Monday, May 30, 2011

feeding regime

Catja has been looking as if she were holding on to her weight a bit to much and Ellie has been a bit under the weather - i think more attention needs to be taken by me at feeding times, I suspect some are eating the food of others! About mid week all had to skip a meal and had an extra exercise run in the morning (save Fresco who had his usual rations). i think he has little kangaroo pouches in his real legs as the muscle volume on these outrageous yet he always looks as if he needs a feed. Even after a feed, save when he has had rice pudding. Laughing

Anyway the feeding regime seems to have worked for Catja who was looking good yesterday - she won BoB at South of England Gundog. RBoB Mabeleine. Fresco won best puppy - not hard as he was the only one and Topaz won best AV Field Trial dog or bitch, he also looked really good.

Finally got my new website up and running this week.

www.guybagshaw.co.uk

some of you will recognise some of the work.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

HGS training

Monday was HGS training night - or so I thought; I was not alone with this thought so a few of us moved to a new venue and had an interesting evening doing blind retrieves through thick cover, marking by sound alone and some 'walked up' seen retrieves into standing crop. (walked up - the dogs and handlers walk with dogs off lead, dummy thrower fires shot and throws dummy and then selects a dog to retrieve. To help reinforce sit to shot and marking. We used a field of rape throwing the dummy into the edge of the footpath that runs across it)

What was most interesting to me was how well the dogs can mark by the sound of the fall alone - it was done so thy could not see the dummy at any stage).

On the blind retrieves in thick cover I was very pleased with Fresco as he eyewiped the other dogs on two occasions. Purely by holding his ground better. I was out of my comfort zone with regard these retrieves for him but he seemed to step up a gear (if that is possible); might have been the fact there were other dogs getting to have a go all the time.?