In October 2024 Aytee GSPs emigrated from the United Kingdom to New Zealand. With such a vibrant game shooting industry across the UK, the dogs had never needed to work caged game as there were always plenty of birds, both wild and reared, available to work for training and sport.
Arriving in South Island New Zealand we were faced with an extremely low population of wild upland birds with little access to safe hunting areas or regular shoots of any sort for training opportunities. Learning how to work with radio controlled cages, making good use of homing pigeons for training would be a must if we were to join the Field Trial Community and start competing.
Caged and ‘dizzied’ game are used throughout the world for training dogs so I hope that during our first year in New Zealand it will be of interest for us to share what we have learnt and upload videos and add to our existing training manuals.
Nothing will ever lift a dogs natural instinct and hunting response like working live game in its natural habitat, and nothing is as exciting for a dog handler, but who knows, with the changing world we live in, it may become increasingly useful for people with bird dogs to use this option if working and shooting game becomes less accessible.