THE BEST PICKERS-UP aren’t simply good dog handlers, they need to know a fair bit about shooting and farming, too, while if they’re a good naturalist, so much the better. This was the firm opinion of a retired gamekeeper, one of the best dog handlers I’ve ever met. He was right, for there’s far more to picking-up than simply sending your dog out to retrieve birds.
A detailed knowledge of shooting would, you might think, be essential, but there are a lot of people who come into the sport through dogs