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Young Handlers Training Day |
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Written by Alana Coombes
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Monday, 18 May 2009 |
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During the Easter holidays the club held a Training day for Young Handlers. They ranged in age from 7 to 17 and came along with dogs borrowed from parents, grandparents and friends! The aim was to teach them to be kind and responsible handlers and to inspire the next generation to enter into and enjoy the world of working dogs. Lindy Higham who is our Young Handlers Training co-ordinater gathered a group of 12 enthusiastic handlers. They were split into two groups and our trainers, Janet Neale and Alana Coombes each started the day with basic handling and then moved onto retrieving and delivery. We had a full and busy morning so after a picnic lunch and one more short exercise we finished with a bit of fun. Lindy hid 12 dummies in a wood and this time the young handlers had to find them! They were split into two groups and there was a great deal of laughter as they tried to ‘handle’ their fellow team members! The day was a great success and we were all firmly left with the impression that they were all keen to do it again and as soon as possible!
This was a note received from one of our Young handlers Alex Stanford.
“The Young Gundog Handlers Day was held during the Easter holidays. There were about 15 of us there, ranging in ages from around seven to seventeen, with a whole assortment of dogs, young and old! We started off the day with Andrew Parsons welcoming us and giving us the safety instructions, for example keeping our dogs on leads at all times, unless they were actually being worked. Then we split into two groups and began with some basic heel work. Later on in the day we moved on to some more advanced exercises.One of the funniest bits of the day was the relay dummy hunt where Lindy had placed 12 dummies in a section of the woods and the two teams had to race each other to pick six each. I really enjoyed the day and learnt so much by working our dog myself, rather than watching other people most of the time. I can't wait for the next day which I think - hope - is planned for the summer!”
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