Final Crufts preparations

February 20th.
With just over 2 weeks left to Crufts I continue with my final preparations to have Mossy ready and at his best on the day. A lot of the prep work I do with my dogs has absolutely no scientific evidence behind it to prove it makes any difference. It just makes me feel I've given him the best chance to be the best he can on the day.

An early trip to the airport this morning , with my friend Sue, gave me the oppurtunity to visit a place I hadn't been to since my professional dog walking days. Kilcrea, is one of those rare gems along the North Dublin coast. Its a gravel beach, tucked into an estuary, that for some reason or another no body ever seems to use. Perfect when you're walking multiples of dogs. This morning I was glad to see it hadn't changed. Not a soul in sight. I togged Elly up in her snow suit and wellies and let Mossy out of the car.

A sharp wind blowing from the northwest  created a nice swell for him to work against. The water was exactly the depth I wanted, chest deep, so it acted as a counter weight and made him work using front and back quarters equally. For this type of workout he will have no more than six retrieves each spaced out throughout the walk. The peace and solitude of the walk was only broken by the calls of the brent geese above us. Annoyed , I'm sure, that someone was intruding on their morning feeding.
Monday evening we were back at ring craft and a massive improvement in standing for exam.



February 21st.

Just over a month since I recieved the invitation to put forward an Irish team for this year's Aigle Euro Challenge at the CLA game fair in July.It has consumed my thoughts night and day. I have spent the last few weeks sending out letters and emails with a thin thread of hope that we will get some sort of sponsorship or help . It is a difficult time to be looking for any sort of monetary assistance. That thin thread of hope is rapidly evaporating and I need to turn my time and attention , for the moment on trianing my own dogs and preparing for competition.So I'm parking it for a while. Going to turn my attention to forthcoming competitions and revisit it later in the Spring. The first working competition of the season is just over a week away. A mock field trial being run by Ballygowan game and Wildfowling Club in aid of the MS Charity.

Winnie is just 4 weeks post AI. Her outline has changed and teats are enlarged. I'm still hesitant about declaring whether or not she is or isn't and haven't decided yet whether I'll bite the bullet and get her scanned next week.

I finally got round to contacting the UK Kennel Club today about applying to have both Winnie and Chester become Full UK Champions. The answer is 'Yes', subject to us sending through their appropriate paperwork both will be allowed to use the Full Champion title. I'm pretty sure this will make them the only chesapeakes to hold a Full Irish Champion Title, an International Beaute Champion title and Full UK Champion Title.

February 22nd

Loaded up the trailer and headed to myMum's this morning. Dropped Elly at playschool and then headed back to my Mum's. Gave Mossy, Zoe and  Bailey a blowout down the fields . Laid some blinds and headed back for a quick coffee and to meet Colum and Stevie.
Training is coming along nicely although the proof will be in the pudding at the competition in Fermanagh in 2 weeks time. One thing I've learned as a certainty when competing with dogs and that is , 'nothing is a certainty'. Bertie is handling very nicely now. His biggest flaw is just a little thing but something that could lose a lot of marks and incredibly difficult to correct ...creeping in line. We've been working hard on it over the last few weeks and if he only gets that right in Fermanagh I will be very happy.

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