Off The Leash

Nick Ridley enjoyed letting four of his gundog training charges show what they could do on an informal walked-up day

- Nick Ridley

A couple of months back I wrote a piece on ‘shoot day virgins’ in which I encouraged everyone involved in shooting to try to introduce new people to the enjoyment and benefits from spending a day in the field.

Working my dogs is what ‘floats my boat’ and over the past year or so I have been helping some novice gundog handlers train their animals. The aim is to get them out in the field, whether that be picking-up, working a beating line or shooting over their own dogs. By late October, four of the dogs and their handlers were ready to try an informal walked-up day.

Over the years I have photographed and participated in a number of this training shoot over days and one thing I have learned is that many of them are run for people who already do or want to trial their dogs. This can be very daunting for anyone new to the gundog game.

I wanted this day to be informal and relaxed with the opportunity for the handlers and dogs to experience various kinds of cover. I didn’t want loads of birds flushing every five minutes, as this would put too much pressure on the dogs and their handlers. I also wanted to highlight gaps in the dogs’ training on the day and areas that needed working on. None of the dogs was the finished article and this would be a test of where they were.

An interesting aspect was that we had four different breeds of spaniels working: Monty, the cocker: Ace, the springer; Woody, the American cocker; and Twiggy, the Clumber spaniel.

ACE

Handler Liz Hite