Collette May

Now based in Mid Wales, Collette is a mum of three and the proud owner-founder of Mid Wales Holidays and Completely Gundogs. Her home is shared with Labrador Retrievers, Angus, Grace, Harry, Fern and Jimmy plus cheeky Chihuahua Rosie.
Collette regularly takes Angus, Grace and Harry picking up on local shoots throughout the season. She is also an avid competitor, taking part in working tests and field trials. Passionate about gundogs, Collette takes pride in her work by ensuring that her clients’ and their dogs’ emotional and physical needs, as well as individual training requirements, are all met. She finds it rewarding to help owners train their dogs, to improve their relationship and reduce problems both at home and out in the field, whether working or competing. Collette is a full member of the Institute of Modern Dog Trainers and is an accredited Gundog Club instructor and assessor.

Workshop – Novice/Beginner

Blinds – building confidence, trust and motivation.

This workshop is aimed at novice/beginners to the sport. Often a topic not touched upon until older and more advanced, but Collette will explain the reasons why she teaches this concept early on. The workshop will explain how to teach blinds including its use in the shooting field, and ways to fix any problems that have occurred already such as spinning, sticking or refusing to go.

Collette will explain how important the foundations are to achieve a confident blind and how crucial it is to put things in place from an early age to help them on their journey to mastering challenging blinds. Looking down the sending arm, locking on to the target then running with pace to the dummy can all be done early on in preparation for more difficult blinds when older.

The following areas of training will be looked at:-

• Motivation for the target
• Maintaining straight lines when adding distance and distractions
• Sending position of dog and handler
• Marks and memories as building blocks to blinds
• Confidence in the send cue when no other cue is present (such as the dummy or shot)
• Directional simple blinds

The dog’s trust in their handlers requests is the goal.

Walked Up – Advanced Workshop

This workshop is suitable for more advanced dogs and handlers. Often one of the more testing exercises during training or at a test/trial, this workshop will look at everything that is required to be successful at walked up’s.

These are some of the different areas of training that will be looked at during the session.

• Heel work
• Pivot heel positioning
• Steadiness whilst heeling
• Marking for both dog and handler
• Holding an area
• Handling

Steadiness, control and polish is required to do well at walked ups but often a dogs’ natural ability to mark and hold an area is what makes the dog a winner. Saying that there is nothing more frustrating though than getting points deducted for poor heelwork when the dog performs incredibly when out in the field working. Again, if the dog is not steady to shot or honouring another dogs retrieve, but great at marking and hunting, same result, still poor scores. This workshop aims to identify all the ingredients needed, how to train them and ultimately how to win at walked up competitions or shooting.