More fab photos ... Lizzy this time. I love watching dogs at work ... more worky spaniel pics please.
The one with the duck in the my photos is about to go into open at Flyball on Monday, funnily enough we had a stall for NESSR at the yorkshire gamefair last weekend and we told no end of people that we worked Meg during the season and then took her to Flyball in the winter. a lot asked what it was and then went to have a look at the display and could totally see the point of doing something like that to take the edge off,
It is different for gun dogs. To successfully train a spaniel to run in trials you need access to different grounds and types of cover, and most importantly, lots of game. Different types of game, because a dog that is steady to pheasants is not necessarily steady to rabbits and vice versa. You also need to shoot over your dog many times before it is ready to enter a trial. So it is not just a case of keeping half a dozen pheasants and some rabbits in a pen and train on those, that won't be enough to get you through a trial.
Lots of lovely dogs there! We called in on the chap who owns Ivy's grandmother and some of her relatives last night and it was fascinating. I need to get Ivy's pics loaded up to Photobucket. She's only 15 months and as she's my first effort, it's all being taken at a steady pace.
There is a wee bit more to competing successfully in a sheepdog trial than keeping a few sheep in a pen and training on them ;-) ;-) ;-) However, I do understand where you are coming from.
Absolutely LOVE the action shot going over the fence! Fantastic! I am considering flyball too for my youngest, looks fast and furious and great fun!
Apparently the majority of working bred spaniels are glorified queen anne legged sausage dogs. As you pointed out none of ours seem to have those characteristics. Have we been sold some duds??
This is what Rips said in an earlier post: To be fair to Rips, I understand (I think) what she means on this thread in theory, however, I just haven't seen any proof of it at all
What , you have not seen any working line bred stringers with queen ann legs :? :? To be fair to Rips she said "majority" not " all" , which I think was the point you were trying to make. And to be fair, the working lines SS comes in all shapes and sizes, and included in there are many with bowed legs and dwarfism,
No you misunderstand me, I meant the general "theme" of the thread r.e. FT's producing dogs that can't work, not specifically that I have never see a bow-legged Springer. That said however, to answer your question anyway, ime they make up the minority, not the majority (and it seems to be the opinion of others on this thread too). Springers that is, I have no idea what a Stringer is hehe!