run ahead.especially in maize

makes sense, thanks

[Lab 10,979]

Don't want to put the cat amongst the pigeons but letting her off early could completely ruin the drive if you don't have 100% trust she will return on recall.

Ask the keeper if you could maybe dog in a few hedge rows or ditches with her first. Explain the situation. All dogs have to learn but ruining a drive is not the way to do it. You then will get an indicating on how she is going to respond to you when her nose is down and birds are mounting up ahead.

Anyway it's not the end of the world if she does make a mistake, many do. You just have to make sure that it doesn't happen consistantly or your name will be mud...?

[sussex 5,796]

  On 09/06/2016 at 17:10, cantona said:

I'm going to start sprocker next season , would it be best to leave her on lead first outing , let her quarter only, maybe send for a seen retrieve ? I no it depends on indervidual dog but roughly how much would you start with, her basics are good in the conditions I put her in, not saying she will be good on a shoot because she hasn't been on one!

Are you training the dog to shoot over for yourself or are you going to use her for beating ..? If it's for yourself I wouldn't use her for beating at all ...way to much game and way to many chances to misbehave unseen ..we have a couple of spaniel trainers come over they work there dogs for maybe fifth teen minutes , where they have total control and can see every thing the dog is doing , might let it have one retrieve , these are trailing dogs so it's just training for them . If your going to use her for beating then the two posts above are spot on ..