What did you pay for your work dog?

[Stone14 9]

What breed?

What price?

Pre-trained, paid-trained, or you-trained?

Did you pick a specific working pedigree line, or just picked the breed not specifically from a working line?

[Stone14 9]

Also, do gundog rescue centres allow you to rehome one for working purposes? Or are they generally against it? I'm just wondering if there could be good finds in these rescue centres. Over the prices ive seen for 2yr old pretrained dogs being £6k+ at specific training centres..

Edited October 1, 2021 by Stone14

[Aled 476]

Battersea Dogs home, Cocker Spaniel Rescue, and Black Retriever Cross do rehome to gundog working homes, i think some others do as well but not sure which, RSPCA & Blue cross do not rehome to gundog working homes. 

As an aside there is a 2 year old cocker spaniel cross looking for a home on the  Black Retriever Cross facebook page, a working home is suggested for it. 

Cheers

Aled

[Netmaker 909]

I bought a Labrador bitch 6yrs ago paid a grand for it as a 8wk old pup

[ollieollie 766]

Vizsla £850 11 yrs ago

cocker £400 6 yrs ago

 

[Aled 476]

My working dog is a proper mongrel an accidental mating between a Labrador and a NZ Huntaway, cost me £200, he wont win a field trial championship but he's a good rough shooting companion and we go wildfowling. 

[Lloyd90 509]

Paid £550 and £600 for my 2 springers, both from top trialling lines. 

 

Next summer they will be 4 and 2 years old. 
 

I looked for trial lines because I wanted some sort of verifiable way that the dogs would have some quality to them and I genuinely think it’s hard to get a honest review of a dog. 
 

I see a lot of owners who think or tell everyone their dog is a good worker and when you see it it has major faults and should never be bred! 
 

Trialling isn’t the only important thing but at least you know on that day the dog was good and verified by judges etc. 
 

Ive seen people who’ve had ‘just a shooting dog’ all their life get a trial bred dog that wasn’t up to scratch and therefore sold to them for shooting and rave it’s the best dog they’ve ever had. 

[Lloyd90 509]

On 03/10/2021 at 19:29, Wideboy said:

Verified by a judge? Plenty of corruption in the field trialling world. 

Without a doubt, but it’s still more verified than the bloke down the local shoot breeding his bitch and telling you what a great worker it is, when it’s hard mouthed, makes noise, runs in and is a shit game finder.

 

Most triallers wouldn’t waste their time with a dog with major faults. 

 

A know several such people who are pumping out cocker pups, raving about the dogs and claiming they are working, and they do little more than take their dogs for a walk on a shoot and the parents are awful. 
 

One bloke brags his dog has sired over 100 pups, the dog crunches birds it retrieve, squeaks like a banshee, is always hunting way out of range of him (but that doesn’t matter too much in beating), runs in, don’t handle or listen, and it’s mostly just running about bumping up birds from its presence than hunting them out!  
 

He has his own page online to advertise him at stud telling everyone what a fantastic worker the dog is. 
 

Id take a trial bred dog over that any days of the week. 

[Born Hunter 17,751]

I've been fortunate to be gifted my cockers. Working pedigree was important, as was who they came from, but the specific lines didn't matter at all to me.

Dunno what prices are now but certainly 12 months ago 2-3 grand wouldn't have guaranteed anything special.

[Greb147 6,809]

My uncle just bred a litter of Springers and think they were £1800 for bitches and £1500 for dogs. 

[sussex 5,777]

The last two labs I’ve had were gifted , the first one from a friends daughter that were puppy people , once the dog got to a year old they grew tired of them , they lived in a flat and the dog got to go out just for a few minutes a couple of times a day ..her pedigree work wise was unknown , I got her at eighteen months , she had no training whatsoever , after thirty odd years of having working dogs , all spaniels she was by far the best dog I have ever had , training her was unbelievably easy , her first to years was nothing but stalking and tracking but I did work her on dummies and take her when I was feeding the birds morning and evening . .She took to picking up like she was born to do it ..Had she been trailed she would have made a FTC with ease ..

My current bitch was gifted as a pup from a keeper , again she was my stalking dog but like the first one picking up was in the blood ..

picture is my present dog Isla ..

[Netmaker 909]

both my lab bitches have been very very easy to train showing them something once/twice and that is all it took both are clever sometimes too clever for their own good at times

[sussex 5,777]

1 minute ago, Netmaker said:

both my lab bitches have been very very easy to train showing them something once/twice and that is all it took both are clever sometimes too clever for their own good at times

Bit different from training spaniels ....

[Borr 5,821]

What do they say...lab is born half trained ...spaniel dies half trained ...

[Netmaker 909]

My old man used to say a lab is born half trained and a spaniel  dies half trained ....