Doug Cocks is one of Australia's leading trainers of Labradors for competing in retrieving trials. His first Labrador was called Gough and Doug's experiences in training Gough to the title of Retrieving Trial Champion have been recorded in "Training a Gundog for Retrieving Trials' published by Black Mountain Press and available through Ben's Black Labrador Shop for $AU 40. The book is particularly useful for beginners in the sport of retriever trialling because Doug had to work without much advice when training Gough. Gough was a small, compact brave and friendly black Labrador and he had some important wins during his five year career. His career was short because he did not start trialling till he was fiveand, even though he lived to a very respectable 14, he lost interest in trialling by his tenth birthday so Doug retired him. His most interesting win was the New South Wales Championship in 1987 when he was the lowest-scoring of the five dogs left in for the last run of the Championship. Gough was first up and retrieved a very difficult double mark in heavy reeds. And then the other four dogs, one by one, failed. Gough was the only dog to finish and won the Championship coming from behind. It was a good illustration of the principle that a trial is never over till the last run has been completed.

Doug's current dog is Ben, the one who runs Ben's Black Labrador Shop. Ben was born on 17 March 1992 and in six years of competition he obtained his Retrieving Trial Champion title, won eighteen All-Age (that means top level) trials and come second to Byron Kendall's yellow Labrador Russ at the 1996 National titles on the Murray river near Adelaide.

In September 1997 Ben, heavily disguised as R.T. Ch. Hallcourt Woodpecker CM won the Australian National Retrieving Trial Championship against a strong field at Beaudesert near Brisbane.