Noah my 9 year old son out training this evening with his new young Labrador puppy “trigger” who is now 7 months old.

You could say Noah has the “bug”, but understands young puppies cant be out for long periods so continues to work our Golden Retriever stud dog Angus.

It may be Black Friday but life goes on and whilst most the country was in a mad rush to pick up a bargain we were out picking up  on our local shoot.

Whilst it was over cast most of the day the guns and dogs still enjoyed a good day of shooting.

We have a new  up and coming Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Stud dog called Drake.

Drake is a calm collected dog with loads of personality. He is a very loving and loyal dog who has been very easy from day one.

We are hoping for Drake to become a member of our current picking up team and will slowly introduce him this coming season.

Drakes has had his hips, elbows and DNA test completed with good results.

Drakes hips are a total of 9, Drakes elbows are a total of 0 and his DNA has tested Clear/Normal for gpra and cea/ch.

As the shooting season comes to a close I’m sure there’s many of you that want to start to rectify any issues that may have crept into your dogs during shooting season.

Or on the other hand you want to start to put training in place into any younger dogs coming through for the next shooting season which will be here before we know it.

If you would like dates for our group training sessions please feel free to email ourselves and we will be happy to provide the coming dates.

We hope you all have a great Christmas and fantastic New Year and thank you all for all your support in 2013.
Have a prosperous 2014.

We have been walking Heidi for the last 6 days to build here confidence on the lead. Heidi is now more fluent on the lead but is still getting use to the pressure of being led.

Please remember whilst watching this video that this is the very first time this puppy has been on a lead.

In this video we are with Heidi our black Labrador bitch puppy I want to show you  that she hasn’t had anything done with herself on the lead.

I have so many people say to me that they have watched many gun dog dvd’s and the dog work is fantastic but they never show the dog before the training and how to overcome any issues that may arise.

Dogs are no different to humans in lots of ways, in how they move or react to pressure. If you were walking down a dark alley and someone reached out, grabbed you and tried to pull you towards them your instant reaction would be to pull away. That’s exactly what this little puppy is doing on the lead.

Heidi can feel the pressure pulling her in a direction she doesn’t want to go, so she pulls away or plays dead! This also works in another way, if you a walking a dog on a lead and your lead is tight your dog will continue to pull, if the lead becomes slack with no tension your dog will then walk without pulling.

As time goes on what we want from our puppy is to move away from the pressure the lead is causing, so if you were walking and your dog stops to sniff as you continue to walk the lead will become tight, as the lead become’s tight your dog should want to get away from this pressure so should react by quicken their pace to correct their heel position.

I will continue this for a few days then update you with her progress.

In this video I’m training Willow our black Labrador bitch puppy to begin to sit for a thrown tennis ball and a thrown puppy dummy.

As you will see the sit and eye contact come straight away and this has built up from her expecting to sit as an activation for her food.

There are 2 videos for Willow as we were running out of video space so had to do a second to recap what you should be looking to do and expect from your young puppies.

What i am hoping to do with these videos is to show you how to over come everyday issues when starting out, issues that we never really see in our everyday gundog demo’s and dvd’s.

Things do go wrong and dogs need to be molded in different ways.

My advice to everyone is don’t rush, take your time, these pups are coming up to 15 weeks old and I’m only just starting to throw retrieves for them and start lead training. There’s no point putting lots of pressure on a puppy that’s not old enough to take it!

Willow play retrieving.

Recap for training.

We received this letter this week for dogs for the disabled thanking all of you for your raffle prizes and donations.

Dogs for the disabled also have open mornings for visitors to have a look around their head training facilities in Oxfordshire to see how the training is first implemented.

Booking is required due to limited numbers. The following dates are still available

8th June, 7th September, 19th October and 7th December. Please contact Lydia Martin for more information on 01295 759811 lydia.martin@dogsforthedisabled.org