The three ways of gundog training

About how we do field training

I guess there are as many ways to train a dog for field trial as there are humans and dogs. We have found that the most important thing is to be open to changing your methods to what suits each dog, that there are no big NO´s and nothing that is certain when it comes to dog training. I´will print some pieces here though about methods that we prefer to work from and that we have found useful through the years, but nothing is more certain that there´s no definite metod when training your dog.

​And yes it differs between pointers, spaniels and retrievers, as well as between dogs...
​At least from my experience...
When it comes to gun dog training there are three basic styles that tends to be used, at least that is my experience. First we have what seems to be the most used one:
  • The windscreen wiper system, the dog works out from the trainer, in a side to side movement (the width and depth of the movement depending on the age of the dog and breed). The dog starts by the trainers side, and works out to the sides. The dog works from you, always in an out going motion. The pointing or flush is made out from the gun and the retrieve is an out going motion. Many seem to find this an excellent way to succeed in dog training and it seems like the most common one, especially among pointers.
  • Then we have an among spaniel trainers used method, the inward movement. In the beginning you place the dog as far out as you want it to move, and then you call it to you. Follow it out, back off, and call in. The pointing/flushing is made on an inward movement. So is the retrieve is also an inward movement, how? You start with calling in the dog. Then you put the retrieve/dummy between yourself and the dog and call for the dog. The more sure and fast the delivery becomes, the further to the side, the dummy can be placed, and the shorter the distance can between you and the dog can become. In the end the dog is next to you and the retrieve far away, but it is still an inward movement. You work in the same way with birds, the bird is between you and the dog, and you work in an inward calling motion when you start. That way the dog is on it's way to you after a point/flush/rising and most of the time the bird will fly back over the dog in the beginning as you are taller and more in the way than the dog. You will be able to take eye contact quite easily this way. The problem can be with training a pointing dog in this way, that the bird finds the pressure too hard and rises too early, but most often it might be pressing too hard. But if that is the case, you can back off and call the for the dog and by that lover the pressure but increasing the inward movement.
  • The third way is a more unusual one in the Nordic countries, but might be very common in the rest of the world. It's the straight line system, most often used when training retrievers. You teach the dog to follow a straight line, in the beginning you place some kind of reward in the end of the line. It could be food, a toy, a person, the goal is to follow the line. When the dog repeatedly follows the same line with speed and ease, it will be first lengthened, than moved. You can also use a clicker to make the dog to positively follow a line. The goal is to be able to send the dog in a straight line until stopped and called back. This command is very useful in real life and if you can add side directions too, you have an most efficient dog for retrieving! In that way you can work extremely wide fields, you are not working with or against the wind, instead you can for example start from one corner of a field and work like a clock around the field. Or from the middle of a field. The system can be used on both spaniels and pointing dogs, but is more useful on the latter combined with a tracking device in gigantic fields.

Which system that is the best, has more to do with the trainer and the dog, than anything else. The good thing about these three systems is that if you fail in one, you can always try one of the others and hopefully succeed anyway.

Training takes patience and time, so take a deep breath and relax - there´s no point in doing it if you aren´t in the right state of mood...