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 shootday 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