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Training
a spaniel to 'hold an area' by Jack
Russell |
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When you are handling your dog out at
distance to make a blind retrieve of shot game, or you know a runner
has disappeared into a certain area; you won’t want your dog to
start hunting all over the place and disturbing other potential
game-holding areas, particularly if out of shooting range, so it is
important that you are able to direct your dog out into the ‘target’
area, and can hold and work the dog within a small area of
constraint. |
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Setting out piles of hay
First I make 6 piles of hay in the size I want the
dog to work in (for a Spaniel I work on 4x4m).
Initially, I use hay to encourage the dog to be bold
and smash into the cover.
I'll then sit the dog up about 20m away at first -
(you can increase the distances away once you are
reasonably confident that the dog can respond to you
further out.) |
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THE
GUNDOG CLUB
SETTING STANDARDS
FOR GUNDOGS
IN TRAINING |
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Hiding the dummy
I
then go from one pile to another in a totally random
fashion and place a dummy under one of the piles so
that the dog doesn't actually see me place it.
I
continue and go to each pile 'pretending' to put a
dummy under each pile
Right: Jack hides the dummy with
his back to the dog |
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Casting the dog out to
hunt
I'll then return to the dog and
either cast him forward or give him the 'back'
command. (depends oh my position relative to his)
When he gets into the 'search' area
marked out by the hay piles I tell him "Hi Lost" to
start him hunting the area. If he goes out of the
area, or isn't hunting in the right area I drop him
on the whistle and re-direct him and then command
him to hunt on in the area I want
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Searching the furthest
pile first
Usually a dog with a good nose can scent the dummy
and will head for that pile fairly quickly - so I
direct the dog to start searching in the furthest
pile from the dummy pile to encourage him to search
out the other piles. My dog gets used to the size of
the working area fairly quickly and will hold in
that area and hit the cover quite hard and search
each pile systematically. |
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Tell the dog he is on
the right track
When my dog is on the right pile I give the command
"There, there" which will make him hit into the
cover even harder and makes him search hard for an
imminent find.
Once I am confident that my dog will hold in and
search the area, I can then move onto some light
cover, and go through the same routine, building up
to heavier cover over time |
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Jack Russell and NOBS
Jack Russell is the Shropshire representative for
the National Organisation of Beaters and Pickers Up.
This article was first
published on the
NOBS website. Jack runs training days for
the
Salopian Nobs. Illustrations are
photographs of Jack's 20 month old Field Trial
Winner springer
"Barley" Copyright for Training a spaniel to
'hold an area' and all photographs of "Barley" belong
to Jack Russell
Copyright©Jack
Russell 2006 |
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