Dogs R Dogs

26/02/2026

18/02/2026

All the group dates for the Saturday Gundog Training Groups and the Friday Managing Arousal Groups are up on the website.

Please follow the link in the comments to see when the groups are running.

19/01/2026

Finan's latest update.

Saturday went well, he was hunting with purpose and still on the whistle. He has decided that the guns are not an issue anymore and really settled to his job.

He did two drives. One wood, where he was familiar with the terrain. In the areas where there is sparse cover and nowhere for birds to hide, I asked him to walk to heel and he managed it really well. He was able to bring his arousal down and focus and settle to walking with me for short periods of time before being sent on to hunt again.

I was really pleased with this as it shows that he is not completely losing his marbles and he is still able to manage his brain chemistry even now he knows what is going on and is enjoying it. There was also less barking and he was chasing for shorter distances. He also managed to let a couple of birds go and not chase them.

The second drive was a field of stubble turnips, his first cover crop. He was a bit confused at first when I asked him to hunt, just bounced around uncertainly. Then he must have caught a scent of pheasant and then realised what he was meant to be doing🥳

He then hunted a nice wide and flat pattern. I needed to walk the pattern with him a little bit to keep him focused, plus some whistle turn cues if he got distracted. It was his first time being able to really see what they other dogs were doing and several times he stood still to watch what they were doing before getting on with the hunting.

Over all I was very happy with his work. Loads to tidy up over this year but a good foundation from which to grow.

Only one more shoot day before the end of the season, but really good progress this year.

16/01/2026

I know that you are all so excited to see Finan's transformation🤣

I apologise in advance to any dog groomers out there, who after seeing photo 1 will be quietly sobbing into your breakfast cereal of choice. 🤣🤣

As you can see it is a functional cut, he is now safe from getting tangled and you can hardly see the scissor marks!!!

Photo 2 is Finan in his natural environment - soaking wet and covered in mud. Then you can't see the scissor marks at all, especially when he is moving at his usual spaniel warp speed😁

15/01/2026

More Finan update news!

Today I tried, and failed, to keep Finan's chest fur somewhat dry, by the addition of a neoprene coat. We are off to see a friend later who is going to help me trim said fur so that we do not have a repeat of the barbed wire tangling incident!

Said fur needs to be DRY for this to be a halfway respectable job, so he doesn't look like a rabid raccoon chewed it off. Photo number three shows how well that went!!! He managed a trip into the stream to be absolutely sure that no fur would escape being soaked!

On the plus side at least it is not as muddy as it would have been🤷‍♀️.

Ragnar, on the other hand is looking splendid as always with his naturally Teflon coat!! 🤣🤣