Gundog Training by Keith Erlandson
"A pure Trial dog that is no shooting dog is, to me, no dog at all " he said.
Anyone reading Keith Erlandson's Gundog Training, first published in 1976, will not be surprised by such a statement, the book is an elaboration of that priority which allows of no compromise. Gundog Training is dedicated to Walter Rumbelow, Headkeeper on the late Lt-Col Sir Hugh Cholmeley's Estate near Grantham, who did much to enthuse Keith early on. But Keith's keepering career did not begin in Lincolnshire. On leaving Kingston High School, Hull, he went to Tollard Royal in Wiltshire, the site of King John's Hunting Lodge and hard by Cranborne Chase. But a position as Headkeeper on a mixed shoot in Lincolnshire beckoned. A small quantity of birds was reared to supplement the stocks of wild partridge and pheasant and he acquired the skills which enabled him to take a position as beat-keeper on the Cholmeley estate. Walter Rumbelow undertook some gundog training, his clients included Major Hugh Peacock, who won the International Gundog League Retriever Championship three times in the Fifties with his Greatford Labradors. Keith was encouraged to train and trial and it was with a retriever, a golden bitch sired by a litter brother to June Atkinson's 1954 Championship winner Mazurka of Wynford, that he won his first award on the 16th of October, 1956.
; "Gundog Training by Keith Erlandson")