Gundog training: Teaching directions

Adem Fehmi is a Dog Trainer and Behaviourist working in Hertfordshire. In this video, he demonstrates how to teach a dog left and right directional commands.
Adem has a particular interest in gundogs. Directional commands play an important role in gundog work but the principle could be applied elsewhere, too.
At the start of the video, Adem gives an overview of the techniques he will demonstrate. Terms like "blind retrieve" may seem confusing at first, but he goes on to illustrate these terms so that we can clearly see how the training works in practise.

[@davidcudlip6587]

When I was teaching my Griff hand signals, we would play "Baseball". He would stand on pitchers mound and I would be at home plate. I would have a dummy on 1st, 2nd and 3rd base. Then direct him to which ever dummy I chose. I gradually increased the distance and added bird scent to the dummies when playing the game in high grass. Worked wonders out in the field our first full hunting season. RIP Magoo.

[@lindaporter2220]

This is very well done. It would be helpful to show a dog making a mistake so we could see the process you use to deal with mistakes.

[@sherriejacobs3888]

Best video I’ve seen on this yet! Going to go practice with my 2 year old today.

[@dannyg6499]

excellent! nice clear instructions. my young lab picked this up immediately. i love the english approach to gundog traning, with an emphasis on obedience and calmness rather than all the collar corrections

[@Pieteramsterdam]

Very clear and helpful - excellent instructions!!

[@jackgreenstalk777]

fantastic video. I am training a black lab/golden retreiver mix with my own whistles at different pitches for each direction. amazingly intelligent animals if we do the training. thanks for lots of great tips and advice

[@mikedevere]

Very nice lesson. Thank you 👍

[@kevinwinterbottom8900]

Brilliant video! Agree with the other comments about how to correct mistakes would have been great! but i guess it's all about going two step backwards when mistakes are made!

[@philipschoenenberger2603]

Really good clear techniques, very useful with my nine month old lab.

[@themanabroad7800]

That was awesome!

[@HerRevenge]

Great video!

[@mrcrowman9144]

Very helpfull video, i have a 7 month old lab coming along well, at what age should he be at this stage?

[@johnnycarlson3738]

Was this the first training directional training session, fantastic instructions thanks

[@Andy_Wills]

Excellent 👌🏻 new subscriber

[@thegioiongvat-animal9383]

wonderful

[@saxoncrow2500]

Hi have you done a vid on the go back command? I'm training my sprocker who is really sharp so don't want to make any mistakes to confuse the fella. Thanks

[@craiggough252]

So for this exercise you have to take the dog away from the training area, when you move onto the blind retrieve ?
Nice video!!

[@doveandcorr]

Is the saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" a load of rubbish? I have an 8-year-old lab who has had one lesson years ago. But I would love to mentally challenge him with the basic gun dog training.

[@southernsailor8296]

Its a load of rubbish mate! I just taught my 4 year old dog to open the fridge door and fetch me a beer. I no longer have to get out the chair

[@michaellloyd1177]

At what age would you start training a lab this

[@dancatchpole3259]

How old is the dog at this stage?

[@vanessacenters9971]

Any common alternatives for the verbal command get on? We tell my dog often to "get" if he is into trash or something he shouldn't be and I worry we have built a negative connotation with that word.

[@johnr5179]

It doesn't matter what word, just as long as it's consistent. Try fetch!

[@user-rr3ol1fu5z]

Go left / Go right

[@jasonrigsby6190]

I use “over”.

[@jillianz9413]

what whistle would you recommend

[@matildabrennan5887]

The different breeds need different frequencies x

[@jillianz9413]

@@matildabrennan5887 I Have a brown labrador

[@davesimm]

@@jillianz9413 Acme 212 for a lab

[@amirmiri3714]

But how about the other 2 Direktions!? Cause you have talked about 4! Direktions, What to do if the Dog must search to me and away from me??

[@philsherratt3647]

Hi I have a six months old labradoodle called stormy and would love to get into gun dog training for my dog, where do I start ? Kind regards Phil

[@ELLISRUGER8]

Start with obedience, recall, walking to heel sit and stay, then recall, sit and stay and heel with distractions and temptations. Then you can build from there with simple retrieves and build it up. You can progress by watching TH-cam videos or/and join a club. The foundation of it all is the core obedience as the retrieve is just a recall the steadiness is just the sit stay the rest is done in incremental advances, three or four tiny steps make a big step, don't look too far ahead.Your dog is at the ideal age to start (7 or 8 months), if it's from working lines it will be far easier.

[@pictlandpickers1171]

So my dog isn't interested in retrieving dummies.