Acer Gundog Training Team

Our experienced team of Gundog Trainers work at our various training venues in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridge.

Links to each venue at the bottom of the page.

Mark Taylor, IMDT

Owner & Head Trainer

Our Owner and Head Trainer is Mark Taylor.

Mark has always had gundogs in his life. Having experienced countless run-of-the-mill dog training classes in village halls himself, he saw the need for specialised training for his own Labradors.

With lots of other gundog trainers still using traditional techniques incorporating the use of punishment, Mark decided there must be a better way to train his own gundogs. Seeing the effects that all the shouting, hitting, ear pulling and yanking leads was having on dogs, he realised these methods clearly didn’t work and were actually causing more problems as a fall-out.

Mark wanted to learn the right way. He wanted to become a professional dog trainer who understood how to use modern training methods which were both ethical and backed by science.

This is where the idea for Acer Gundog Training was born.

Mark is fully accredited as a professionally qualified Dog Trainer by:

The Institute of Modern Dog Trainers (IMDT)

The Gundog Club

Sacha Wheatley

Gundog Trainer

Sacha has a passion for country sports and the countryside. She has grown up with gundogs – Springers, Working Cockers and Labradors. She started training her own dogs with Acer when getting her first Working Cocker bitch after always having had dogs.

Sacha has been involved in all country sports for many years and spends a lot of time with her horses. She enjoys riding every day, come rain or shine.

Sacha is a Full Member of The Professional Association of Canine Trainers (PACT).

She is also an accredited Animal Training Instructor (ATI) with The Animal Training & Behaviour Council (ABTC).

Hellen Bland

Gundog Trainer

Hellen’s love and enthusiasm for all country pursuits and working dog-related fields can be attributed to her father. She says he took her on her first shoot aged 12 and from that day on, was completely hooked.

Her first working homebred Springer ‘spanner‘ is Trigger. She refers to him as her ‘Pancake Dog’ (the first one’s always a throw away!) It wasn’t until she discovered the wonders of Positive Reinforcement, reward-based training methods, that she found his niche with Picking Up! Hellen describes how he makes her heart burst with pride with every bird he returns with.

Alongside her gamekeeper husband, she also shares her life with 3 Working Cockers; Mavis, Cassie and Guinness. Hellen has always had a fascination with watching dogs work in the field and present their true natural talents at hunting and retrieving.

Hellen was drawn to Acer as a customer. She likes our focus on the natural instincts and enthusiasm of all the working breeds. Also, because of our science-backed gundog training methods. She says they are a breath of fresh air in a very old-fashioned world. Understanding how her dogs learn and why they behave a certain way has helped her develop valuable handler skills which she wants to pay forward to our customers.

Jan Barlow, IMDT

Gundog Trainer

Jan has spent the last 20 years working as a Chief Executive in the charity sector, including as CEO of Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. She has also been involved with other rescue charities as a trustee.

Jan’s real passion in life is dogs, in particular, gundogs. She grew-up, surrounded by gundogs in her wider family and now shares her life with her rescue Sprocker, Asta.

Jan first became involved in gundog training with her first rescue Springer, Harry, who, she says, was too “driven” for non breed-specific training methods to work.

Jan became fascinated with how modern gundog training methods use a gundog’s natural instincts to shape positive behaviours.

As a long-standing client training her own dogs with us, she says she has seen at first hand the difference gundog training has made to her two rescue spaniels. Having seen so many gundogs end up in rescue centres over the years due to a lack of appropriate early training, Jan is passionate about helping owners to train these wonderful dogs, whether they are family pets or working gundogs and is a Full Member of The Institute of Modern Dog Trainers.

Nicole Tracey

Gundog Trainer

Nicole works from our Bourn location, near Cambridge. She runs a number of group classes on Saturdays

Her ‘day-job’ during the week is a school teacher and so she is very good at delivering training in a way which is both engaging and fun.

She has trained her own dog, Wilbur, to an advanced level with Acer. Wilbur is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever and they also compete together in Agility competitions.