They call it puppy love

Fran Ardley takes you through the early stages of dealing with a new arrival in the house

This is the time of the year that people will be breeding or getting a new gundog puppy. For many, it may well be their first time training any dog, let alone a gundog.

There will be questions that the novice owner will want to know the answers to, ranging from housing (house or kennel), feeding and, last but not least, when to start training and what to do in the early stages.

As with all things relating to training gundogs, nothing is set in stone. However, when you bring a new puppy home you should set some ground rules, especially if the dog is going to live in a family environment. I believe in preventing problems rather than trying to correct them later.

It is understandable that a new owner would like to crack on and start training their new puppy but I always point out to my clients that they will (hopefully) have a working gundog for 10 to 12 years, so there is no rush.

Let the puppy enjoy being a puppy, socialise it, let it experience the wider environment – get it used to going in the car, meeting other dogs and generally learning about life.

There will be plenty of time for serious training but there are some exercises I like to undertake with all my young dogs, whatever the breed, and these lay down foundations for more formal training at a later date.

When

Around six months is the common age to start formal training but much depends on the dog and the breed and it is not a hard and fast rule. Regardless of the breed, however, there are some basic behaviours that I try to instil in all my puppies.

I have found that some male puppies are a bit slower to mature than bitches and therefore I adjust my training accordingly. You can find that even two pups out of the same litter need a different approach.