Date : May 2004

Having practically exhausted ourselves with the conversion of our Granary building, have had very little time and energy for anything other than the actual dog work.. Will now try to redress the balance and get things up to date.

It was very good to see old friends and make new, at The Dog Days Out Stand , at Crufts this March. Our team of twelve dogs, did pretty well in the Main Ring demonstration , on Gun-dog Day , the little black cocker Lettie , causing a ripple of laughter around the arena , when she moved towards Edward , behind his back and then tried to retrieve the situation by moving back to the line out position , choosing to sit behind one of the Labradors for safety and having to reach up to see over him! With the sound of Edwards voice coming from the loud-speakers in every corner of the arena ,it is disconcerting for the dogs , to say the least and it is very impressive to watch the level of control for so many dogs at once , by one person.

Edward and the team were filmed at work by the B.B.C. for the Discovery channel, along with an interview outside the arena, with a group of dogs at heel. With so much to show for the home consumption , we never seem to make our own B.B.C. T.V.

However, our cocker bitch Figgy , featured in and was the star attraction for the production team , of the B.B.C. programme ‘My Week in The Real World’ with the M.P. for Liverpool , Mr Peter Kilfoyle. The programme showed the inner city M. P. hosting a shooting party for the week, staying at an hotel in the Borders. The whole production team came to Lanton Hill to film Mr Kilfoyle being introduced to a gun-dog and being shown by Edward how to handle her! She was fairly flying by the time of her return at the end of the week!

The next public outing was the demonstration on each day of the Scottish B.A.S.C. Fair near Stirling, a similar team to Crufts, with showing how to encourage and start off puppies and a youngster, before moving on to the adult team. It is always useful to be able to talk to the general public afterwards, to help answer any queries they may have with their own training.

In between times all the usual work at home goes on apace. There are several youngsters around , both cocker and Labradors , between the ages of ten months and eighteen months, all requiring practical work in the field. The Labradors all having been to have their eyes tested and hips scored, before proceeding with the next stage of training.

Our new kennel maid Danielle, who has been with us since the beginning of the summer last year, has proved a sensible and dedicated help about the kennels. She is very good at bringing the youngsters on and is always sad to see puppies go – but we have to live!

Having missed getting Tullymoran mated last fall, as we were in Sweden, she is in pup now, to Sealpin Enigma, these puppies are due at the end of the month. Messalina only had two puppies last autumn, which rather means we are short of Labrador puppies. We are rather hoping that Wanda’s lovely daughter Lola, will come into season soon, as we very much want to have a litter from her. She is the most lovely quiet and efficient bitch, being very fast at her work.

Both Flex, (F.T.CH. Miss Alexandrovna), and one of her grand-daughters are expecting puppies. Flex to Rackateer again and Folly to a nice son of F.T.C.H. Larford Cateran. As seems to be generally the case, we have a lot of clients wanting cocker puppies, especially now many of them are of a softer nature and a little more manageable.

We have had our fair share of visitors to the kennels and guess this will increase somewhat with the advent of “The Granary” holiday cottage. We probably try to fit too much into our busy lives, it is a question of picking out the best bits , if possible!

The next team outing will be to the Highland Show, at Edinburgh, in June, then comes the Scottish Game Fair at Scone and finally Edward is judging Spaniels at the national Game Fair at Blenhiem this year, where it will be good to see so many of you in the south.

Suddenly it will be August and Grouse again, it does hardly seem possible that we can be so far through the year already. We are making tentative plans for the Autumn, taking a trained Labrador dog out to Saskatchewan at the end of September and then judging some Cocker Trials in New York State .We would like to have gone to Sweden again this year but feel it is impractical with all that we shall have going on at home. There is always another year!