18 month old teenager. Agility or gun dog training?

[Sprinkles]

Brody is either good as gold or a nightmare. He has a sense of...

....."I'll do what I want when I want and come back when I'm good and ready. However you may have to wait a while as I know where you are even though you have no clue where I am! If there's a bird along the way you'll hear me screeching at the top of my doggy voice yet I will still ignore your whistle and livercake! In the meantime I will pull like a horse, zig zag in front of you to trip you up and bark at shadows and reflections in the garden! By the way thanks for all the treat's and those odd little clicks I get along the way. I'll behave beautifully every so often just to appease you then once again do what I like! Oh and by the way I will look like butter wouldn't melt at all other times and have an adoring public along the way" 

Soooooo onto my question. In order to get some control here which would benefit us more? Gun dog training or Agility?   

[mlynnf50]

Well sounds just like Selby, and I can add to that I will bark as much as I want in the Car, and nothing can stop me   They are just lovely, I think!!!!!

[Helen]

his screeching and barking at birds may prevent would not endear him to many gundog trainers 

[Brimbeck(Dyllan)]

his screeching and barking at birds may prevent would not endear him to many gundog trainers 

  but agility is great fun and good for general training too, all 3 of mine enjoy it 

[Joules]

If you can find a fun gundog class he would probably love it    I have tried both with Coco (to a very low standard  ) and she has loved both and she and I have both gained    They are both training that will require Brody to use his brain so I would do either - depends what you can find locally and what you fancy doing yourself 

As Helen says, he may not be too popular in a proper gundog class - I have a similar problem, Coco gets so excited she barked her head off in class until it was her turn to do her thing 

[Black Red + Yellow]

I would say any training would help really to mentally stimulate your busy boy.......dogs that are more mentally stimulated to tend chill out better the rest of the time, many dogs need more than just 'exercise'  - go for it....you will see a difference I am sure

[harveyroan]

I would say any training would help really to mentally stimulate your busy boy.......dogs that are more mentally stimulated to tend chill out better the rest of the time, many dogs need more than just 'exercise'  - go for it....you will see a difference I am sure

I agree with this 20-30mins proper training is better than a 2 hour walk of mindless running around. These working spainels need stimulating

[Sprinkles]

Thanks everyone. I have found someone who was "out on a shoot!!" when I called and has since called back. He doesn't believe in type of training involving the things I've read about and hate (nose smacking, hitting etc!!!) and has a free slot tomorrow afternoon! I'll let you know how I get on!

[ginnygirl]

look forward to hearing about it

[black taz]

sounds like Taz when he was younger.  We did gundog training but unfortunately i didnt do enough research first and the trainer was from hell, so that actually did us more harm than good - however we had some 1-2-1 sessions with an excellent trainer last year and started to our house in order.  We do agility and both love it - i have found that he is much more focused on me when we do agility than at other times. 

[Sarah1985]

I think you would be wise to do something about his recall before looking into agility. Dogs cant go any further than the puppy class at our group unless their recall is spot on. Everything after the very early stages of agility is off lead and a dog tearing round the course for 10 mins can really hinder a class. 

I would definately recomend gun dog training. I wish Id done more gun dog training with my dogs in the period between 6 months and a year. Ive now had a few 1 to 1 gun dog classes now as well as done lots of training round the park and Ive seen a vast improvement at agility as a result. I always found waits practice rather boring at agility as they teach it in a boring fashion, but our gun dog trainer has given us lots of advice and methods of improving the steadyness of our dog which were much more interesting.

The rock solid stays, left and right ques are invalueable to agility as well as the expereince of being off lead round other dogs and still focusing on you and being confident to work at a distance. I havent found anything that clashes particularly.