All of a spin
Fran Ardley guides you through the steps needed to rectify your dog turning prematurely on a retrieve
It is often said that you are starting with a blank slate when you get your gundog pup. You hope that all the DNA is in place. Certainly, if the pup is well bred it should have a lot of natural talent that you can draw on to channel and nurture.
However, there is no doubt certain undesirable traits or habits will rear their ugly heads along the way and will need to be rectified. I am a great believer in prevention is better than cure, but it is easy to cause an issue without really even thinking about it.
One of those annoying habits that can develop is when a dog is sent out on a retrieve – when it goes a certain distance and spins around and carries on running. To some people this might not be the end of the world, but it is one of those traits that can become frustrating, especially if you have sent the dog on a runner that it has marked down and by spinning round it loses its mark.
I have also known dogs that will yip when spinning. This really is a bad fault and will certainly put paid to any hopes of having a competent dog in working tests or field trials.
Through years of selective breeding most genetic faults such as hard mouth and gun shyness have been eradicated from our gundogs. Most negative issues that occur can be traced back to something the dog has been subjected to in its training programme, and spinning out on a retrieve is something that is almost always induced. Quite often it happens when the trainer starts to enforce the stop whistle on the dog during the outrun. To be clear, this is something that needs to be trained as the dog may need to be stopped and redirected onto an alternative retrieve and, depending on how this exercise is done, can have an effect on the confidence of the dog.