There have been a number of posts recently on the Gundog Training forum talking about enjoying doing the training but having no idea about what a real shoot is like. I started taking my dog, Lady, shooting 3 years ago and this is her fourth season. We enjoy it, it's very addictive if you find that you like it. My shoot (the only one I go on so may not be absolutely typical) is also very sociable. It's a small private syndicate of 8 guns and 22 beaters and pickers up. We put down about 800 pheasants each year and about a quarter of them get shot. The woodland and rough areas on the farm are managed to provide proper cover and food for the birds and that also benefits other wildlife. Most of the people on the shoot have been doing it for decades so I'm a new boy on the block and feel very honoured to have been invited to join! The guns pay the costs, the only paid member is the part time game keeper, and everyone else does it because they enjoy it. It's very good exercise, we get to walk parts of the countryside not open to the public, we shoot 7 times in the season, and the last shoot is a half day followed by a jolly good lunch paid for by the guns in one of the local pubs. Anyway, the link below should take you to a shoot diary of the Saturday, 8th November. It's as typical as the days get, except perhaps it was fine weather and not chucking it down in buckets as is sometimes the case! https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=1F9100DDA93E49B2!17725&authkey=!ALRB3UkY41bpCdE&ithint=file%2cpdf
Re: Shoot Diary That's great, thanks so much for that. Very interesting! Sounds like hard work for both humans and dogs. What is a "back gun?".
Re: Shoot Diary Lovely, many thank for posting and sharing that David. If anyone has any questions about what goes on at a shoot, how birds are raised, what happens to them after they are shot, etc, do ask. There are plenty of us here that would be happy to explain
Re: Shoot Diary A back gun stands behind the beating line to catch any birds going the wrong way ie against the direction of the drive and over the beaters heads. We tend to have them in woodland as there is more chance of birds flying back there. Usually lots of action for the pickers up and plenty of blind retrieves! Just make sure you wear a hat to take the pellet rain that happens on occasion, or at least it did happen with George who seemed to always shoot vertically!
Re: Shoot Diary ;D This was a great insight David, and I really appreciate you taking the time to write it. We do have the odd shoot around here, not that I am thinking of joining you understand, but good to know what the whole idea is and make sure I give it a wide berth. Lovely to read - thanks
Re: Shoot Diary Very interesting David thank you. Lots of shoots where I live, I love to watch one of them that's in a high field so pretty good viewing from where Hattie and I stand which is better than nothing Lady must be shattered after such a long day x
Re: Shoot Diary David I really enjoyed reading it thankyou,it must have taken you nearly as long to write the piece as it did for the Shoot Day! In the first drive when you are walking up, the hedge line...is she on heel off her lead until you send her in to flush?x
Re: Shoot Diary She's off lead walking close rather than at heal and she's there to pick up if the spaniel flushes anything that subsequently gets shot. Can be a bit tricky because they often come down the other side of the hedge in which case the spaniel flushes and retrieves because Lady can't get under the stock fence at the bottom of the hedge. ;D
Re: Shoot Diary That's brilliant because I can imagine them being super excited when they first start off ...bets she's bitterly disappointed if she can't get her retrieve when the hedge fence is in the way and her little spaniel pal can squit under easily...she sounds like she gets a good fair turn though and loves it...no wonder she was flipped down on the trailer floor,I was,just reading about her day
Re: Shoot Diary Thank you David, for taking the time to write this article , very interesting and really nicely written too
Re: Shoot Diary I only read the first page of how you get ready for the shoot (useful reminders) and it wasn't until I read the comments I realised there was more! Thoroughly enjoyed reading it, reminded me of the days I went picking up, a super read.
Re: Shoot Diary Hectic day for me today! Just sat down. Glass of wine, and I want to read your article again before bed.
Re: Shoot Diary David, thanks so much for taking the trouble to write all this up! Wifi a bit dodgy here so will read it properly when I get home but wanted to say thank you!
Re: Shoot Diary [quote author=editor link=topic=8788.msg124610#msg124610 date=1416222004] If anyone has any questions about what goes on at a shoot, how birds are raised, what happens to them after they are shot, etc, do ask. There are plenty of us here that would be happy to explain [/quote] I have a question I want to ask. It might be a bit of an odd question, and only really makes sense if – like me – you have a (sort of, anyway) moral objection to the use of force to train dogs. It’s not about Lady and David’s experience – they seem to be having great days out, with Lady doing something she absolutely loves. But this still seems a good place for my question, or at least I can’t see a better one. First, a bit of context for my question: I sometimes see the use of force justified for training gundogs because it’s necessary for the demanding job they do in the field when shooting. Recently, I’ve become aware of “dizzying” birds and using birds in traps to train gundogs. Again, if challenged, the rationale is that this is necessary in order to train gundogs. I can quite appreciate that for some absolutely essential jobs, the ends (of training a dog) might justify the means – I don’t know, perhaps if some aspects of bomb detection or something like that means it is essential to train with force (I know most bomb detection dogs are trained now using force free methods). But, I wonder, could that ever really be the case for shooting? In the UK. As David describes it? So my question: are gundogs really essential? I can see that they may be convenient (and a lot of fun to have along). They might even reduce costs. But are pheasants really raised and shot more for sport (I do not object to this, by the way) with a by product being ethically raised food, and an enhanced natural environment to protect habitat, rather than really being an essential input into the human food supply? If so, well then, humans – with more effort - could go collect the birds themselves, and could just bash those hedges with sticks a bit longer and a bit harder. In which case, I might think that force can’t be justified to train a gundog – even if you couldn’t achieve the result you “needed” without it. Shooting pheasants with dog along is just a hobby. A sport. It’s just for fun.
Re: Shoot Diary Hi Julie. I don't think I'm the best person to answer most of this because I just don't know. However, I do agree with you in that I also think it's not right to use force to train a dog and in fact in my limited experience it isn't necessary either. When Lady was around 18 months old I kicked us both off with some gundog training lessons, but actually felt really uncomfortable with some of the techniques used which I now know were "old school" based. I went along enough times to get pointed down the right course about what I wanted to achieve with Lady, and then stopped going because at the time I hadn't planned on working her at all. I felt I'd picked up sufficient about what it was all about to go it alone getting a well mannered dog that loved bringing stuff back to me. Well as things have worked out, I've actually ended up with an amateur working dog and although she is now 5 years old and no longer as learning ready as a younger dog would be I've succeeded in polishing out some of her faults in relation to proper picking up entirely without use of any force at all ie all positive techniques. It's actually been remarkably easy to get good results all with positive training techniques. So I can say without a shadow of doubt that force is not necessary and probably doesn't yield anything like as good results in the long run either. Phew! Fell quite passionate about that on the quiet! ;D You are right that humans could pick up instead of the dogs, but they are nowhere near as good as a dog at finding a lost bird in cover or a standing crop, or from the middle of a pond, or floating away down a river (as has happened to me but SBD happy to take a dip to get it). They also aren't as good as a spaniel rooting out a bird that has hunkered down in cover. When I've been beating, on more than one occasion I have nearly stood on a pheasant keeping stock still in light cover. In fact I've walked past one not knowing it was there and then turned back for some reason and up it flew because I was about to stand on it only a foot to one side of where I'd walked previously. The other aspect is tracking down a wounded bird. The harsh reality is that a proportion of birds come down wounded and some run off. I'd want to know that I could dispatch a wounded bird as quickly as possible and the dog helps me do that in spades. She can chase a runner and catch it whereas I wouldn't have a chance. She can find it in cover if it goes to hide and I couldn't do that with any sort of speed using just my eyes, and if she can't get it out then she will certainly mark it and then a spaniel or a human can get it out. So I would say on balance dogs are very much a necessary part of hunting and help to keep things much more humane than if they weren't there. I don't think I could support doing it without the dog and I have enough difficulties with the fact it's a sport and meant to be enjoyable although not so much for the pheasants. Wow! You made me think long and hard about all that Julie. Just edited this to add - and the dog can find lost birds in cover and standing crops and it would definitely be immoral not to find them and make sure they were eaten.
Re: Shoot Diary Just a quick missive on this point..... We recently discussed some live game training for the dogs in class as at least 3 out of the 6 will definitely pick up and possibly all of us. The trainer planned to have his dog with him (he would be shooting) so that no birds would be left if our inexperienced dogs didn't manage to find them. Should his dog fail (very unlikely but possible) he would get the spaniels out of the kennels and sweep the ground. It was absolutely not acceptable in any way to ever leave birds down. One of the things good trainers impart as well as skills is the appropriate behaviour towards the game and the majority of the people I would hope to shoot with prefer rough shooting with small bags that make it directly onto their table. At larger shoots the game goes to game dealers and on to butchers.
Re: Shoot Diary Very interesting, thanks both for they replies. And the extra detail about Lady's journey to proper gundog. How old was she when she first went shooting?
Re: Shoot Diary She was just over 2 years old and I initially only took her beating on the basis she hadn't, in my view, been sufficiently well trained to pick up. Also she was still pretty wild and didn't properly start to calm down until she was 3 yrs old and then some. She did beating only until half way through the second season. I'd tried her on warm game towards the end of her first shooting season and she showed no interest in it at all. It also took until the end of the first season for her to show signs of relaxing on a drive. She's a bit frightened of her own shadow and she found the noise of the beaters a bit alarming, especially flags being flapped. Guns were no problem. She started at the first sound of proper gunfire but then ignored it after that. Half way through her second season when she was 3 years and a bit (her birthday is 3rd September) we were beating through woods and a back gun shot a pheasant that landed with a big thump about 30 or 40 yds in front of us. Lady looked at me and I told her to "Get on" and she brought the bird back - a hen. I kid you not that from then on a switch had flipped in her head and she twigged that we were hunting, and was keen as mustard. At the end of a woodland drive she would stand on the edge of the wood watching the guns and then go and help herself if a bird came down. Ooops! ;D So that was it really. I asked if I could give her a go at picking up. That seemed to be ok as she was already reckoned to be pretty steady especially around sheep and didn't run around like a lunatic, recalled ok and walked at heal (some of the time). So we were put with a really good dog handler to show us the ropes. Then we were put on the edges of drives with very little, but some action which was enough. That was the second season over. I worked with her on and off through the next summer just concentrating on casting, and along came the third season. Bang! so to speak, we found ourselves front line picking up largely because one dog handler had dropped out. What a hoot! I tell you that a sense of humour was a must otherwise you would have become a gibbering idiot! ;D She ran in on everything. Tried to pick up ALL the birds at once. Marked and locked onto a flying bird even if it hadn't been hit and took off after it over hill and dale - usually at the end of the drive when I took the very necessary slip lead off. : But she amazingly did some good stuff too. She ran down a runner that involved water, stock fencing and a wood. It was a cock pheasant and fortunately she had sufficient nous to avoid the spurs, and got a "Well done that dog" from a gun when she re-emerged from the wood with the bird. Turned out to be pretty good a finding lost birds too. She got better through the season but I didn't truly feel very happy about her goings on, although nobody else thought she was too bad. This is her fourth season and she has settled nicely. She will now bring back the selected bird reasonably reliably. The only times she hasn't is if a bird has come down very near her when she's on the return and it's distracted her, then she still tries to bring them both back. ??? She works really well in woodland so I tend to try and position myself to do that if I can. Annoyingly she's regarded as very steady with sheep so we can end up standing in a field of them which I always find unnerving. She will now deliver to the hand, and I'm hoping next time out she will sit first and hold. We've been practicing that intensively for the last couple of weeks. So short answer she was 2 years and 2 months old when she started but still too juvenile at that age bearing in mind the extend of her training. Oh I've been on a verticle learning curve too. ;D
