Board appointment

Fran Ardley was sceptical about the merits of using a place board for training, but then everything changed

- Fran Ardley

I have to admit that for a long time I was not convinced that using a place board would change or indeed benefit my gundog training. However, I had a couple of dogs that would creep when being told to sit/stay. This led me to speak with trainers who use a place board as part of their regular training regime and, in turn, prompted me to try it. Guess what? I have become an advocate of the method.

One benefit is that it gives the dog a ‘target’ area. Also, I know exactly where I am positioning the dog. But the biggest advantage is that you can use the technique in your garden or even indoors, and, therefore, you can start basic training from an early age. I also believe that it gives a level of consistency to a puppy’s early training, and, in the longer term, can help to prevent some of the common problems such as creeping and poor delivery of retrieves. Using a place board is not the be-all and end-all of gundog training but, combined with techniques such as clicker training, it is well worth looking into.

Why and when

There are a couple of other reasons I think it could be beneficial to your training programmes. First, it helps to give structure to a dog’s training, and this is especially helpful to a novice trainer who may find it more difficult to work to a fixed training programme. Second, I have found that the use of a board really helps to develop good eye contact with a dog. I consider this an important and desirable behaviour in a gundog. Without good eye contact a dog can become distracted easily. His focus will not be on the handler and this, in turn, can lead to problems such as unsteadiness.