Quick Q: re Show dogs & Gundog training.

[jennyspin]

Hi there, my friend has just had this with her black and white Amercian cocker boy, Krissy. They were going to show him but he had what seemed to be a full blown case of canine ADHD! The last problem they had was when he slipped his show lead at Bakewell show last year, ran across two rings and came back covered in mud! Anyway, Karen has experience of training dogs to the gun and suggested that maybe little Krissy was bored of the show ring and that her other half should try to work him. Neil took him to three classes and then tried his hand at being a helper at one of the shoots. Well, the "real" gundog folk with flatcoats,etc and all of the bigger breeds fell about laughing when Neil turned up at the shoot with gorgeous little black and white Khrissy, the "Yank". However, he out ran all of their dogs and won an award for being the best dog at the end of the day. They had to eat their words!!! I've seen Krissy today and he is a totally different dog than he was prior to training, he was fetching and carrying for his mum and dad and aunty Jen was even getting lots of hugs and kisses from him! So much for canine ADHD!!! xx

[heelers n cockers]

Si takes Harvey to gundog training - he will never be a field trialist and he will never have the stamina for a full days beating however, gundog training gives him a different type of challenge and has greatly improved his obedience such as sitting to whistle at distance, good stays etc.  Si has also started to train in the rabbit pen to steady Harvey around other animals etc, again something that will help in day to day life. 

There are a lot of good trainers out there, stick to your training principles and keep searching...  good luck

Just to give you a rough idea of what I've been doing with Harvey, here are a couple of vids I've taken of him doing his stuff.

www.youtube.com/user/Si19871

The first one is of us doing a few retrieves...Memory retrieves, basic marked retrieves and a marked retrieve with hand directions.  The second one is of a memory retrieve where Harvey (eventually) runs back about 300m, collects the dummy and then returns, and the third vid is of him retrieving a dummy from some fairly heavy cover. 

As Mandy has said, he's not got the stamina to work a full day, and I’m using him to help train me for such a time that we get a working dog.  Don't let anyone put you off...Show dogs can work and it’s a very enjoyable pastime!

Si.

i loved those! Harvey's a clever boy! that's the sort of thing i would love Freddy to do! his breeder bred Flatcoats for show and trained them in fieldwork, and she trained Freddy's mum to field standards and apparently she was a better retriever than her Flatties!   not only that i think it would be beneficial in the long term, if only to keep his brain occupied and for general behaviour. Also if my puppy plans go accordingly (fingers crossed) i will have a show strain puppy to train too!  

[heelers n cockers]

Oh and thanks everyone for the positive comments  you've made me all the more determined to train Freddy (and maybe Patrick-if he stops being such a giddy kipper!  ) to do some sort of gundog training.

[Hurtwood Dogs]

Si takes Harvey to gundog training - he will never be a field trialist and he will never have the stamina for a full days beating however, gundog training gives him a different type of challenge and has greatly improved his obedience such as sitting to whistle at distance, good stays etc.  Si has also started to train in the rabbit pen to steady Harvey around other animals etc, again something that will help in day to day life. 

There are a lot of good trainers out there, stick to your training principles and keep searching...  good luck

Just to give you a rough idea of what I've been doing with Harvey, here are a couple of vids I've taken of him doing his stuff.

www.youtube.com/user/Si19871

The first one is of us doing a few retrieves...Memory retrieves, basic marked retrieves and a marked retrieve with hand directions.  The second one is of a memory retrieve where Harvey (eventually) runs back about 300m, collects the dummy and then returns, and the third vid is of him retrieving a dummy from some fairly heavy cover. 

As Mandy has said, he's not got the stamina to work a full day, and I’m using him to help train me for such a time that we get a working dog.  Don't let anyone put you off...Show dogs can work and it’s a very enjoyable pastime!

Si.

I loved Harvey before but luff him even more now, bless him!!! Really nice vids to see those Simon, thank you!