Alfinmarsh Gundogs
Training clips and more
The wonderful thing about a spaniel for working is,
when you have a spaniel by your side you need no other breed of dog next to you for they are the
Perfect All-rounder, and a super companion!
To work with a spaniel as a team, and to know that your teammate could be totally self employed and yet he choses to work with you, listening to you, well that is an experience that cannot be explained in words but is most certainly some form of Rush!
It is sheer bliss to have your dog working through the hedgerow and cover crop as if either were a row of cotton sheets hanging on washing lines blowing gently in the breeze on a wash day, and yet with the adrenalin of a toddler on Christmas morning buzzing through his body, and yet still he keeps one ear open in case you speak to him, an awareness to where you are in case you gesture something to him or change direction, for you and he have learnt over the years to read one another slightest movement, you have both learnt that when you work as a team Great fun is to be had, and What a Team you make!
It is not only your dog and yourself that are blessed by your partnership, but also the guns, and that matters that they benefit for on shoot you are all a circle and no one part is greater than the other, but without the Guns finances, that land those birds and even the beautiful wildlife that thrives in that environment, would not be there.
The Guns benefit greatly by a well trained dog, for you and your dog can work as a team pushing the birds out of the crop and into the air, like the flow of a stream that bubbles down its pathway flowing into all the little nooks and crannies exploring them on it's way creating little drop-off points for fish to rest. You and your dog need to flow through that cover crop/undergrowth at a pace that will give the pheasant ahead of you time to find the nook or cranny to rest, whereupon your dog will find it and flush it straight into the air... all this done at a pace that does not make the pheasant go into a frenzy and rush straight down through the cover crop to the end of for it to fly in one all mighty crescendo with the other pheasants, or enable it to loop behind you. This flow gives the gun time to reload and aim with accuracy again and again and again, instead of that almighty crescendo that gives him no time to reload or aim with accuracy, for that makes a possible fabulous drive turn into a complete loss for the guns, and that is not what we want to happen.
There is always part of me that hopes the guns miss, but I am a meat eater, the pheasants live a free life and are supplemented through nasty weather by the game keepers/shoot, heck the humans even create places were the pheasants can shelter, and if we beaters and pickers-up do our job properly and the guns give the respect to the birds by not making stupid shots, then we have done ok!
And I suppose that is what Gamekeepers, Guns, Landowners, beaters, and Pickers-up all should aim for, and I would hope most do
To respect the animals, make their lives good and give a clean kill as possible, protecting and respecting the wildlife and countryside around. NOT beating our dogs (hitting/discipline whatever you call it to soften the sound of the act) in the name of training, or killing birds of prey, or treating our woodlands as if there will be no next generation to pass on too, thankfully that type of person are the few, far more people truly love nature, the dogs and the environment, And if you love all three, well stop protecting those that do not with your continual silence for those people/acts are the ones that people outside the sport see and they tar all of us with that same brush. Stand up for what was passed down to us, and what we should now be guardians off, for our forefathers understand the land and mother nature and respected it, machines' have enclosed us of from it to a degree, yet us who walk/work the land on foot tread the same path and should respect all of mother nature and her animals, let us either leave it as those forefathers would want or improve the land and the wildlife for the next generations.
I hope these videos help you, and that they show you that dogs can be trained with Love and common sense and with no need, or right, to use physical violence!
When your dog is trained and ready to go on shoot with you, I hope you find a shoot with the same principals as I and many others have, and that many wonderful winter days follow from it!
The first few videos are not in chronological order of training, but a few videos to show what a spaniel can do....Enjoy
Thereafter I will try to put them in some form of order.
Mia doing very long memory retrieves, very long.
It was a huge field in length, and she run from the bottom of the field right up to the top, and she moves fast.
Jay-Jay Hunting on a Beautiful Shoot with many birds
Sadly someone was walking down the path to the side of that area, but it shows how steady a spaniel can be under temptation
Jay at the Lake doing Advanced retrieving
To do this Jay-jay had to be extremely fit and well trained, and have the confidence to do such a long swim and be taught to come straight back across the water.