Thursday, 8 September 2016

A Bit of an Absence

Apologies for the long absence, it's been a mixed summer and it didn't feel appropriate to comment on successes when others were having a difficult time.

Sadly Megane, the much loved and cherished LM of our lovely friends died last month.  She was bred by us, and we'd been fortunate to have seen her at regular intervals throughout the years along with her owners who have become good friends. We last saw her at Hall Barn, along with her new 'brother' and it was great to see her enjoying her new playmate.

Sadly she became ill after this, Megane being Megane - kept the vets on their toes presenting with a variety of symptoms that seemed to conflict with each other making a diagnosis rather difficult, even when referred to the hospital.  In true munster style she charmed them all and was loved by all who met her.

Over the following few weeks her health declined and she sadly lost her battle, she was only 4 years old which has devastated us all. She was found to have a type of juvenile cancer.

There have been many tears shed, and the sense of loss is testament to how much she was loved and cared for by Hazel and David.  She really couldn't have had better owners.





Wednesday, 20 July 2016

Super Weekend

What a super weekend we've just had!!

The Pembrokeshire Canine Association open show on the Saturday and the Large Munsterlander Club Champ show on the Sunday.

As we were attending the club open show en-route to the LMC show, we decided to only enter the dogs who would be being shown on the Sunday; Trio and Lyric.  It was lovely to see support for the NSDTR classes, and we hope to have ours there next year.

Lyric (Seahaven Limited Edition) was 2nd in LM Open, with Trio (Seahaven Borrowed Heaven) 3rd. Lyric was awarded Best Puppy in Breed - the only one there! But she did then go on to get Group 3 in the Gundog Puppy group under judge, A Harding.

It then off to stay with friends before attending the LMC show the next day.  We arrived to sweltering heat, gave the dogs a quick run to let off some steam and reacquaint themselves with each other.  We then took them in to the garden and to Lyrics delight they had a doggy paddling pool; and a pond! She made herself at home in both, thankfully rinsing out the pond weed in the paddling pool.

Another sweltering day greeted us on Sunday morning, car was repacked ready for the long journey home after the show. We love the breed club shows, but haven't attended the LMC one for a few years as it is held so far away from us, we felt that we had a good excuse to attend with Lyric being a puppy. I was so glad that we did.

The show was in a lovely location, good facilities and a large and fairly level ring to show the dogs in.  Lyric won her puppy class and I had had a bit of a mad moment when completing the entries and entered her in 'Graduate', an adult class. She was an absolute star and won this class too! She then went on to win Best Puppy in Show.



Trio was entered in Open bitch, and she had a 3rd place, she went the best I've seen her go in ages - clearly enjoying being in a lovely big ring.  She also won the special bred by exhibitor class, and had a 2nd in the brace alongside Lyric.

A fabulous weekend, where both girls gave their very best, as usual. They are an absolute pleasure to live with and share time with.

Thursday, 7 July 2016

Windsor & Hall Barn Working Test

Last week saw us travelling to Berks to show at Windor Champ Show and take part in the LMC working test.

Travelling up on Thursday gave us a more leisurely start for Windsor show, though it still took us an hour to travel in to the showground from just 15 miles away.  We're certainly not used to the commuter traffic!

The day was forecast to be dry and cloudy, a little different form the blistering heat of the previous year and much more comfortable for the dogs.  It ended up being rather wet though, but not too bad the the in/out rings being put to good use.

NSDTRs were first to be shown out of our two breeds, we had only brought Eve with us.  Tasha handled Cooper to a 3rd in a good open dog class, he really moved in the big ring and looked fantastic.  Eve was unplaced in a big limit bitch class, though she went well for Eleanor which is the main thing.
Eve in the ring at Windsor

LMs started during the judging of the toller bitch classes, so we (Tasha & I) had to dash over the the other ring to organise ourselves.  Tasha was moving Alfie (Ch Raycris Quite the Charmer) in open dog and needed to get a bit of practice in. He really is a big moving boy and needs to go at just the right pace to get the best out of him.  We were delighted when he won the open dog class and the dog CC, especially as he's Lyric's dad.

Lyric was next in, and I had been watching Tasha and Alfie in the ring so hadn't had much of a practice with Lyric. She wasn't the easiest to set up as she was rather fidgety but moved nicely.  She managed a 2nd place to her lovely friend Lilly. Trio then had a 3rd in the open bitch class.
Lyric in the ring

As we were staying over at Hall Barn we were in no rush to get home, so were able to stay and watch the group judging. It's so nice to be able to support your breeds in the group rings, and it was a joy to see the LM BOB, Freya being shortlisted in the group.

Saturday gave us a relaxing day, a sunny day with a few showers but plenty of opportunity to have some practice with Lyric for the working test on the next day.
Some play time on Saturday

And a spot of tree climbing

So lucky to have the beautiful estate to enjoy for the weekend.

Some lovely daddy & daughter time for Alfie & Lyric

Tasha and Trio having a go at the one of the novice retrieve tests from last years test. Neither were competing just having a go.


Lyric - the lady in the lake - showing that she does pick up in water!

Sunday then saw us competing with Lyric in the working test, the 2nd one for both of us.  Again there was support from fellow LMs and their handlers which made it so much more pleasurable.

Again the day was broken down into the four parts, and again we started with the hunting. Once again I was full of apprehension about this, and also worried about everyone seeing out poor attempts at it. I was so relieved to find that we had a piece of ground to hunt that appeared to be just out of sight of the other handlers!

I started off by telling the judge that this wasn't our forte in life! Poor Lyric then went off to really have a go at it, I let her down by being a bit slow and not pushing her out into the hedgerows.  We scored a 30 /40 for this, such an improvement from the 8/40 in the previous test.

The water was the next test and again Lyric failed to pick up the dummy on the first attempt! This is something that she has no problem with at home and really don't know how to go about remedying the situations. Just more water work I think for now!

The obedience was a bit of mystery, we weren't allowed to observe this until we had completed it,though the handler who was first came to tell us how difficult it was. So we approached this a little apprehensively, thogu she was a little star only losing marks for not giving me the dummy to hand, and circling me rather than coming directly to me. Little monkey!

The last test was the retrieve, and this really was our undoing as it was a seen and blind retrieve. Poor girl hasn't done any blind retrieve work, so I was incredibly nervous going into this. She marked the seen dummy well, but it had bounced off the spot and then she paniced when she couldn't find it where she expected and I had to help her. As expected she didn't really know what I wanted from the blind, but with a bit of help did find it.  So proud of my 9 month old competing with others who were at the upper limit of 18 months. The score climbed from the bottom to around the middle of the scores this time, such good progress.

Rather late leaving, we didn't leave until after 6.00pm and arrived home just after 1A1.00pm. A long and tiring weekend, but such good fun.



Thursday, 16 June 2016

An Introduction to Gundog Working Tests

Recently we took a small step in to the unknown - Working Tests!

After helping out at the Hall Barn Working Test, which was run by the Large Munsterlander Club we were keen to have a go with Lyric (even before she was a reality!). The main difficulty that we've encountered was that there is no HPR training in our area. Thanks to the input of many friends we have been able to undertake some training, though lacking the confidence of knowing whether we were really getting it correct.

We were informed that the LHPA were holding a WT near Malmesbury in Wilts in June, so took the plunge and entered. No one knew that we were attending, it was much easier with no questions or feeling of pressure that way.  So we arrived last Sunday to a rather wet field on an estate in Wilts, with the intention of having a bit of fun and learning lots.

Lyric was entered in the puppy WT, this is classified as for pups between 6 -18 months of age, and a huge class of 18 puppies.


A puppy WT is broken down in to 4 parts; hunting;obedience;seen retrieve & water retrieve. The hunting is scored out of 40 and the other parts worth 20 each.

Hunting has been our nemesis, an area that I have no experience in even though we've had a HPR breed for a number of years.  Lyric is also quite a mummy's girl and needs to take herself further away from me, this is coming as she gets more confident, but is taking some time. The other parts I thought might be ok. She is very keen to retrieve, so thought that she might not do so well in the obedience, depending on how distracted she became. I thought that the seen and water retrieve would be her more confident elements.

Hunting - well she did hunt, she worked away from me for some of this but struggled at times to find any scent on the very light breeze.  She stopped on the stop whistle, something we haven't done much with and then recalled quickly to me. I was so pleased with how she had gone for me, not a high score, but not a 0 as I thought she might have got on this element.


Seen retrieve - The puppy's were expected to to sit quietly off lead whilst a dummy was thrown about 20 metres ahead of us.  The dummy thrower was hidden in a fir tree and the dummy was thrown out to the side of  but under the canopy of a large tree opposite.  The dummy was in a slight dip and in shadow, this caused a lot of confusion for a number of the pups as they couldn't 'mark' where it had dropped. Lyric's problem was that she didn't see it being thrown at all, there was a pile of dummy's to the side of her which she was so focused on that she didn't see the dummy thrown or land.  We haven't worked on any 'blind' retrieves yet with her, and so it was almost impossible to send her out to it. With a lot of assistance she managed to find it, but were heavily penalised as a result.

Obedience - The pups were asked to heel alongside their handler from one flag to the next. At the second flag they had to sit whilst the handler carried on to the third flag where a dummy as thrown out, the flags being about 15-20 metres apart. The handler then returned to the dog, and carried on past it to the starting position where the dog was recalled. When the dog had settled they were then sent out to retrieve the dummy and return to the handler.  Lyric tried so hard on this test, and was a bit let down by me and my lack of knowledge on how this was to be marked.  Lyric broke the sit when I first left her on the second flag, I had only given one command expecting to be penalised for additional commands if I used them.  I knew when she broke the sit that she wasn't feeling confident so from that point on I used lots of additional commands and praise. She then completed the rest of the test really well,

Water retrieve - The dogs were sat on the bank of a small lake with a shallow entry, a dummy was thrown and when instructed were then sent out to retrieve and bring back.  This I thought would be Lyric in her element, she loves water and is confident - the only issue that might pose a problem would be her keenness and she would go before instructed.  Bless her, she went when asked, confidently entered the water and swam out to the dummy. She then nudged it with her nose and turned to come back, after a bit of time on the bank where she tried to bring back some sticks I managed to send her back out to the dummy which was now much further away as it drifted. She did exactly the same again! The judge was as dumbfounded as I was and suggested that I threw in my own dummy, She retrieved her own dummy perfectly! Really don't know why she had any issue with this, she had previously retrieved a mix of other dummy's in the other parts of the test.


We didn't score 0 in any part, which was fantastic and we weren't last either! Lots of things to work on, but what a fun day we had.  Such a great introduction to the world of WTs, all helped by our fabulous judge who was so encouraging and the others competitors especially the other LM who were present.

Saturday, 7 May 2016

Birmingham National Champ Show

Thursday, the first day of the four day show was gundog day. Being a school day, I travelled up alone, something that I haven't done in a long time.  The travelling wasn't too different as the girls tend to listen to their own music, so they're not great company really on a long drive. I did miss then once we arrived and realised how well we all work together.  Great help though was provided by Coopers parents, which was really appreciated.  The weather was sunny, and hot! What a contrast to Aberystwyth show on Monday.

Only two of our dogs entered, Lyric (Seahaven Limited Edition) and Eve (Seahaven Parish Bell), with the two breeds being miles apart.

Eve was first in, in a large Limit Bitch class and poor girl was rushed from her crate into the ring without much chance of a leg stretch.  After a lot of deliberation by the judge (Frank Kane) she was awarded 2nd place. I was delighted with this result  and even more so when he called me over to say what a lovely well balance girl she was and told me to get some weight off her! Think we'll have to have Eleanor doing some more running with her!

Judging of LMs had now started so, I very quickly took Lyric off to the LM ring where she was entered in Minor Puppy (for pups 6-9 months). She was the only one entered, and just hoped that she would go nicely and enjoy herself. Her time in the ring was short, and it would have been nice to have had some company for her to get used to others being in the ring with her, particularly when moving together. As she won the class we had to wait for the final line up of all of the unbeaten bitches, not expecting her to gain anything else, but best puppy bitch needed to be awarded. So she then competed with the winner of the puppy bitch class (6-12 months), we were astonished to be awarded best puppy bitch. We then had to wait until best of breed had been declared, which was won by the lovely Tia. Again we didn't expect to win against an older male puppy who is much more mature, but she did.

Our gorgeous girl had her champ show BPIB and got to strut her stuff in the group ring. Nothing in the group, but she got to make friends with some lovely puppies. Her friend NSDTR Betty was in the group too, so a great opportunity for them to have a play before judging commenced.

Thanks to Mandy Tordoff for this fabulous photo of Lyric in the ring

Friday, 6 May 2016

Aberystwyth Open Show

Bank holiday Monday saw us travelling to Aberystwyth for an open show offering both of our breeds, classes.

This has always been a favourite show of the year, large outdoor rings, good judges, lovely atmosphere, and usually good weather. Sadly the weather wasn't in our favour, and gundog judging was moved indoors for the duration of the show.

The girls had a 3rd and 4th in both handling classes, Tasha borrowed Cooper who went beautifully for her in the rather limited space offered in the ring.

Breed judging;

NSDTR Open

1st Seahaven Galactic Storm (Cooper) Group four in the gundog group
2nd Seahaven Gloriana (Bron)
3rd Seahaven Parish Bell (Eve)
4th Dinaskarrek's Red Vixen at Seahaven (Tilly) Group two gundog group veteran

Large Munsterlander

Graduate

1st Paddockridge Madelaine at Seahaven (Maddie) and Group one gundog group veteran
2nd Seahaven Limited Edition Group two in the gundog puppy group

Open

2nd Seahaven Borrowed Heaven (Trio)

Absolutley delighted with how all of the dogs went, we stopped on the way home to give them a run on the Preselli's which they all thoroughly enjoyed.