Accepting the fact that Grace has more experience, quarters fine most of the time, generally works the wind with little intervention from me…and most importantly knows what I want of her, i.e to find birds, then I would have to say that Grace is better suited to a count all round. She has a level of maturity that a pup couldn’t have but all of this has come from experience, not training. I have just put her in a useful environment and she as worked out the most effective tactics to employ. Unfortunately this still involves failing to drop to flush and chasing, even if only a few yards now. This is, without doubt, a product of my lack of skill as a trainer and not instilling the drop when I should have done…a problem I have had for a while of which you are aware.

So, I do feel that Archie has been better trained so far. I have concentrated on the drop and as such feel that I have a reasonable chance of success using it as a ‘get out of jail card’ should things start to go wrong. Archie, is though, too young to spend any extended period out on the heather. If he was 18 months old I would think differently. He has absolutely no experience though, and this is what I will try to help him gain this autumn. Grace will come counting, do all of the things I ask of her, find birds if there are any to be found but I am sure, let me down with a refusal to drop come the flush…a reflection of the way I have actually let her down by failing to ensure she wa trained properly when the time was right i.e. very early on.

Whilst there may be an apparent conflict between the two statements they relate to two different things – Archie is too young to work on the count but he seems better trained. Grace is the right age, has been trained less well but has more experience, so manages to execute those tasks that make a count possible with little problem. I will however have to ensure I am on top of her before the flush. I guess training accounts for only part of the package – embedding the tools needed to maintain some control over the rest. I am not sure that any amount of training can make a dog hunt hard for instance, although I am always willing to change my view on this…I have such limited experience. All fun and games.

“in reality Archie is better trained than Grace”

Is there not an element of conflict between these two statements?