The magic of gundog training

What the hell have I done? I didn’t think it would be this hard!!!

Sound familiar? If you’re in that place with your working spaniel puppy I can relate!

2008. Life was good. I was still working in the music biz, but for the first time working from home so we could finally get a dog of our own!

Out of the blue this 9 week old springer spaniel puppy arrived straight from a working farm up north.

Murphy was feral! She’d never been in a house before. She was literally jumping with all four paws onto the kitchen worktop. Toilet training – we didn’t have a clue! Let’s not even go into the puppy biting other than to say there were tears!

Don’t let the photo of this ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ cute spaniel puppy fool you. There’s a reason puppies look so damn cute! They are HARD WORK!

I knew I needed to learn everything I could to understand what was going on with this bundle of chaos that we had invited into our home who had turned our lives upside down. Thankfully I found a wonderful local reward based trainer who helped me to navigate the rollercoaster of puppy life with a working spaniel.

But as we headed into adolescence I felt that we needed to do more and that’s when I found out about gundog training – this would be a huge turning point for our relationship and future life together.

We spent many happy years together and she loved nothing more than working with me – searching for tennis balls and dummies in Richmond Park where we walked every day.

If you’re struggling with your working breed dog, have a think about what they were bred to do. Exercising their body isn’t enough, you need to exercise their mind too!

When you engage your dog in activities that are tailored to their natural instincts you can super strengthen your partnership and help your dog to really thrive!

Get in touch to find out more about gundog training with me!