IN DETAIL

SIKA: THE WHISTLE AND WHEN TO STOP

SIKA HAS HAD some downtime after the shooting season and is now being brought back into training. She did fantastically for her first season, picking warm game, being totally steady to shot, hunting under control and recalling consistently around game. We now really need to tighten up the stop whistle and handling.

I am going to start with a basic stop whistle. Over the past few weeks, I have been watching various novice handlers with their dogs. The stop whistle in particular seems to be a hard one to crack. This is generally because handlers will try to get too much distance, or ask for the stop around big distractions too soon, so the dog immediately learns