Briarrose Gundogs — Gundog Training in Sevenoaks, Kent
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26 August 2026

So You've Trained a Gundog... Now What?

So You've Trained a Gundog... Now What?

Every year, around this time, I get the same message. Someone's spent the spring and summer working hard — recall drills in the rain, steadiness work until it hurts, marking exercises and delivery training and sit-to-a-whistle until it's second nature.

Their dog is genuinely good. And now the season's opening and they're staring at their phone not quite knowing who to call or where to go.

That feeling of being trained-and-ready-but-having-no-door-to-knock-on is one of the most common places people get stuck, and almost nobody talks about it.

This guide is for those people. I'm going to cover everything: how driven shooting works, how to find a shoot, what the keeper's world actually looks like, what to wear and bring (for you as well as your dog), the etiquette that nobody writes down, and how to make sure you get asked back.

Because getting asked back is, genuinely, the whole game.

First: understand what you're joining

Driven shooting is one of Britain's oldest field sports traditions, and stepping into it means stepping into a system with its own language, culture, and unspoken rules. Understanding those before you arrive matters more than almost anything else on your first day.

Here's how it works.

A team of beaters walks through cover in a line, pushing pheasant, partridge, or grouse up and forward toward a line of guns standing at numbered pegs.

Behind the guns, pickers-up and their dogs wait during the drive, then move in to find and retrieve what's been shot.

Overseeing all of it — the land, the birds, the people, the safety — is the keeper and their team.

As a newcomer, you'll almost certainly start as a beater or at least thats what I would advise you do.

Picking up comes later.

Within that structure, shoots vary enormously.

A small local syndicate might have twelve guns, a handful of beaters who double up as pickers-up, and a day that ends with a pie in someone's barn.

A large commercial shoot runs like a quiet military operation: hundreds of birds, tightly managed drives, separate teams for every role, and a keeper responsible for sixty people across a thousand acres.

Neither is better than the other — but they need different things from you, and knowing which one you're walking into matters.

The shooting calendar

Quick orientation, because timing is everything:

Most work for beaters and pickers-up clusters around the pheasant season, which runs through winter. If you've been training through spring and summer, you have a small window before October to find a shoot, introduce yourself, and get at least one day in the diary before the season hits its stride.

Leave the dog at home. Seriously.

I know how that sounds. You've done the work — months of it — and now I'm telling you to go without the dog. Bear with me.

Your first day on a shoot, your only job is to watch and listen and do what is asked of you.

You need to understand how drives are run, where the flushing points are, what the keeper wants from the line, how beaters communicate with each other, where it's safe to move and where to hold.

You cannot take any of that in properly if half your attention is on your dog. And your dog cannot be managed well by someone who's still figuring out which way to walk.

It can feel uncomfortable — even a bit embarrassing — to show up without the dog when the whole point of the last year was building a working gundog.

That feeling is normal and almost every experienced picker-up or beating team member had it once. But the people who build lasting reputations on shoots are the ones who arrive ready to work whatever job they're given, watch carefully, ask the right questions, and demonstrate quietly that they can be trusted on the ground. That's what you're building on day one. Start with your head up and your hands free.

Even I have a tradition of turning up on the first day of the season with just my Wirehaired Vizsla, I can hear the keeper already “where`s your spaniels?”

I dog in for our shoot but the first day for me is one to get those gears oiled up and working properly again, to understand how the birds are behaving this year and to understand how the cover has developed, while my spaniels are more that capable my Vizsla offers me the affordance of an easier day!

A little word of warning… Dogging in, this is a process where we use our dogs to push birds back onto the shoot grounds and keep them contained, I do it myself and you might get permission to do it, this can be a situation where dogs go rogue, it can also be a great way of honing your skills and it can be a great way of undoing all your work!

How to find a shoot

The most common question, and the one with the most practical answers.

The Beaters and Pickers-Up Facebook group is the most obvious starting point — shoots post vacancies regularly, and it's worth checking during the weeks before the season opens. It won't land you on the best ground straight away, but it gets you through a door, and a first day is all you need.

Beyond that: BASC (the British Association for Shooting and Conservation) is well worth joining regardless — they provide resources specifically for people new to shooting sports, and their network connects you to local shoots and events. Local gundog clubs are often the most direct route of all; many have relationships with nearby shoots and are a natural bridge into the community. Game fairs — the CLA Game Fair being the largest — give you the chance to meet keepers and shoot operators face to face, and that counts for more than a message in a Facebook group. And sometimes the simplest approach is the best one: if you know of a shoot near you, introduce yourself to whoever manages the land. Keepers notice the people who bother to make themselves known.

If you are a gun looking for your first peg, try Guns on Pegs. Many shoots run on a syndicate basis but you will often find sold days.

Understand the pressure the keeper is under

This is the section most people never read, and probably the most important one.

A keeper has spent an entire year building up to a small number of shoot days. Rearing, releasing, feeding, habitat work, predator control — twelve months of early mornings and seven-day weeks, all for a season that might run fifteen days. Those days can make or break the year, and can shape the reputation of the shoot for years beyond it. There's real pride in what's been built — and real vulnerability in days when things go wrong.

On top of all of that, the keeper carries responsibility for the safety of everyone on the ground: beaters, pickers-up, guns, dogs, vehicles, all of it. On a large commercial day that's potentially sixty people moving across rough terrain with loaded firearms nearby. That's an enormous weight.

So if a keeper seems short with someone, or corrects a mistake quickly and without much explanation — don't take it personally. It's rarely about you.

A shoot day is a serious operation wearing the clothes of a pleasant country outing, and understanding that changes how you show up.

Are you fit enough? And is your dog?

Honestly assess this before you commit to anything, because the answer matters.

I work a large commercial shoot — some days covering real distance across steep, difficult ground in whatever the weather decides to do.

That's a very different ask from a small local shoot over flat farmland, but even a relaxed day on your feet through cover, up and down hedgerows, in and out of kale or maize, is physical.

Add cold, wet, even heat, the weight of a game carrier by the afternoon, and a dog that needs managing — it adds up faster than you expect.

Ask yourself plainly: am I fit for this? Not as a judgement — as a practical question. If the honest answer is no, work on it before the season rather than finding out the hard way in a field in November.

The same question applies to your dog. A dog that's spent the summer on park walks and garden training sessions isn't ready for a six-hour working day in heavy cover, however solid its obedience is. Build physical fitness deliberately in the weeks before the season opens — long walks, some on rough ground, some in cover if you can find it. Your dog's body needs to be as ready as its training.

What you need: kit for yourself

People often kit the dog beautifully and forget themselves entirely. Don't.

At minimum:

What your dog needs: kit for them

Once you've earned the place to bring your dog along, arrive properly prepared.

A couple of specifics worth knowing: spaniels especially can drop into hypoglycaemia on a very hard day, and I carry a tube of diabetic glucose gel as a precaution. In certain cover crops, seeds get flicked directly into dogs' eyes at speed. Dog goggles look ridiculous and work extremely well; I use them on mine in standing crops, I`ve opted for the rex specs with mine.

Insurance and health: don't skip this section

Many shoots now require dogs working on their ground to be covered by third-party liability insurance. BASC membership includes this, and joining BASC is the most straightforward route for anyone working a dog on shoots. If a shoot asks whether your dog is insured and you can't answer yes, you may not be able to work that day. Sort it before the season.

On vaccinations: leptospirosis is the one that matters most for working dogs — field environments, waterways, and the company of other dogs all increase exposure. Make sure your dog's lepto vaccination is current before the season starts. Kennel cough is also strongly advisable — your dog will be working alongside dogs from many different homes and kennels across a season.

If your dog has any signs of kennel cough leave it at home for at least 2 weeks after the symptom’s have cleared, don’t risk everyone else’s dog and also remember with KC you are one of the main vectors of transmission to other dogs.

A general pre-season check is sensible too. Eyes, feet, teeth, joints. These are demanding working conditions, and anything that's borderline at home will be found by a long day in the field, personally I use a physiotherapist with my own dogs.

Shoot etiquette: the rules you need to ask about

No two shoots run the same way. Some want a loud, rowdy beating line — hollering, whooping, stick-bashing — to push birds hard over the guns.

Others want absolute quiet discipline: stick-tapping only, no voices, no shouting. I've worked a shoot where beaters were told, plainly, not to speak to the guns at all. That's their ground, their culture, their preference, and the only correct response is to respect it without question.

The same applies to dogs. Some shoots couldn't function without dogs in the beating line.

Others don't want dogs there at all. Some allow dogs in parts of the line but not others.

You won't know which you're on until you ask — so ask, before the day, not after you've arrived with the dog in the boot.

And if anything is unclear on the day — where to walk, when to move, when to hold — say so.

Ask whoever's running the line to put you alongside someone who knows. Nobody thinks less of you for that. People think a great deal less of you for guessing wrong and running a drive.

What the job of beating actually looks like

You'll be given a position in the line and told roughly where to walk to. Your job is to stay in position relative to the beaters on either side of you — not too far ahead, not lagging behind — and move forward steadily, pushing birds up and ahead of you.

The keeper or line captain will signal when to hold and when to move, usually through calls passed down the line or over a radio, if a beater has a radio they have so because they are an extension of the keeper, so listen to them.

In a well-organised line this feels almost instinctive once you've been doing it for a few drives. In a less organised one, watch the people around you and use common sense.

The single most important rule of beating: don't overrun. Getting ahead of the line and flushing birds too early ruins a drive — birds come over the guns at the wrong moment, from the wrong angle, or break back over the line entirely.

Stay level. Move steadily. If you're not sure whether to go or hold, hold and watch or ask, if you see birds breaking back through the line, say something, recruit help to plug the gaps but a straight well connected line can be efficient, a disorganised one will loose birds easily.

Dogs and flushing points: this is something first-timers often misunderstand. Your dog is not there to flush birds constantly throughout the drive. The job — for you and for them — is to walk birds forward and hold them moving toward a flushing point, where the cover changes and the birds lift and head over the guns.

A dog flushing birds early, deep in the drive, away from the guns, isn't doing useful work — it's undoing it. There's no point in a flush that doesn't put a bird over a gun.

Keep your dog working tight, controlled, and purposeful. If it's ranging wide and flushing everything it finds, it isn't ready for the beating line yet, however enthusiastic it is.

Deer in the line: on most shoots you will encounter deer, and they need to be handled correctly. If a deer breaks through the line ahead of you, call it out clearly — "deer left" or "deer right", loud enough for the line to hear. Then stand still. A bolting deer in a panic is capable of causing serious injury; they don't always read the ground ahead of them and they move fast.

The right outcome is that the deer turns and runs back through the line behind you — that's far better than it bolting forward and flushing every bird in front of you before the drive has properly started. Stay still, call it out, and let it find its own way back.

Livestock, one of the girls that I introduced to beating has proof read this and reminded me about livestock and I did have a chuckle.

You will often end up in a field with cows, or sheep or horses.

Cows especially carry risk, a cow will kill a dog, so keep you dog close to you, cows can be, lets say… mischievous, if you run from them I will almost guarantee they will take great pleasure in chasing you, turn toward them and stay still, don’t panic.

Sheep on the other hand will try to kill themselves running from you, so don’t spook them if you can help it, be considerate.

Often when I have any livestock in a field, it highly unlikely there will be many birds out there I need to work about so I stay close to a fence and keep my dogs well managed.

Picking up: a different job with its own rules

Once you've beaten for a season or two and feel genuinely confident on the ground, moving towards picking up is the natural next step. But it's a different job — not the same job from a different position — and it comes with its own etiquette that varies just as much shoot to shoot.

I've worked shoots where no dog moves until the keeper calls "all out." I've worked others where you can pick a bird the moment it's down, provided it's behind your gun.

Others allow picking to happen throughout the drive.

Find out which before you get anywhere near a bird.

Treat the birds with respect, understand how to dispatch them properly, deal with any bird that is still alive before sending your dogs on anything that is dead, the priority is to mitigate unnecessary suffering, If your dog is not well versed in picking running birds ask someone with more experienced dogs for help.

Your job as a picker is to watch carefully, the aim is to recover as many birds as possible from the field, watch the shooting, mark the falls, count, it can be very useful to take a notepad with you and quickly sketch the landscape in front and mark where you see birds fall.

You have to be efficient, you are against the clock, often you will start the first drive with the guns, but by the third or fourth you are playing catch up as they move on without you.

You will be late to lunch and late back at the end of the day, unlike working trials etc much of this isn’t about lining your dogs on every retrieve single its about having a dog that you can send out in a direction and trust to get the job done for you as fast and efficiently as possible and sometimes that helps if your dog has a keen nose and some level of independence. Your job is to make sure you read the land well, utilise the wind well and have a dog you can trust to do their job well.

The non-negotiable rule: if a gun has a dog with them, always ask before you send yours in. They've paid for their day — potentially a great deal of money — and working their own dog is very likely a significant part of why they're there. It's their retrieve to make, not yours, unless they invite you in.

Practically: pickers-up carry weight. By the end of a good day, a game carrier with a dozen birds in it is a real load and two game carriers loaded with birds is often the reality.

Factor that into your fitness and your kit.

If you're coming as a gun

Being a gun carries its own set of responsibilities, and not all of them are obvious the first time you step onto a peg.

Insurance: you must have valid third-party shooting insurance before you shoot on any organised day. This is non-negotiable. BASC membership provides this as standard and is the most straightforward route.

Arriving without it puts you and the shoot in an extremely difficult position.

Gun safety: this goes without saying, but it bears saying anyway. Safe gun handling is everyone's responsibility — yours included — and it applies from the moment you get out of the car to the moment you leave.

The beating line and the pickers-up are working people doing a real job in the same landscape you're shooting in. Their safety depends on yours.

If at any point a beater or picker-up is concerned about the way a gun is being handled near them, the correct thing to do is speak directly to the keeper or shoot captain immediately.

Not hesitantly, not later — immediately. Nobody on the ground should feel they have to tolerate something that makes them unsafe.

Dogs: if you're bringing a dog as a gun, it must be quiet and steady. A dog that barks, whines, or moves during drives is disruptive to the whole operation — it disturbs birds, distracts the line, and frankly makes the day worse for everyone around you. During shooting, your dog stays at heel or at the peg. Dogs should never be working birds during a drive while guns are in the air. That's what the pickers-up are there for.

The moment to work your dog is after the drive, and only after you've checked whether a picker-up is already on a bird you want to send for.

Children on shoot days

Bringing young blood into the sport is esential for its survival but…

Same principle as the dog: don't bring them until you've asked, and not until you understand the specific demands of that shoot. Every shoot has its own view on what's appropriate. Guns, dogs, moving vehicles, heavy cover, steep terrain, and unpredictable ground — it's a working environment that needs to be understood before you add a child to it.

When your dog has a bad day

It happens. It has happened to everyone who has worked a dog, and it will happen to you. A dog that runs in during a drive. A stop whistle ignored at the worst possible moment. A blind chase after a runner that shouldn't have happened. In the moment it can feel catastrophic — the kind of thing you'll replay for days.

What you don't do: panic, shout across the field, make a scene, or spiral into a lengthy apology.

Quietly retrieve your dog, put the lead on, and if necessary put them away for the rest of that drive. Acknowledge what happened to whoever needs to know, clearly and briefly. Then work out what to do differently.

Every shoot day for me, I take something home with me to work on through the week ahead, I look for those weaknesses in my training through the day.

Nobody expects perfection from a first-season dog. They do expect you to handle a mistake with composure and quiet competence. How you respond tells the keeper far more about your long-term value than the mistake itself.

The end of the day: read the room

At the end of the last drive, you'll notice a moment — the guns gathering around the keeper, a quiet conversation, handshakes. That's when the guns tip the keeper, and it's their moment, not yours. Don't linger nearby, don't mill about within earshot, and don't let your dog career around the group. Move away, sort your kit, see to your dog, and give that exchange the privacy it deserves.

It's a small thing and it's noticed.

Game: on many shoots, beaters and pickers-up receive a brace of birds at the end of the day. If you've never dealt with a pheasant before the season, learn now — it's part of the culture, and turning your nose up at the offering doesn't make a strong impression.

The real way into the shoot world isn't built in a single day. It's built through showing up consistently, doing whatever job you're given with care, asking the right questions at the right time, and being the kind of person the keeper is glad to have on the ground.

Shoot communities are smaller and tighter than they look from the outside. Reputations — good ones and less good ones — travel fast and last a long time.

Turn up on time. Watch and listen more than you talk. Say thank you at the end of the day.

Get to know the ground, the people, and the specific culture of that shoot — because no two shoots run the same way, and understanding that is what separates someone who does one season from someone who does thirty.

Do that, and you'll get asked back.

That's really the whole game, I hope you all have a wonderful season, that it brings you good success, that you make great memories and friends along the way.

Raise a glass to our Gamekeepers.