"How are your dogs so well behaved?"

A bit of background...

It’s fair to say, I wasn’t brought up with the countryside, nor Fieldsports, in my blood.

I grew up in a town in the Midlands, and whilst I attended school in the heart of Lake District and enjoyed walks and runs up and down the fells, my only real passion from the ages of four to my early twenties was sport. Namely, rugby, cricket and golf. After school, I was fortunate to enjoy a period as a professional rugby player, which took me to various towns and cities all over the UK, and for a two year period, France.

It was in France that I met my now fiancee, Erin, who had a rather different upbringing to my own. Born and raised in the Leicestershire countryside, horses had been her passion from a young age. The irony of travelling to the south west of France to meet a girl who lived forty-five minutes away from my parent's home in England, isn’t lost on me. Naturally, given Erin's passion for horses, as our relationship developed, so did my understanding of the countryside, and perhaps more importantly, the role and duties of a stable hand…

To give you an idea of just how new a concept the country way of life was, as we drove up the farm track to the yard on the first of many visits to Erin's horse, Millie, I was greeted by an army of cows. Dairy cows to be precise.  

“Look, Erin, cows!”

“Yes, Ben… cows… it’s a dairy farm… what did you expect?!”

A later visit saw me the bear the brunt of much ridicule, as I arrived one autumn morning in my pearly white, brand new trainers. It’s fair to say that current me would’ve laughed, too, at the clueless, hopeless townie who was woefully underdressed for the task at hand (namely mucking out and leading the horse to the field). Eyes glaring with a few rye smiles...

“He’ll learn…” 

Said the various seasoned horse men and women. And learn I did…

My first introduction to Gundogs

A few months later, after ruining the aforementioned trainers and several other items of clothing, I was now donning my newly acquired wellies, waterproof jacket, fleeced gilet and cap for each yard trip. As far as I was concerned, at this point I was basically a fully fledged country boy…  

It was on one such trip to the yard that I met a couple who, as it turns out, would kickstart my love affair for gundogs and the world of shooting. I was about to wheel the next barrow of soiled bedding to the muck heap, when I turned to see two, fox-red Labradors, sat rock solid on a mounting block. As I came back from my latest errand, they were called to heel and followed their Mum down the long track to the horse's paddock without moving from her side.

As far as I was concerned, this was sorcery. I had never seen dogs so well behaved or obedient before. Admittedly, my experience of our four legged friends was limited to my other half’s Pointer, Gem, who, lovely as she was, wasn’t the most obedient. 

After a while, I plucked up the courage to broker a conversation with our now dear friends, Sam and Natalie.

“Hi, I’m Ben, Erin’s boyfriend. I just wanted to say, your dogs are amazing. How are they so well behaved?”

“Hi Ben. Well, thanks very much. They’re gundogs...”  

I didn't push and probe too much more at this stage, and had a vague idea of what this was, having attended a school where several of my friends shot. Though, it was never something I had given any real thought. I was truly fascinated, and so began researching and watching various videos on YouTube, keen to understand the process and effort required to take a dog from the point of playful puppy, to a dog capable of the obedient fifteen minute stints on the mounting block that I had witnessed (along with everything else that comes with a trusty field companion).

And thus, the seed was sewn... 

“Erin, I would quite like a dog at some point. But if we were to get one, I’d want to train it properly… ideally a Spaniel or a Lab…”

“Okay, that sounds great. Once we have got our own place, it’s something we can talk about…”

Erin is very measured and relaxed about these things, and probably passed this off as a throw away comment, assuming (with good reason) that this was another one of my fads, which would fizzle out after few weeks. But I was absolutely certain, that when the time was right, we would get a dog together.

Fast forward a couple of years, and Erin and I did indeed have our own place. We had bought a house in the same village as the yard, with lots of nice walks on our doorstep and many a dog friendly pub.

Shortly before this time, Erin’s Pointer, Gem, had sadly died after a battle with Lymphoma at the age of twelve. The family were heartbroken, and I experienced for the first time the impact that the loss of a dog has on a household.

Erin's family weren't exactly looking for another dog right away, but as fate would have it, they ended up in dialogue with a local man who worked his team of spaniels on several of the local shoots. His son, a gamekeeper in Scotland, had a blue roan cocker bitch who was unfortunately gun shy, and thus, surplus to his requirements…

After several conversations, Erin's family were offered the chance to re-home the dog, on the condition that were she to ever have a litter, the original family would be able to have one of the pups. Knowing what I know now, perhaps a gun shy cocker isn’t the best candidate to breed a litter of pups who were destined for the shooting field, but the gentleman seemed pretty unbothered by this (and, spoiler alert, it's worked out just fine!).  

And so, the little dog made her way to rural Leicestershire in the back of a pick-up, on the long drive from northern Scotland. On a sunny afternoon in Spring, we all sat in the garden, eagerly awaiting the dogs arrival. And then, there she was. Bubble arrived.

Long hair, long ears, slightly mated fur, not a groomer in sight. She had never seen a domestic home, nor been on a lead, a sofa, or experienced just about anything she could expect in her new home. She was gorgeous, with striking markings and a temperament to die for. Spaniel’s clearly are not known for their mild manners and horizontal attitude to life, but she was the best dog that the family could ever have asked for, and the perfect remedy for broken hearts. I really bonded with Bubble, and loved nothing more than taking her for walks with Erin.

Whilst I was frequently told:

“Labs are born half trained, Spaniels die half trained”...

Bubble was enough to convince me that my first dog would be a Spaniel.

After a year or so of acclimatising in her new life as a pet, it was time for Bubble to take a trip to see her new boyfriend, Chewy, a chocolate Sprocker who was a superb worker. Once it was confimed that she was in pup, it was time for Erin and I to formally revisit the conversation I had briefly started a couple of years earlier… and we agreed that we would, numbers allowing, have one of the pups. 

And so it begins...

On August 5th 2021, Mocha, our liver and white Sprocker Spaniel came home… and my love affair with gundogs, and the world of shooting, truly began.