It was the last outing of the season today so by prior arrangement I didn't shoot, but took Poppy beating instead - woohoo! 
She is pretty much completely untrained of course so I fully expected it to be hard going and on the lead all the time. Actually it proved a relatively pleasant experience. Sure she pulled like a train with over excitement at the beginning and also later to some extent in a drive with heavy cover and loads of scents, but overall not a bad outing and I think good experience for Poppy of a lot of new things.
She has issues with interacting with other dogs and puts her stupid puppy head on, but actually not today. She behaved much more like an adult dog today. so a "tick" on that one.
At elevenses I thought she'd be a complete pain but no she wasn't. Yes she did go and sit pleadingly in front of people but she didn't jump up or try to get at the snacks. So a "tick" there.
When beating we generally have dogs on-lead for the first half or so of the drive, then it's dogs off lead, and off lead she was fine and recalled nicely when she strayed too far. So a "tick" there as well.
She did a lot of pulling like a train at times and I found that edging towards unworkable but as she got into things and also started to get tired that calmed down a bit. More work needed there.
Gunshot presented no issues. She spun round and looked but basically wasn't at all phased by it even when a back gun let fly right behind us. So a "tick" there.
We had to cross stock fencing - with a bit of encouragement she eventually got the hang of that and cleared it nicely up to about 3 foot in height. So a good start there.
She did run ahead in a large wood and disappeared which stressed me out a bit to the extent that I initiated live tracking on her tracker. I could see where she was and on repeated recalls she was showing as tracking back to me and then appeared looking all around for me. She spotted a raised arm and returned. So recall good but not ranging away unbidden needs more work.
The end of the day presented her with a hunt jump. She can clear them easily (we have one on our regular morning walk) but this was new and she went over it on her elbows and knees.
The landowner was at the hunt jump where she crawled over. She said she thought my dog was very well behaved and also she was most impressed with the recall in the wood which she was watching. I was really chuffed with that and took it that she could come on the shoot again - hopefully she'll be better trained by then. Everyone on the shoot knows her history of course because I've told them!
So very pleased I took her. Lots to work on but also a lot of positives that's made me feel much more confident that this dog can make the grade as a gundog - eventually.
She is pretty much completely untrained of course so I fully expected it to be hard going and on the lead all the time. Actually it proved a relatively pleasant experience. Sure she pulled like a train with over excitement at the beginning and also later to some extent in a drive with heavy cover and loads of scents, but overall not a bad outing and I think good experience for Poppy of a lot of new things.She has issues with interacting with other dogs and puts her stupid puppy head on, but actually not today. She behaved much more like an adult dog today. so a "tick" on that one.
At elevenses I thought she'd be a complete pain but no she wasn't. Yes she did go and sit pleadingly in front of people but she didn't jump up or try to get at the snacks. So a "tick" there.
When beating we generally have dogs on-lead for the first half or so of the drive, then it's dogs off lead, and off lead she was fine and recalled nicely when she strayed too far. So a "tick" there as well.
She did a lot of pulling like a train at times and I found that edging towards unworkable but as she got into things and also started to get tired that calmed down a bit. More work needed there.
Gunshot presented no issues. She spun round and looked but basically wasn't at all phased by it even when a back gun let fly right behind us. So a "tick" there.
We had to cross stock fencing - with a bit of encouragement she eventually got the hang of that and cleared it nicely up to about 3 foot in height. So a good start there.
She did run ahead in a large wood and disappeared which stressed me out a bit to the extent that I initiated live tracking on her tracker. I could see where she was and on repeated recalls she was showing as tracking back to me and then appeared looking all around for me. She spotted a raised arm and returned. So recall good but not ranging away unbidden needs more work.
The end of the day presented her with a hunt jump. She can clear them easily (we have one on our regular morning walk) but this was new and she went over it on her elbows and knees.
The landowner was at the hunt jump where she crawled over. She said she thought my dog was very well behaved and also she was most impressed with the recall in the wood which she was watching. I was really chuffed with that and took it that she could come on the shoot again - hopefully she'll be better trained by then. Everyone on the shoot knows her history of course because I've told them!
So very pleased I took her. Lots to work on but also a lot of positives that's made me feel much more confident that this dog can make the grade as a gundog - eventually.
