HVC Training Day 14 June 2015
21 people attended the training day at Moor Cops Nature Reserve, West Berkshire. There were three trainers Allan & Sue Hender and Andy Parker. Aaron Busby was there as our photographer. To see photos of the day click here
We started the day with slight drizzle but by about 10.30 the day was beginning to brighten up and by late morning it was quite warm.
Allan was there to offer tips and advice on hunting. The grass was quite long and we had a very pleasant breeze, the handlers were asked to send their dog off to quarter the ground and find the first caged Quail, all dogs either indicated or pointed the game. The dog was then sent out to hunt for the second caged quail, again all dogs found it. Some dogs pointed for the first time which is always quite a thrill for the handler.
We then moved on to the ground scenting, we usually train our dogs to air scent but if a bird had been shot and wounded it would run along the ground leaving ground scent and the dog would be sent to find it. Sue had laid a trail of Pheasant blood leading to a dead bird….it was great to see the dogs picking up the ground scent and quickly following it along the track. Some dogs were happy to pick the bird up and return it to the handler others just sniffed around it but all found the bird.
Next was the retrieve using wing covered dummies, some dogs were not too happy to pick these up so a normal dummy was thrown for the retrieve with Andy giving advice on perfecting the retrieve and delivering the dummy to hand .
About 1pm we stopped for lunch and cakes, biscuits and cold drinks supplied by HVC.
After lunch we went down to the water, a couple of the dogs had not been in the water before but were encouraged in by Andy and handler getting into the shallow water and enticing the dog in with a dummy…great to see the first water entry.
Downstream there was an area for more experienced dogs to either retrieve from the flowing river or to get over onto the other bank to retrieve.
Allan was finishing the hunting and then along with Sue they set up cold game retrieving, all of the dogs went for the retrieve but not all would pick up the cold game.
The day finished about 4pm there were some tired looking handlers and dogs but hopefully everyone enjoyed the day.
