From puppy to shooting star

On a certain drive, on a certain shoot, a desperate Gun was panicking. Taxi? Taxi! TAXI! Alas, his taxi could not be hailed. This particular speeding, salivating Taxi was in fact a young labrador, freshly introduced into the field and blissfully unaware of his owner’s pleas to return its quarry. Perhaps when his owner wittily christened him, he had observed the old saying, ‘a labrador is born half-trained and a spaniel dies half-trained’. In reality, it is as easy to recall as many a rogue lab as an oversprightly spaniel terrorising the field, the product of half-training, or perhaps of half-trained handlers.

So, if you’ve decided to bring a gundog puppy into the fold, how is best to begin? How do you steer their formative first months to avoid future canine catastrophe? For