D Beckenham

I have had golden retrievers for almost 30 years and have always been interested in training one to work but never quite managed it. A few years ago I got Dudley. He's a great dog and well trained but just would not retrieve so I tried a well known gundog club. For Duds's very first retrieve in the "puppy" class he was supposed to bring the dummy back with dogs and handlers on either side of us. Obviously he failed. I was advised to try a 1-1 with a "trainer" who worked golden retrievers. The first session undid all my hard work and Duds would not even recall. At the end of the second session an electric collar was suggested. That was the end of that. A year later I got Charlie who is Duds half brother. Charlie's Dad regularly goes picking up and I could see that Charlie had the same drive and so I tried training him myself and made very slow progress. Then I was fortunate enough to read a review of Lez's book, The Pet Gundog. It's a fabulous book and very much a practical common sense way of dog training. Everything I read seemed so simple to put into practice but also very effective. I then contacted Lez and took Charlie (still a bouncy but lovely loon) to one of Lez's training days back in February. I subsequently did all the other training days and completed the last yesterday with Charlie picking up cold game in the middle of the forest. Our progress just amazes me. If someone had told me in February what we would have been doing yesterday I would have thought they were mad and yet I am about to plan our first day picking up.

Lez's methods are straight forward and effective but, importantly, there is no harsh handling or trying to yank the dogs head off to get it to walk to heel. Lez encourages dog and handler to work together in a way which both enjoy.

I would strongly recommend anyone to go to Lez for help to train their gundog, or any dog for that matter. Lez also understands the way dogs think and can provide useful advice to deal with a number of doggy problems.

If only there were more gundog trainers like Lez.......