Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 6:04 am Post subject: Your first, when and why?!
Just wondering (especially to all the 'old-time-Khakis'!), who was the first Lab you trained in gundog work, when was it and what made you start?
Were you all born with a gun in your hand and dressed in khaki-baby-grows, or did you marry Rich Country-Estate Owners, or did you fall into it by chance?!!
For me the other half went out on a days shooting, and when he came home I asked if he had a nice day and it ended there, he decided time was right for a dog for gundog work and it was a spaniel, I helped train her as I was finishing my degree and when time came for him to take her out I wanted a dog of my own, well can't have a gundog and train it without shooting I thought so next came, gun a 4x4 and a lot more dogs as the years progressed.
I had a pet rabbit was not into killing things but for me it was about enjoying training the dogs and working them for what they were bred to do
I grew up in a household that hunted and fished to put food on the table. During my teen age years I rebelled and became a vegetarian and an anti-hunting supporter. This lasted five years before I saw the hypocrisy behind much of the anti's arguments.
I got into ferreting and working lurchers, all my lurchers and ferrets were and are rescues. Then I became interested in deer management and the need for a dedicated Labrador to track the deer. This in turn led to the need to breed good tracking dogs so that my friends and myself would always have a reliable dog to hand.
This is where I find myself at the present time setting up my tracking Labrador kennel ‘Kennel Housecarl’ with my Lab Mildred and future Labrador pups bred to and from top Danish ‘Vieldspor’ Champions trained in the traditional Scandinavian/German methods of blood tracking.
No Country Estate I'm afraid just a lot of hard work to pay for the things in life I want.
Well I think I have probably said before but I started to do Gundog Working Tests with my Weimaraner at the end of her Working Trial career when I thought she shouldn't do the scale and long jump anymore, but she was not good at water retrieving, so I decided to take her out on a shoot initially beating and later picking up (ducks out of the Thames in Henley so she got over the water retrieving problem).
I had already decided I didn't have another Weimaraner in me (they are blinkin hard work to train) and fell in love with the well behaved labradors out picking up and so I got Flint, who taught me most of what I know. He was certainly not the easiest of labradors to start with but the rest is history as they say.......................
Our table as a boy always had the produce of the gun on it, but that was my uncle. My dad went beating as a lad but that was all. I started out in Obedience, but had friends in gundog work, so when one day telling them a good obedience handler could show these gundog people a thing or two I was told to put me money where my mouth was!
Getting on my first shoot was so easy. I was on the local common doing a bit of training when a fella came up and asked if I was fixed up for the coming season? I said no so he said, "Well you are now!" and that was that.
When the very first lab came to household some 20+ years ago (not my idea mind you 'couse my heart was definitely set on German Shepherds). I then had absolutely no idea about the breed's function /or origins as retrieving gundogs...
However it all gradully dawned on to me! And as you all can guess there is no looking back now as I'm totally hooked! Picking up with the youngest - my future hope she is, training, entering tests etc - and of course aiming higher...
I have no field sports background whatsoever, other than coarse fishing, and no landowning family friends or contacts.
I can’t even remember why, but in my teens I bought a ‘Shooting Times’ magazine and started developing a bit of interest in shooting and working dogs. As a child we had nearly always had some sort of dog. I had hoped to get a lurcher, but when I was about 16 my parents went out and bought a yellow lab dog pup. ‘Keeper’ was a mix of work, show, and pet breeding. Armed with Peter Moxon’s book and the Stan Harvey Labrador training video I trained him up to what seemed a reasonable standard.
It was a few years before a chance meeting lead to a summer job that led to me meeting someone that introduced me to beating on a couple of shoots. In hind-sight I hadn’t really done that much training with Keeper, but he was a useful dog on a shoot and better behaved than most of the other dogs there.
Once I’d left home I sort of fell out of the shooting world. Keeper had got a little old to take and I didn’t really have the motivation to go without a dog.
Then some years later my parents bought a working bred black dog pup (George) that turned out to be a bit of a handful. So when he was about 11 months old, a couple of times a week I would go over and do a bit of training with him at obedience classes and on my own. He took to this really nicely, and his breeder told me about some local gundog classes. We went along, found it quite easy and he turned out quite a nicely trained dog. Within a few months I had bought myself a black bitch puppy ‘Hannah’ (now 12) from the same breeder.
A man I met at the gundog classes got me onto a shoot to do some beating, and from there I made more and more contacts and started picking up on different shoots and got a shotgun certificate.
I started Hannah off in puppy tests and won with her second time out (which really gave me the bug!) and I think she won another couple of puppy tests and picked up a couple of novice test awards. Unfortunately she developed a very small squeak in training, and so I never really bothered to take her forward competitively, a shame as otherwise she would have comfortably made an Open competitor. She did go on to have a long and really useful working career with me, and still did a few days last season.
I had to wait for my next dog to compete in field trials, and I got Penny when Hannah was nearly two……..
I’ve shot since I was a kid, had Golden Retrievers and my first lab 13 years ago, a really beautiful black bitch. She started my interests shifting into dogs as much as shooting. I have a friend who used to be very keen on his shooting and then the dog bug bit (so to speak), now I don’t think he even has a gun.
I was really born into a shooting background, my dad uncle grandad and all my brother's shoot, my dad and grandad ran a shoot when i was 'yay high and alway's remember crawling over and having a good look at all the bird's that had been shot, I was about 6 or 7 then.
When i was about 8 i went shooting with my dad brother and a friend all the time, shooting rabbit's over spaniel's. that's when wee Jill was in her prime and fully trained. After i was competent with how thing's worked i got my first shotgun certficate and a single barrel .410, one thing i always remember was taking off my wooly hat and padding my shoulder because i was so scared of the kick Later i got more and more permission and the quarry got bigger and bigger,of course when i got older i got more and more gun's, got my Fac and now the 3 cabinet's look like an armoury
Anyhoo..
I took a real shine to the gundog's,and eventually got my first golden at 13 and sadly lost her in a train accident.I got my first lab at 14 which did the odd retreive but not up to trial standard's. then met two great guy's who introduced me to a lot of people in the doggy world and the ball kept rolling after that ! Im not as experienced as most of the people on here but hopefully one day will be
Well the reason I wanted to train my first ever and only gundog was thanks to Mr TonyBlair and my OH.
I have been hunting with hounds since early childhood and as we all know that came to a "legal" end quite some years ago. I sold my horse to go to University as i knew that i couldnt afford the time and expense of competing, training and general upkeep. Plus no hunting on a Saturday and Wednesday morning to keep me tempted, i really used to love those Autumn mornings (sigh)
I then turned to beating and have never looked back. Last season on beaters day my OH took a shot at a lovely high bird whilst back gunning, it stopped mid air and crumpled together, "nice shot" i said thinking it would be hitting and staying on the ground like a stone. "Ahh not bad" he said. Grinning ear to ear. Next minuite a strong runner was escaping back into the woods. My OH looked at me, clicked my attention and said "get on." I then knew it was time to get our own dog.
Once your bitten you are hooked. Thank you Mr Blair (cough cough)
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'couse my heart was definitely set on German Shepherds). I then had absolutely no idea about the breed's function /or origins as retrieving gundogs...
Later i got more and more permission and the quarry got bigger and bigger,of course when i got older i got more and more gun's, got my Fac and now the 3 cabinet's look like an armoury 
