The benefit of the BMHS is that there are a number of members from different hunting/stalking/shooting backgrounds. So to say that they know nothing is rather ignorant and insular of the earlier sd member. Speak to many people with knowledge and opinions and move forward from there. Tracking and retrieving in my humble opinion does not have to be such a separate issue in the early days... Important thing with your pup is to get it playing at both and getting its rewards for both. From my experience of training dogs, I was not able to move one dog onto tracking after it had done a lot of retrieving etc on game. Quartering and air scenting were the issues... have fun and dont let individuals put you off with biased opinions. The Niels book is good. i also like an american one called tracking dog for finding wounded deer, by JOhn Jeanneny. I found that a good read also. To answer your question exactly, I have spoken with and asked the same question to very well known and accomplished professional gundog trainers; and the answer is basically, general training to begin to encourage both as i mentioned above, obedience, tracking... then birds later. enjoy.
Rhinoshot.....the BMHS of the UK.It is a farce.People who hardly work a dog on a natural track doing tests that a Chihuahua could follow.
1.Tony knows more about tracking than any one member within that society.
2.Tony knows more than a joint up effort of that society.
3.this is not ignorant nor insular but the truth.
4.following ribbons of blood on the floor is not tracking.
5. You can only learn so much from books,good for basic grounding.
6.you should not do obedience before tracking training......that is very wrong.
Then again Rhinoshot you will extol the virtues of the BMHS as you are friendly with the chairman.Nothing wrong with that nor the chairman.Who if I'm not mistaken organised for you to get your pup,from a kennel that has pumped out 100's yes 100's of BGS dogs.
A kennel that you must pay money up front for a pup before even knowing which sire is to be used for the mating.Nothing wrong in that either as long as it is the correct dog that the pedigree states has sired the bitch......notorious in Poland,that happening,eg different dogs from which is on the pedigree.
Did you get a lot of uptake for charging £400 on top of a price of pup for you to pick up people's pups for them?That would've covered your dogs costs very nicely.
Talk to people who track and don't just read books.People with experience of training numerous dogs to track and work dual purpose dogs and you won't go wrong.
Rhinoshot-what is your experience with training tracking dogs,out of interest,seeing as a few days ago you were saying you are a student of tracking?
You could be at this game for 50 years and we will still learn new things.Thats the beauty with the BMHS,they'll learn in time......