Found It, Fetched It - Gundog Training for Family Life

If you have ever watched a trial-level training video and come away convinced your retriever is miles behind, this one is for you. Beating, picking up and competition all start with exactly the same foundations. Where they split is what surprised me. Abbie Reed has trained thousands of dogs through her work and twelve Labradors of her own, and she runs a picking up team alongside her competition dogs, so she lives all three jobs every season. She explains why her competition dogs never hear the words "find it", why her most anxious Lab became her best picking up dog, and why a dog that runs in on a shoot day can simply have a lead slipped on. We also get into whether a Labrador can hold their own in the beating line, the one trial skill every picking up dog should have, and why training to trial standard is a choice, not a requirement. Listen before your next session, because it might change what you are actually training for.

Thanks for being here.

If this episode gave you something, a laugh, a lightbulb, or just the feeling that someone gets it, that's exactly why we make it.
📚 Not sure where to start with your gundog training? Grab the LWDG Gundog Progress Gap Map. Work out where you exactly where you are and what to work on next, no more guessing needed.

Twenty tidy retrieves on the same patch of field, and on the twenty-first your dog picks the dummy up, gives it a shake and takes the scenic route home. Before you decide they've gone backwards, ask yourself a slightly uncomfortable question. Are you boring them? LWDG Group Expert Claire Denyer and LWDG Founder Jo Perrott get into the difference between reps that proof a behaviour and reps you keep doing because they feel safe. Claire shares how her older dog Rose started treating their big, varied training fields like a second back garden, and what happened when Rose worked somewhere new an hour down the road. You'll hear how to vary the reward for a stop whistle so your dog can't guess what's coming, how to stop a dog deciding three retrieves is their limit, and how to change things by ten or twenty percent without ripping up your routine. Claire trains gundogs and their handlers for a living and sees this pattern in her clients all the time. If training feels like Groundhog Day for either of you, listen before your next session.

Thanks for being here.

If this episode gave you something, a laugh, a lightbulb, or just the feeling that someone gets it, that's exactly why we make it.
📚 Not sure where to start with your gundog training? Grab the LWDG Gundog Progress Gap Map. Work out where you exactly where you are and what to work on next, no more guessing needed.

Your dog is flat out at home for about ten minutes a day. The rest of the time they're on your heels, bringing you a toy or sighing at the back door, and the minute you take them somewhere new they behave like they've never left the house. LWDG Group Expert Claire Denyer and I get into the art of doing nothing, and why the dog who can switch off at home is the dog who switches on for you when the lead comes out. You'll hear why an obedience stay at the pub isn't the same as a settle, the mistake almost everyone makes the second their dog finally lies down, and the advice my uncle gave me that involved a park, a pack of sandwiches and no training at all. Claire lives with a house full of Labradors aged two to twelve, and every one of them settles every single day. If your dog treats every new place like the best day ever, start here.

Thanks for being here.

If this episode gave you something, a laugh, a lightbulb, or just the feeling that someone gets it, that's exactly why we make it.
📚 Not sure where to start with your gundog training? Grab the LWDG Gundog Progress Gap Map. Work out where you exactly where you are and what to work on next, no more guessing needed.

So there's a thing I see all the time with our members, (and if I'm honest, I do it myself) , which is you look at your dog and see the bit that's not quite working, and you just go and do training that is working instead. Foundation certificate, there's a wobble in something and the answer is "we'll go to novice anyway," and the wobble's still there; it never went anywhere, you just stopped looking at it.

This week I LWDG Group Expert Claire Denyer, and I pull that apart and work out where the line actually sits, because not everything you're avoiding matters, and some of it really, really does. Claire's got example after example: the boring stuff at home you let slide because it's "just the house," the fearful dog everyone wants to wrap in cotton wool when what they actually need is the opposite, and the bit about symptoms versus root causes properly stopped me in my tracks.

If you've been hoping a problem's going to sort itself out, don't skip this one.

Thanks for being here.

If this episode gave you something, a laugh, a lightbulb, or just the feeling that someone gets it, that's exactly why we make it.
📚 Not sure where to start with your gundog training? Grab the LWDG Gundog Progress Gap Map. Work out where you exactly where you are and what to work on next, no more guessing needed.

Half past nine at night and it is still too warm to take them out. The ground is baked solid, the tarmac has been a hot plate all day, and every group you are in is telling you something different about water, about heat, and about whether you should be training at all right now. LWDG Group Expert Abi Reed has spent this whole summer working around exactly that, getting up at twenty five to five to beat the sun and moving everything else indoors. She walks through what heat is actually doing to your dogs, why the car is the part almost everybody forgets, what water really does and does not fix, and how much genuine training fits inside the one metre of space around you. If you have cancelled walks this summer and felt like a bad owner for it, this one will settle that. Hot weather does not mean no training. It means different training.

Thanks for being here.

If this episode gave you something, a laugh, a lightbulb, or just the feeling that someone gets it, that's exactly why we make it.
📚 Not sure where to start with your gundog training? Grab the LWDG Gundog Progress Gap Map. Work out where you exactly where you are and what to work on next, no more guessing needed.