Do your walks normally start with a lot of lead pulling? Before you've taught much else, that's inevtiable. Excitement levels are through the roof and so, expecting perfect heel work straight out of the car only sets you both up to fail. The goal in the first month is to reach a benchmark standard but in a training set-up. Ten paces by your side without pulling, plus a simple reset to bring them back when their nose gets diverted to an interesting smell - that’s your foundation and it doesn't ju

Let’s bust a myth… People have differing views on the use of food in gundog training. A lot of this comes from not fully understanding how and when to use it. Used as a reward, food reinforces behaviours you want your dog to repeat. Rewards come AFTER the behaviour. Used as a lure to get behaviours started, food can be useful early on, but let’s be honest, that’s a bribe. You should phase luring out as soon as possible. In the context of retrieving, you can bribe your dog to relinquish the dummy