Gundog Training - Foundation Hunting/Quartering Exercises 

Awww I’m glad we can provide some relief and positivity for you! 😄

I’m so glad you like them and find them useful! I’ve got quite a bit in at the moment, so I don’t think I’ll be able to post anything for a while unfortunately, but I’m hoping I might be able to do the odd one or two between day to day life! 😊

I’m so glad you liked it! I always think when people start to train behaviours should be tailored depending on the individual aims/goals and the individual dog. I do the foundation exercises from early on as hunting was a priority behaviour for us, although I didn’t learn the two post technique until Ivy was a little older so we didn’t do that one. When I was out with Ivy as a pup I would do zigzag walking naturally as part of our off lead outings. I also do the food chasing games early on in short little bursts as they are fun engagement and relationship building games that don’t require the pup to have any trained behaviours and they teach good habits of hanging out with me whilst out in the big wide world. Then it really depends on when the dog is ready for more formality and it will vary with every dog but I think with Ivy she was probably somewhere between around 7/8 months when I gradually start to add in a little more formality to her hunting sessions. In the video link below she was 9 months old and this was early on in us starting to put things together with our quartering ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RoInA20hsoc.html I hope that helps!

Hi Chris, thank you that is very kind! I have stopped making videos for the time being as I was pregnant for most of last year, and welcomed my little one into the world at the end of December so currently have my hands full meaning my videos have taken a back seat. I’m hoping to start them again but it will probably be a little while yet. 😂

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries aww ☺️ congratulations, that’s awesome. Forget the videos then for a while as time is precious and you don’t get it back. Fingers crossed you’ll be back though with little one sat next to you when your ready. Get some sleep 😴 😉

Thank you. I have done a number of dog trainer qualifications and was qualified with the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers and completed the Gundog Trainers Academy and I have dabbled in training others for a few years historically, but I don’t do any training at the moment, other than with my own dogs.

Thanks Mark! In that case I would swap the food out for whatever it is they do find reinforcing. For instance if they are tennis ball mad then I’d lure them round the posts with the ball and then after a successful rep reward them with a catch or chase of the ball if that’s what tickles their fancy. But you’d probably find you couldn’t do as many reps and in the example with a ball you’d need a dog that’s OK giving it back. Also with the game where I’m getting her to search of the food that either side of me that she didn’t see placed you’d want to be using slightly longer cover to ensure that the item is hidden to make sure that they are making that switch from visual to scent. So I would just tailor the exercises as needed to fit with what ever reinforcer I was using. No trials for us, but I might enter in some tests this year with her. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other at some point!

I’m really glad you’re enjoying them! So unfortunately there isn’t a straight forward answer to that question. What to prioritise with your training really depends on you and your dog. What do you want to do with your dog, do you want them to work and if so what role will they be working in? Or do you want to do any tests, certificates or grades? Or do you want to just do training for fun? I’d work out what your training towards and then look at your dog and see what would be the biggest focus areas for them. For instance if you wanted to train your dog up to be able to going picking up on a shoot for some dogs something like steadiness would be a really important thing to focus on particularly if you have a very drivey dog, but if you’ve got a bit of a plodder then you would probably want to avoid that whilst your worked in building drive and motivation first. Sorry that probably wasn’t the answer you were looking for but I hope it makes sense.

I’m glad you liked it! In that scenario I would bring my turn whistle into the mix in order to get them to turn back towards me to ensure that they are staying in the zone that I want them to be working. If they keep trying to push on further then I would be throwing the turn whistle in for every turn and reintroduce some slight zigzag walking to help remind them of the expectations. So essentially, because the environment has become a more challenging distraction I chose to give more cues and assistance to help them get success, and over time with more exposure to those scenarios I should be able to phase the additional support cues out again. I hope that makes sense! 😊

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries Complete sense! Thanks

Ha, don't we know it, when all that rabbit scent overwhelms our training🤣🤣

Hi Jeff, all is going well. I’ve l feel pregnant in March and so I’ve had quite a bit going on which has meant videos have taken a bit of a backseat. We recently had a great weekend at the game fair demoing and doing the scurries so I was thinking about pulling the clips together from that into a little video if I can find the time. But the channel is definitely going to be a lot quieter for the foreseeable. Thanks for reaching out and checking in on us though! 😄

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries Awwww. Congratulations! That is great news and definitely good reason for the videos taking a back seat. Enjoy this very exciting time in your life and I will keep my eyes open to see your new addition taking a star role in future videos. 👶🏻😁

Sorry for the delayed response I have just recently had a baby so I’ve not had much time for my channel. The first thing I would say is that I’m not a vet so this is purely my opinion but I’ve always thought it best to leave make dogs intact unless you have good reasons to castrate. I don’t see the point in putting them through surgery and altering their hormones so drastically if it’s not needed. However, if being a fully intact male is causing issues maybe you think it’s having a negative impact on their behaviour or maybe you have intact females in the home and it becomes too challenging to manage then I would only consider it once the dog had fully matured. However, I would go with chemical castration initially which is a temporary option. So you can see whether or not the issues are caused by the hormones or not. Castration can have a big behavioural impact on a dogs behaviour sometimes it’s for the good but sometimes it’s not, particularly if you have a dog who’s not very confident removing those hormones can have a real negative impact on their confidence which can then create other behavioural issues, so I wouldn’t want to make castration permanent until I understood how it would impact the dog, which is why chemicals castration is a great option. I hope that makes sense and I’m not too late in replying! 😊

Hi Rosie, yes I used food to lure the behaviour around the post initially. And you can get the posts from Muntjac Trading through this link: www.muntjactrading.com/products/marking-stick

Thank you for the link and answer to my questions. Rosie

Hi there, I used to to training classes but not anymore. You might be able to find a trainer with a similar approach through the gundog trainers academy website: www.gundogtrainersacademy.co.uk/GTA-ACCREDITED-INSTRUCTORS

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries Thanks 🙏🏻 Still nothing close to me. I’m thinking WaggaWuffins???

@@duanepope730 yes Waggawuffins owned by Jane Arden would be brilliant if they are close to you 😊

Or if you are in that area, depending on your location Trails for Tails are also great - trailsfortailsdogtraining.com/

You can get them from Muntjac Trading they call them marking sticks, here’s the link: www.muntjactrading.com/products/marking-stick

Hi Ben, in this video I was using JR Pet Products pate cut up into chunks. I do have a 10% discount link you can use if you wanted to try some or any of the JR range jrpetproducts.mention-me.com/m/ol/iu8wi-victoria-cochrane

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries thanks, I’ve ordered some 👍

Yes. I don’t know if you spotted it but I do it the “wrong” way on the first set and then I actually changed which way round I sent her so all the others are the “right way round” but I didn’t notice until I watched it back after publishing it was was too late to cut out or add commentary too, plus I didn’t think anyone would be eagle eyed enough to notice but clearly I was mistaken! 😂

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries No worries. I train for field trials, so always thinking about that. Nice video, and I like the idea. Different version of bucket training than I've seen in the past. Cheers.