 | Home > Off Topic > Acquiring a gundog |
 
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| RED-DOT Member Since: 29 Jun 2009 Location: stirling Posts: 2363  
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Never buy a gundog puppy in the autumn. Buy it in February or march as you will have more daylight for training and play in the stretching daylight months. The end result will be a happier and cleverer gundog. Labradors have a two year puppy period so don't push it to be anything more than that, a puppy. Trying to get it to be what you want too soon will end in tears.
First year should be play and second should be fetching dummies but NO live game. Maybe introduce your dog to loud noises at nine months then move on to a walk near a clay ground at just over a year old. 2008 RS4 gone, 123d M Sport, and a Puma 90 XS.. |
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27th Feb 2016 12:18pm |
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| Thon Member Since: 22 Nov 2015 Location: Salisbury Plain Posts: 696 
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As the first time owner of a Springer Spaniel, who made many well-intentioned mistakes in the first 2 years, I would strongly recommend above anything else, finding yourself a decent trainer specialising in gun dogs. As a novice owner this made the biggest difference to the dog ownership experience and our spanner is now a pleasure to work in the field and have as a pet.
Our trainer (Howard Kirby at Mullenscote Gun dogs) previously had an assistant trainer who has now set up on her own, Annie Buckley, who runs Scovellsway Gun dogs. I believe she specialises in labradors and may be worth a call. Gun dogs are the best  |
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27th Feb 2016 12:53pm |
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| Happyoldgit Member Since: 14 Sep 2007 Location: Norfolk Posts: 3471 
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Sound advice so far.
Are you looking for pointers to breeders? Do you know any shooting folk who have good dogs? If you are not used to training and handling and want a duel purpose [pet/worker] animal I would avoid anything too highly bred for Field Trials as you may find their zippy nature a bit much. Go for parents that have been helth tested and bear in mind a lot of good litters are never advertised, they don't need to be as word soon gets about. Steve. Owned numerous Land Rover vehicles of all shapes and sizes over the decades. Current Defender: A non tarts hand-bagged Puma 110 XS USW. [Insert something impressive here such as extensive list of previous Land Rovers or examples of your prestigeous and expensive items, trinkets, houses, bikes, vehicles etc] http://forums.lr4x4.com I used to be Miserable ...but now I'm ecstatic. |
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27th Feb 2016 1:35pm |
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| stanley Member Since: 18 Sep 2009 Location: Dorset /hampshire Posts: 1032 
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I know ,Howard and Annie and can thoroughly recommend both
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27th Feb 2016 2:19pm |
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| kmac Member Since: 07 Oct 2009 Location: Middlesex Posts: 1309 
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Thanks chaps. Will check out the places mentioned
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27th Feb 2016 2:52pm |
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| Huttopia Member Since: 23 Feb 2016 Location: West Midlands Posts: 1972
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Have you thought about buying a part trained dog at 12-18 months? Puppies are great but circa £650 and will probably do another £500 of damage or require kit investment to the same value. You can see what you are getting with a 12-18 month old dog and know hip scores too.
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27th Feb 2016 8:17pm |
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| kmac Member Since: 07 Oct 2009 Location: Middlesex Posts: 1309
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12-18 month will be ideal in some ways as they are past the extremely high maintenance stage
I am speaking to a few breeders so will see what comes up If you know of any available in that age range please let me knwo |
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27th Feb 2016 11:18pm |
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| sako243 Member Since: 08 Jul 2014 Location: Wales Posts: 1218  
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Note: the following is likely to cause some riots but the views expressed below are purely my own based on my own experience.
In your situation where you are looking for a family pet I would advise that you do get a puppy from 8 weeks. I have never believed and in fact strongly disagree with puppy training classes and getting someone else to train your dog for you. Firstly if you're not willing to put in the time / effort then are you really doing the right thing? With these so called obedience classes - it is almost never the dog that needs training, which leaves one other possibility - the owner. The most important thing is your relationship with the dog - sending it off to someone else cannot help that. Although having said that classes that focus on training you rather than the dog are probably valuable. Again in your situation I would be inclined to stay away from "gun dogs" breeders. Perhaps see if you can find a puppy that has been born into a family environment rather than bred for the purposes of making money. Walk away fast from any breeder who isn't wiling to show you the parents. My experience has been having a total of four yellow Labradors over the past 13 years or so. We originally got Sandy, grandmother, 13 years ago - she's still going strong but feeling her age. Bred from her and kept one of the dogs and one of the bitches. About 3 years ago bred from Rosie the daughter and I kept Lyra her daughter. Obligatory photo:  Click image to enlarge We have never held by the rules of holding off from showing them a gun or live game until they're 12 months old. It may be the breeding ours have had but from the get go they've wanted to work. Sandy retrieved her first pigeon at 3 months, Lyra was shown a gun at 12 weeks and from 16 weeks onwards was regularly attending clay shoots with me. Due to my commitments she only did her first "retrieve" (funny story around that) at about 16 months - but was shown game long before that... Click image to enlarge When Lyra was about 6 months we were over in Windrush shooting the "Classic" and I had several serious (and substantial) queries for training various dogs. This was due to her just following me around without a lead or collar. There were a few months where she was on a lead but since then she almost never goes on a lead, even through London when we need to go up there. Because of where we walk she's very street wise and if I'm out working on the cars and she drops a ball and it rolls onto the road she'll just sit there and wait until I retrieve it for her, for example. I haven't had as much opportunity to work Lyra as much as I would like but the stuff I have done with her, considering how little it has been, she's been pretty damn good if I say so myself. Loves pheasants! One chap on a shoot I've been beating on near Portsmouth commented on my ability to stop her in her tracks (had just seen a pheasant land 20 yards in front of her) with just a vocal command. With all that said - there is a big difference between Lyra's behaviour and the other three's. She grew up with just me whilst the others grew up with the entire family, they're all obedient but Lyra is most definitely my dog and anything I say overrides anyone else. The others will sit there questioning who's meant to be being obeyed. It hasn't all been easy though! Click image to enlarge Just a shame breeding from Lyra didn't pan out this season (she would have been due about now). Since I'm guessing your not that far away if you fancied meeting up for Land Rover / dog chit-chat then would be more than happy to oblige. They're a lot of work but immensely rewarding (remember the comparison between wives and dogs), after all I managed to bring up Lyra with a full-time 8-6pm job at a minimum. Ed 82 Hotspur Sandringham 6x6 95 Defender 110 300Tdi |
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28th Feb 2016 1:00am |
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