Are your emotions derailing your gundog goals?

Collette May Author

As gundog handlers, we know that our dogs can often pick up on more than just our formal cues.

If you’ve ever opened the fridge or a cheese wrapper and nearly fallen over the dog that has suddenly teleported itself right behind you, you will know what I mean.

They also read and react to our emotions, by smelling our hormones and recognising tiny changes in our facial expressions and body posture, far more than we realise too.

And this has a significant impact on how our dogs perform in training, on shoot days, and most definitely at working test competitions and field trials.

I’ve always been interested in human psychology and truly believe that to be good gundog handlers, we not only need to learn dog body language and signs to better understand how they are feeling independently.

We also need to understand the emotional and psychological aspects that influence us and how to recognise when our own emotion-driven actions are causing our dogs to mirror our feelings and react accordingly.

In this blog, I’ll dive into the different types of handler mindset, what pressure looks like in handlers who are more likely to worry and stress, and how we can offload some of this mental pressure so that it is less likely to impact our dogs in training or competition.

 

What type of handler mindset do you have?

As a gundog handler, your mindset plays a huge role in both your dog’s success and your own enjoyment of the training process. Every handler brings their own personality and emotional state to the training session, and it’s essential to recognise how these traits can influence your training journey. Over my years of training, teaching, working my dogs and competing, here are the different types of handler mindsets I see most often and how each one impacts training.

The determined but unsure handler

Perhaps you lack confidence because this is your first dog, or maybe you have ended up with a very different dog that is throwing so many new quirks at you that you feel like you’re a first-time owner again. Either way, you are never quite sure of what, when or how you should be doing, or if you’re doing it correctly. But you’re committed to learning as much as you can and are determined to keep going.

The glass half empty handler

You may be the type who tends to worry a lot, often catastrophising or overthinking the potential pitfalls. When you dwell too much on what might go wrong, it can feel overwhelming and after a few bad practice sessions or experiences, you might find yourself ready to give up because training no longer feels enjoyable.

The overconfident handler

While these are a rarer species, you might be an overconfident handler who believes that their dog is much more advanced than they are. You might have skipped over training the essential foundation skills because you thought your dog was well past that point. And will often get confused and frustrated when your dog doesn’t respond to your cues or perform at an advanced level.

The time poor handler

Many handlers, especially those balancing full-time jobs, families and other commitments, struggle to find enough time for consistent training. You might find yourself always winging it as your unplanned, impromptu training sessions have become the norm. You have goals but you just don’t have enough hours to get your dog to that level.

The dream handler

For me anyway, the ideal handler is confident, open to new ideas, and goal-oriented. You are dedicated to your gundog dreams and plan all your training sessions effectively, which ultimately leads to success. You are probably quite competitive, not always with others, but at least with yourself which gives you the motivation and drive to keep constantly striving to improve and progress.

While we can’t always change our character types, we can change how we think. If time is tight, you can plan training sessions in your diary as you would any important appointment. And if you tend to worry or lack confidence, you can train your mind to focus on the positives, relieving the pressure you put on yourself.

What do handlers look like when they’re under pressure?

We know our dogs quickly pick up on subtle cues as to how we’re feeling, such as our facial expressions, body language and even how we smell. Quite often, however, the handlers themselves don’t realise they’re under pressure, or if they do, they think they’re doing a great job of hiding it and don’t realise the glaring signs they’re giving out.

If you feel like your emotions impact your dog's behaviour when you’re training or competing, it’s crucial to recognise what pressure looks like and the signals you might be communicating with your dog.

Body language and behaviour

When handlers are under pressure, their body language often becomes tense, with raised shoulders and a stiff posture. I often see this in handlers who look like they’re holding their breath or just can’t relax. Some become unusually quiet, while others experience what I call "verbal diarrhoea" and they can't stop talking. These behaviours, along with displacement actions like biting nails, using their phone, or fidgeting, are clear signs of stress.

Communicating with their dog

Handlers under pressure often rush, particularly when sending their dogs for retrieves. Instead of lining the dog up properly and waiting for steadiness, they rush the send. This causes the dog to miss the line out, leading to mistakes.

Equally, when the dog does go off track, handlers can freeze and hesitate to intervene. They may fear stepping in, especially in front of an audience, worrying the dog won’t stop if redirected. Instead, they hope the dog finds the dummy on its own.

Finally, I have also seen plenty of handlers who have forgotten cues or mix up their whistle sounds under pressure. They might even try to grab the dummy off the dog, or do other things they wouldn’t normally do in training.

How handlers can reduce the mental pressure

If you are in a training session, or a working test, or any other scenario where you’re handling your dog, and you can recognise that you’re under pressure, then something you can do immediately is pause and take a breath.

Slowing down can help you approach the situation with a clearer, calmer mindset, and sometimes that’s all you need to ensure you don’t send your dog too soon or blow your recall whistle instead of your hunt there whistle.

Outside of the situation, there are a few things we can do to reduce the mental burden in general that can have an overall positive impact on your training and dog’s performance.

Have some flipping fun

Firstly, it’s important to remember that gundog training should be fun, and unless there’s a serious behaviour problem, nothing about it is life or death. The don’t take things too seriously mindset will help you approach training as an opportunity to simply enjoy time with your dog, without thinking about any of the tests or shoot days you’ve got coming up.

Keep sessions short

Stop trying to build Rome in a day and try to plan short, more focused training. Not every session has to fix or monumentally improve one of your dog’s behaviours and I’ve found that with my dogs, keeping training sessions to under 10 minutes and focusing on specific tasks works best.

Focus on more than one dog

If you have more than one dog, spread the focus across all of them and don’t pin all your gundog goals on one. This prevents you from feeling like everything is riding on their performance and gives you more options. So if one dog is having an off day, or you’re not in the right frame of mind to teach new behaviours, then you can switch dogs. This also prevents you from getting too bogged down by one dog’s mistakes or setbacks, which can increase stress levels for you both.

Take up a new hobby

If you only have one dog, or find that you still put pressure on multiple dogs, consider taking up another hobby or practising some self-care that will get your mind off the gundog training and address your own well-being. A week off altogether will not result in a dog that’s forgotten how to do everything, but it might create a reset that you need to see some progress.

Make sure you’re in a supportive group

Often overlooked is making sure that the people you train make you feel a ease. If you find yourself in a group that doesn’t align with your values or training style, it can add unnecessary stress. I remember feeling intimidated when I joined a group that I knew used harsher methods. My dog, Grace, was slow to run out, even on marked retrieves, which was very unusual for her. She was clearly picking up on my stress and the pressure I was feeling in that environment just wasn’t conducive to good training.

Sometimes, the pressure of trying to meet a trainer’s expectations or using methods you don’t agree with can cause more harm than good. In these situations, it’s important to recognise when the pressure is coming from the trainer and the group, not just your own worries, and to seek out a more supportive learning environment.

Don’t always hide in your comfort zone

That said, sometimes you do need a little bit of pressure in the short term so that you can build confidence through experience. Confidence doesn’t come instantly and you can’t expect to be confident in something you’ve never done before either. Instead, focus on gaining experience training on different grounds, with different trainers who will broaden your knowledge and give you the tools to handle new situations.

With more experience, you’ll build a stronger foundation of confidence, and when you encounter challenges, you’ll feel better equipped to handle them. The more you step outside your comfort zone, the more you'll learn, and even when things don’t go perfectly, the experience will help you grow.

It’s important to remember that taking the pressure off doesn’t mean you won’t reach your goals, it just might take a little longer. You have a lifetime with your dog, so don’t rush things.

Competitions and deadlines are not the be-all and end-all and you can still achieve great things when your dog is older. Enjoy the gundog training journey with your dog and focus on your time and relationship with them, not just the end result.

What to do if you want to compete but feel too nervous

For some handlers, even armed with tips and advice on dealing with pressure, the idea of working tests and competitions can feel like an insurmountable challenge. So, why do some find these experiences particularly tough?

It often comes down to mindset. Negative thought patterns, past experiences, and fear of judgement can create a mental block that makes competitions, and even the training for them, feel daunting.

The pressure, the fear of failure, and the emotional ups and downs can be overwhelming, and these emotional barriers can affect your ability to perform at your best.

If this sounds familiar, mindset coaching alongside your gundog training could be the key to unlocking your potential.

By working on your mindset, you can transform the way you approach challenges. A qualified coach, such as myself, can help you uncover limiting beliefs, replace them with SMART goals to give your brain evidence that you are more than capable, and also help you to develop coping strategies for managing nerves and pressure. It’s about learning to embrace competition, not as a source of stress, but as an opportunity for growth and improvement.

If you’d like to book a 15-min chat with me for free - no pressure, no obligations - just an honest conversation about where you are, where you want to be and how I can help - click here.