Joe Irving was 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 was an authority who could diagnose the trainer's problems with the same sympathy he hadfor the dogs. He believed that trainers must recognise their own shortcomings and their 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 succinct summings-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 season with your dog and then on to the techniques to be employed in field trials. By this time, the owner too has been trained!
Fully illustrated with photographs and diagrams.