It's time to get real

It can seem tricky to bridge the gap between training and a shoot day, says Ellena Swift, but there are a number of exercises to help

- Ellena Swift

A lot of the training we do is relatively rigid and perhaps unrealistic. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, we usually train at the same grounds and do similar exercises. This is often because, with a young dog, they need simple, easy ground to work on for the time being, or it may be that you simply do not have access to somewhere else to train.

The drills we complete can be static and do not resemble a shoot day experience. Again, we do this because we need to ensure the dog understands the objective before we ask them to work in a shoot-day environment. However, there are times when it is a good idea to try to bridge that gap between the schooling field and a shoot day, so this week I am going to cover some exercises that are a lot closer to the real thing.

Firstly, have a think about the various tasks your dog will be asked to do on a shoot day. No matter what you want for your dog, it is almost guaranteed they will need to travel well in the car and be patient while waiting for the day to start. This means manners getting in and out of the vehicle, toileting on command and then sitting in the car and waiting or sitting on or off the lead around people and dogs. To test this, I take my dogs into public scenarios.

One at a time