"So, what do you want to do with her?"

And just like that, we were dog owners…

The day we’d been waiting for and dreaming about for some time. The crate was ready and waiting with her new bed and blanket inside, another bed strategically positioned by the fire in the living room, a plethora of toys to choose from, a few bags of puppy food, matching food and water bowls, and of course, puppy training pads.

Seemingly, we’d accounted for everything.

The first few weeks...

The one thing we hadn’t accounted for, though, was just how tiring those first two weeks would be. Firstly, because puppies don’t like being left in their crate downstairs over night. The whines and howls for those first two weeks were horrendous, and every fibre of our being wanted to go downstairs, pick her up and bring her up to bed with us.  Tough love prevailed. We held firm, and I am forever thankful that we did.

Various friends had said to us that getting a puppy is a nice stepping stone to parenthood, and it became more apparent why. One reason that analogy became so accurate, though, was the shift pattern that Erin and I had to adopt during those first two weeks. Puppies have small bladders, and we were keen to avoid disasters (be it number one or number two...). 

So, at around 3am, one of us would get up, take her outside so that she could do her business, cuddle her (obviously), and then put her back into her crate, before coming back to bed.

She would then rouse again at about 5.45am/6am, when she deemed it time for us to wake up for good. The rules were simple, whoever hadn’t done the 3am shift, would then go downstairs for the 5.45am alarm, whilst the other slept in for a bit longer. The truth was, we really didn’t mind waking up at that time. We adored those mornings with her as a little pup... cuddling her whilst completing an early-morning binge of whatever Netflix show was flavour of the month, with a cup of tea and a blanket. It was a pretty ideal start to the day.

One of Erin’s favourite early-morning games was ‘micro-fetch’. This consisted of Mocha running excitedly around the living room, retrieving her ‘Ducky’. I suppose in many ways, these early morning training sessions laid lots of strong, early foundations. Though we didn't really understand that at the time, of course. 

She was a typical spaniel pup; mad as a box of frogs, a constant source of entertainment and love. She was just the most perfect addition to our family. Erin and I often sat there in the evenings and said...

"What the hell did we used to do, and talk about before we had the dog?"

It's not an exaggeration to say that the question we asked each other most was (and perhaps continues to be)...

"How much do you love the little dog?"

Whilst we had started to nail ‘the basics’ at home: sit, stay, down, basic manners when entering and leaving rooms, eye contact, basic recall etc etc, we soon the reached the limit of our rudimentary dog training capabilities. It wasn’t even the case that I wanted her to be a proper working dog in the first instance, I just wanted a well behaved dog... And so, at around three and a half months, we took our trip to the local gundog trainer.

We’d just do the training I thought… see how we got on…

The all important gundog trainer...

I am not exaggerating when I say that the MOST important thing that you can do in the early stages of your gundog journey, is go to see a reputable trainer.

Not a puppy trainer, or somewhere that hosts group puppy classes... but a highly regarded gundog trainer. They are absolutely worth their weight in gold. 

We decided to go with someone who had been recommended by several of our friends and friends of friends, including Sam and Natalie. That was good enough for us. Before we went to the first lesson, Sam offered me some last minute advice…

“If you don’t throw that f****** harness away, they certainly will! Get yourselves a slip lead!”

Please forgive us, readers. This was all very new… Suffice to say, I ordered one pretty quickly. 

A couple of weeks later, we arrived for our first session, all slightly nervous and with no idea what to expect. After initial introductions and of course a hello to Mocha, we walked over to the training paddock and were asked the question…

“So, what do you want to do with her?”

It was a question that transported me back to GCSE German. The stern Mrs Hill stood over me, asking me a question in what was quite literally a foreign language, greeted only with a vacant stare and blank expression…

Honestly, I had no idea how to respond!

The one thing I did know, was that Mocha didn’t have her tail docked, and thus, a hardy, bramble bashing hunting dog front and centre of the beating line was probably out of the question...

Let’s go back slightly…

Erin and I were supposed to have a black bitch, which is also what Bubble’s former family (see blog one) also wanted from the litter. As a result, all of the black bitches had their tails docked ready for working homes, but the liver and white bitches didn’t, as they were destined for pet homes. Mocha was born last of the six pups, and was absolutely the runt of the litter. Struggling to latch on to Bubble to feed, and just generally a bit useless in those early weeks. I couldn’t help but get hugely attached to her. I tried to persuade Erin that we should have ‘Orange’, as she was then known, but she seemed dead set on a black bitch as originally planned. 

That was until one day, when Erin was working from her Mum’s house. ‘Orange’ wandered into the dining room to say hello. After jumping up at the chair leg in order to get Erin's attention, she spent most of that afternoon on Erin’s lap, offering far more in the way of cuddles and attention than ‘Yellow’, the dog we had planned to bring home, had ever afforded.

After several hours, Erin sent me a photo of 'Orange' on her lap, along with the text I had been waiting for…

I was bloody delighted! Not least because I never usually get my own way, but somehow I’d landed the dog I wanted, and the name I liked (anyone who knows me knows that I am a creature of habit, and a Mocha is always my go-to coffee).

The start of our gundog training journey...

Anyway, back to the question asked at hand. Just what did we want to do with her? Again, we were unlikely to beat, and at this point I truly only wanted an obedient, well trained dog. I wasn't even sure we'd ever make it to the shooting field.

She clearly enjoyed micro-fetch, with a strong drive to retrieve just about everything, and so it was decided... We’d focus on retrieving, so that if ever we did make it into the shooting field, she could either lend a hand to the 'picking up team', 'sit on the peg'. The shooting lingo and vocabulary was a little overwhelming, and meant next to nothing to Erin or I. So, we did what all British people do in those scenarios... responded with a series of polite and knowing nods, with the occasional 'Yep" or 'Mhmm" thrown in for good measure...

The session started with the basics. namely, heel work.

We had been practicing a bit at home with our new slip lead (thanks again to Sam... I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if we’d turned up with her in a harness). I thought we had this heeling business nailed, but in hindsight, Mocha was wandering about aimlessly, several yards away from our side, paying very little attention to us.

Again, I must stress, we knew literally nothing at this point.

The gundog trainer took the lead from us, and showed us how it should be done. Mocha, from this moment on, has absolutely hated them…

I am sure they won’t take it personally, and what they were showing us was absolutely right, and I must stress not hurting her at all. I think it just shocked Mocha going from our laissez-faire attitude to...

“Erm, excuse me...I'm in charge here, and this is how this is going to work!”.

We then did some simple retrieves with a puppy dummy, which went pretty well! A few sit and stays, and a bit of recall practice and the forty-five minute session flew by.

I was really pleased, learnt an awful lot and felt like we were off to a good start.

We were sent off with several things to work on in the coming weeks, namely improving sit and stay (walking around the dog as well, not just away from her, building up the time she was sat there), heel work on the lead, and slowly increasing the distance of marked retrieves. 

Building the foundations...

We went back to the gundog trainer for a session at least once a month. Each session would start with a breakdown of what we’d been working on, how it’d been going, followed by a few assessments to see where we had got to. Issues were identified, and drills put in place to rectify those issues. Usually, each session added something new into the mix, too.

I am guilty of, at times, being pretty all consumed by work.

Having the opportunity to get out either before or after work train the little dog, became my happy place and switch off time. You don’t have time to consider how the deal you are working on is progressing, or overthink the those things you neglected from today's to-do list, or the plan of attack for the important meeting you've got lined up tomorrow.

In fact, it's pretty impossible. Half the time you are far too concerned that a rabbit will pop out of the hedge line, and your beloved dog fucking off into the next county… Spaniels, hey... 

In all seriousness, I got an enormous sense of satisfaction and pride every time our training stepped up a notch, or Mocha did something new and previously beyond the realms of possibility. It was incredibly rewarding.

By June 2022, Mocha was turning into a very capable little dog. She also didn't seem to care at all about 'shot', which saw an enormous sigh of relief from Erin and I given Bubble’s track record in this department.

It was all coming together for the little dog, and I was so proud of her progress over the past year. She didn't have fancy breeding, neither of us knew what the hell we were doing to begin with, but she was so keen to please. We'd really started to trust each other, developing a great partnership. 

Well, that escalated quickly...

Exciting things were happening on my side, too… You know that thing I said about only doing this so that I had an obedient dog and doing the training to "see how we got on?"

Yeah... I think we all knew how this was really going to play out...

Gun license acquired, along with my first shotgun, with several trips to the local shooting ground with Sam firmly under my belt... it was all coming together.

Mind you, this was a rather different lifestyle to the one I'd imagined several years prior...

I'd always imagined living in a city, specifically in a modern apartment, with minimalist decor and spending my weekends in fancy bars and restaurants living the big city dream. The thought of dog hair or muddy shoes in the house would've been my idea of hell!

If, therefore, you'd have told the muppet who turned up at the yard in his brand new white trainers, that a few years later he would:

• Have bought a house in a village in rural Leicestershire...
• Enjoy nothing more than evenings sat in front of the wood burner, reading a copy of 'The Shooting Times'...
• Be the proud owner of both a Spaniel, and a shotgun... 
• AND not really give a shit about mud, or dog hair...

I think he'd have thought you'd gone completely and utterly mad... 

Putting the rather drastic change in my five year plan (for the better, of course...) to one side for a second, it was all for nothing unless we could get out there and experience it all for real. The excitement after more than twelve months of preparation, work and dedication was all building towards this one day - and I couldn't bloody wait. 

What now?

One slight problem, though... in the absence of friends or family members who had their own shoot, the question remained, where on earth would our first day in the field come from?