A matter of breeding

While a gundog that's bred for working will likely be the best choice, David Tomlinson has met some unusual candidates that also did well

I BOUGHT MY FIRST 12-bore when I was 16. It was a BRNO sidelock non-ejector, purchased from an advertisement in Shooting Times with the aid of a loan from my mother. The BRNO replaced a singlebarrel AYA .410, and it proved to be much more effective against the local woodpigeons. I was an avid reader of this magazine, and so I was well aware that though I had a suitable gun, I also needed an equally suitable dog. Thankfully, this was no problem: I recruited the family cocker spaniel, Kim, to join me on my shooting forays. 

Kim relished our many shooting expeditions, and I'd love to recall that he was a natural gundog. Frustratingly, however, he wasn't. In fact, he was next to useless - so much so that in most cases, his only contribution to a day's shooting was his companionship.

This wasn't really surprising, though, as he came from many generations of show-bred dogs and could trace his pedigree all the way back to Tracey Witch of Ware, a famous cocker bitch that won Best in Show at Crufts in 1948 and 1950.

As all gundog books will tell you, if you want a working gundog, avoid dogs with show blood. Graham Gibson, in his book Complete Training for the Working Spaniel, notes: "It is imperative that the buyer chooses a dog with mainly field trial and working lines in its pedigree." This is echoed by virtually everyone who has tried to train a gundog. HPRS are an exception, as there's less of a division between working and show-bred dogs.