Can you train a dog with an app?

With a young labrador joining the family, an initially sceptical Marcus Janssen puts Ben Randall’s Gundog App to the test

I have heard it said that the professional gundog training and trialling world is a bit like Birmingham during Thomas Shelby's reign-murderously cutthroat. So, it goes without saying that, before even considering getting a gundog, one should have a reasonable understanding of the basics of gundog training and an idea of what you are getting yourself into.

Fortunately, I have been around working dogs my whole life. My father and brother have trained dogs, I have shot since I was a nipper (we had springers and English pointers growing up), and I have seen gundogs of all varieties working (and not working) in the shooting field in South Africa, the UK and the USA. I have also attended, as an observer or Gun, a good number of field trials over the years, including the IGL Retriever Championships and the Cocker Spaniel Championships.

The good and bad

Of course, none of this qualifies me to train a dog, but it has given me a pretty good idea of what good (and bad) looks like, and what is, theoretically, possible with the right input. And so, when I arrived at Ben Randall's Ledbury Lodge Kennels to collect my 40th birthday present last year - a yellow labrador bitch with an astonishingly impressive Kennel Club pedigree certificate -I felt a lot of pressure not to mess things up.

I had no plans to turn Lilibet into a field trial champion, or even a  proper working dog, but I did have my sights set on turning her into a good, reliable shooting companion; a peg dog that would not cause any mayhem or embarrassment on a shoot day. And as a father of three small children, one of which, the youngest, is as badly behaved as the most-unruly spaniel you can imagine, I was pretty determined that at least one member of my household would listen to me. Enter Ben Randall and his Gundog App.