New chapter is Graham Gibson’s life

YOU would think Graham Gibson would be busy enough – a part-time gamekeeper who runs kennels, trains dogs and judges field competitions all over the world – but he now has another string to his bow as a published author.
By Helen McCall
Published 24th May 2015, 16:00 GMT
07-05-2015 Picture Sarah Peters. Graham Gibson, from Lamington Kennels, who has written a book on Gun Dog Training. His girlfirend Holly Donaldson pictured with him took all the photos for the book. Dogs are Spaniel Jamie and smaller cocker spaniel Willow. These were the dogs that were photographed in the book.07-05-2015 Picture Sarah Peters. Graham Gibson, from Lamington Kennels, who has written a book on Gun Dog Training. His girlfirend Holly Donaldson pictured with him took all the photos for the book. Dogs are Spaniel Jamie and smaller cocker spaniel Willow. These were the dogs that were photographed in the book.
07-05-2015 Picture Sarah Peters. Graham Gibson, from Lamington Kennels, who has written a book on Gun Dog Training. His girlfirend Holly Donaldson pictured with him took all the photos for the book. Dogs are Spaniel Jamie and smaller cocker spaniel Willow. These were the dogs that were photographed in the book.

His book “Complete Training for the Working Spaniel” will share some of the knowledge from the vast experience he has gained over the last 25 years working with gun dogs, training them for the shooting field.

Graham works with spaniels and Labrador retrievers, and sells fully-trained dogs to customers in America and other parts of the world.

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“I started trialling with dogs in competitions in Scotland,” he said, explaining that gundog trials involved the dogs retrieving shot game, while spaniels had to flush the game out and then retrieve it.

He has won field trials with Labradors, spaniels and German shorthaired pointers.

Graham runs boarding kennels at his home in Lamington, near Biggar, and he still works as a part-time gamekeeper on a nearby grouse moor and small pheasant shoot.

With his years of working with dogs, and training Labs and spaniels, it is hardly surprising that Graham (57) was asked if he would be interested in writing a training book.

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“I had always thought about it, and just decided to go for it,” he said.

“It took me about 18 months.”

The published book, available from Amazon, eBay and Graham’s own website lamingtongundogs.co.uk has 150 colour photographs, whittled down from 2800 taken by his girlfriend Holly Donaldson, and making stars of his spaniels Jamie and Willow.

Related topics:ScotlandBiggar