Welcome to the North West Spinone Training Group Page on the ISCGB website.
This Group was set up in early 2016 as a result of a passion of mine to have a local training group specifically for Spinone and following discussions with the clubs Field Trial secretary, which lead to it being supported by the ISCGB Committee. The background to the reasons for my passion for such a group to exist can be found in two articles, the links of which can be found below if you are interested.

ISCGB Working Test Special Beginners – 25/06/2006 Article by Keith Wain & Julie Kelly
North West Spinone Training Group – 27/06/2016 Article by Julie Kelly

Our first training day was on 2nd April 2016 and was oversubscribed!

Our aim is to run one training day every month, generally on the 1st Saturday of the month to enable people to plan and also to allow us to get organised and arrange trainers.  These dates may change, especially during the shooting season, but we will always advertise on this page and on the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/938311286251577/.

The Facebook page is a good forum for asking questions as many owners, trainees and trainers are on this page and are happy to help with any questions you may have about issues you are having with your dogs.  There are also lots of photos from the training days that have been run so far.

Booking forms for the training days will be on this page and the group Facebook page as well as on various other Facebook pages, such as Italian Spinone Dog Lovers; The Working Italian Spinone Group; Working Italian Spinone; ISCGB Working Section, Gundog Training, Trainers, Groups and Dates, Tests Trials and Training Days No Trivia!,

HPR Gundog Training UK, Spinone Owners Forum.  As we find more areas to publicise on social media sites we will do so.

We have a number of trainers involved in running the days, not least so that we are not reliant on one and also to bring different things to the training days. 
The training is held in Cheshire approximately 20 minutes from the M6 Junction 17 (Sandbach) or Junction 18 (Holmes Chapel).
The days at present have consisted of two sessions of two hours duration with six dogs in each session. These have typically been split between beginners and novice based on the participant’s assessment of their abilities as indicated on the booking forms that are issued.  This format seems to work well at present and we have to date covered our costs.  The first session starts at 10am and the second at approximately 1pm.
Here is an article that one of our attendees put together for the summer newsletter to give you an insight into what we are doing.

As all of you who have Spinone will know they are very intelligent dogs and need a purpose in life to stimulate them, you don’t have to want to go and shoot with your dog, or do working tests or field trials, you may just want to have that bond with them through training, whatever your relationship with your dog if you feel that training days like these are something you would be interested in then please get in touch, maybe come and have a watch before committing if you wish.  We would love to see you!

Many thanks
Julie Kelly

You can contact me Julie Kelly on jk.ero@sky.com or 07775 878804.