On Saturday 1st of July we hosted our working Gundog Certificate training Day at Helen Phillips Clicker Gundog.
The day started with an introduction from all the attendees and then a briefing to go over the requirements set by the Kennel Club for the test.
Once this was finished all the handlers warmed their dogs up, before starting by settling them all in and doing a working walk round the field to check and ensure that the dogs meet the temperament requirements of the test. Following this participants then took part in some obstacle retrevies; over ditches, and several different obstacle jumps, as any one of these could be selected by the assessor on the final test day.
Following this exercise we undertook some water retrieves looking at their general confidence to enter water, swimming skills, and then the hand delivery when back on land.
It was then time for a debrief of the morning and some lunch.
After lunch we headed to some great hunting ground for a simulated drive. There were two teams, one beating and one picking up testing hunting and steadiness to begin with, then followed by two retrieves from the picking up team and sweeping for the beating team. The team roles then switched round so everyone participated in the opposite activity.
The final activity saw a steadiness line up where the dogs sit steady while shots were fired and dummies were thrown. It is then the handlers job to walk out and collect a dummy whilst the dog remains seated in the line.
This concluded the day’s exercises and the only task then was to debrief and discuss areas that needed some more training/finessing prior to the test day. Hopefully the dogs and handlers will then go on to take their certificate in September.
Thank you and well done to all the attendees from the day, there was a great level of skill observed.
Thank you also to the helpers on the day (without these we couldn’t run our wonderful events) and a huge thank you to Helen Phillips our trainer for this day as well as allowing us the exclusive use of her excellent facility at Clicker Gundog in Charlton, Worcestershire.
