Training Spaniels By Joe Irving (172 pages)

Joe Irving is a highly-experienced gundog trainer and in this book he describes in refreshingly clear style what you have to do to possess a first-class gundog.

He is an authority who can diagnose the trainers" problems with the same sympathy that he has for the dogs. He believes that trainers must recognise their shortcomings and mistakes, and learn from them. He tells the novice trainer what is to be done step-by-step and, just as importantly, he explains how to obviate defects of behaviour in the dogs and remedy them when they occur.

The general care of spaniels from infancy to maturity is dealt with throughout, and there are succint summing-up at the end of each chapter that are, quite incidentally, practical dicta to be remembered, such as:"Keep the dog interested. Don"t bore him" or "This can be a frustrating lesson but you must not get excited - or punish the dog".

Every facet of hand-training is dealt with in the first nine chapters and what follows is concerned with the first working session with your dog and then onto the techniques to be employed in field trials. By this time the owner too has been trained!

This book is fully of illustrated with photographs and diagrams of a clarity equal to that of the text itself.