Choosing the right trainer

Ellena Swift explains how owners can ensure their aspiring gundogs learn the right skills

- Ellena Swift

Ever since I was old enough to walk by myself, I have been going shooting with my family. I’ve always been attracted to the working gundogs side and, since I was eight years old, my father would give me his own trained dog to work on a shoot day.

With a fully trained dog to guide and nanny me through the day, I began to learn. Aged 15, I began training my own dogs and, after a little more than a decade, I started training for clients.

Over the past nine years, I have researched, explored and improved my techniques so that I can assist my clients to the very best of my ability. It has taken a long time to get to this stage and I am still aware I have a lot to learn.

Taking lessons

It surprises people to hear that I go to many different trainers up and down the country as often as I can. But why should it come as a surprise?

Gundog training — more specifically obedience training — is possibly the only sport in the world where most people assume that not only can they do it, but they can be good at it.

Many with little to no experience buy a gundog and believe that, because they have read a book or seen dogs working, they will be able to do it. If I read a book on golf or watched professionals play, it would not mean I could hit a ball like Tiger Woods.

It is normally when the dog reaches the age of around 12 months, and they are running rings around their owner, digging up the garden and proving less the model gundog and more the pain in the backside, that most realise they may need a little help. This often comes in the form of lessons from a professional.

Whether they are group lessons, one-to-ones or online lessons, they can be invaluable for any handler at any level. But how do you choose the right trainer for you and your dog?