Gunner to gundog - lesson 1

On Saturday September 8th Gunner reached the age of 6 months and, by way of marking the occasion ('present' to us humans) we went off this afternoon for his first 'formal' gundog training session.
He's learned a lot over the past 3 months: walking to heel (on and off his lead), sit, stay, wait, go find (chew sticks!) and come to voice or whistle. So we were looking forward to showing off these basic skills and building on them with a few more directions and tips from our expert trainer, Rory.
It all started very well with Gunner on his best behaviour; not easy when said expert has a training field equipped with the gamut of distractions, including semi-wild tame rabbits, free range chickens and geese; not to mention ponies in the next door field and all the sounds of a thriving kennels and cattery in the background. Oh - and the interruption of another dog (alsation) coming through the field with its handler and trainer en route to a session in the rabbit pens. Gunner took all these things in his stride, displaying his ability to sit and stay, return to whistle and retrieve a couple of strange objects, one of which he had to 'find' in the long grass. The danger, if there is any, is that he is all too steady for a young spaniel, but as Rory said "enjoy it whilst you can". Visions of winning Gundog trials across the country wafted across my subconscious!
Then came the difficult bit.
The forte of spaniels 'in the field' is that they 'hunt' diagonally across their handler in a c. 20m 'corridor', thereby flushing any game for the guns. Having flushed said game, they immediately 'drop' to the ground, allowing the guns to take aim and fire. When the game has dropped to the ground, the 'retrievers' (which may be the same spaniels) do their bit in finding the fallen game and eagerly bringing it back to their handler.
So, the next part of our afternoon was the first stage in this transformation from keen puppy to keen hunter.
Step 1: bring your dog to heel, walk with him to that spot and make him sit.
My interpretation of this was not crisp enough: result - half-hearted response from dog. First lesson learned: be absolutely direct, put puppy on lead and leave no room for hesitation. "Heel" means nose next to knee; "sit" means instantly. They must become instinctive.
Step 2: remove lead, puppy to remain sitting and on command (first, decide your command - "go seek", "hi lost", "off hunt"...... anything as long as you can remember it! Not as simple as it sounds) go off to hunt.
Step 3: when puppy gets to c. 10m away, turn and give return whistle command... puppy should follow (good Gunner does); when puppy gets to c. 10m away again turn and give return whistle command; repeat exercise, moving from side to side, with copious amounts of verbal back up if any hesitation arises and lots of praise and excitement along the way when things go right.
Apart from finding, and getting rather attached to a mouse in the undergrowth, Gunner did all his bits very well. I, on the other hand got thoroughly confused with turning and whistling and arm waving (not a good thing at this stage) and almost tripping over myself and not knowing what command to give when the nose went back to the mouse for the third time. Luckily the expert was unphased and helped us sort it all out and before we knew our hour's lesson had over-run and both puppy and handler were worn out!
We came away with a clear idea of what to do over the coming weeks and the advice of our 'expert' to come back in a "month or so" for the next stage. It is not going to be an easy few weeks - for me, never mind Gunner!
P.S. As I write this he lies on my feet, snoring exhaustedly.......