Up until now Kaspar had not had a chance to be alone when hunting. It is a bit of a disadvantage having to stand in the shadow of another dog but at the same time they can learn by watching. It is called observational learning and especially puppies and young dogs learn by watching. But also grown ups do learn doing so. I therefore always turn my dogs away when we are seeing another dog performing in an unwanted manner.

Many handlers tend to watch things go wrong with their dogs are at heal next to them expecting their dog to see everything while not “learning” from it. It is fairly easy to redirect your dog’s attention by calling his name and rewarding the attention with a small treat without having to move your dog and possibly disturbing others. This is a simple example how you can redirect attention. I use a lot of redirecting attention when working my flatcoated retrievers. The breed is known to be a working dog who will hear see and smell every bit of the surroundings, therefore they can easily be distracted or “loose their heads” to what the exact task is. Starting a practice of “leave it for later” is really a big necessity if one wants a reliable gundog.

Kaspar was lucky to have a few retrieves of goose shortly after arrival at the field. I was walking him in heal behind the hunters when the first two geese fell. One still was a bit lively so he needed some encouragement, but brought it well to my hand. I am always a bit nervous when a goose is not dead right away. They are big birds and I do not want suffering to continue. I feel that the craftsmanship of hunting for your dinner table contains the ability to witness the suffering and ending it swiftly is very important. The fact that it touches my heart forces me to have respect and appreciation for nature and living beings. Knowing I having taken a life to have food.. it urges me to live my life to the most. I even feel we should all be able to kill our own food if we wish to eat meat. Otherwise we become nonchalant and easily throwing meat products away without any sense of value.

While walking on Lieuwe who was one of the hunters told me more about nature. There is a bird that is very territorial. It will simply drown all other birds in the water without any hesitation:

I really enjoy being out in Nature and learning from the field. It has an impact on my being and I can intensely enjoy the quietness and vastness presenting itself to me.

After a long sit and wait – a goose was shot and it fell across the water. My hunter said the wings were still healthy so we had to walk 800 m around to find it. While doing so Kaspar was surprised by a hare who took off and he started to chase. I have done a lot – really a lot to train recall with distractions but on a hunting day with high adrenaline a running hare passing at 3 meters distance while on a free search.. I did not expect him to pass the chance. But in the back of my head I forced myself to give it a go. Thinking – “do not avoid your own chance of failure – just go for it”. I grabbed my whistle and he ran 2-3 meters then turned away towards me. Wauw! That was the greatest moment of the day with my Italian. He came back with a big grin and a tongue out. I was of course very proud of him that he let the hare go. The goose turned out to give us a bit of exercise and after 30 minutes we were able to get it. Kaspar had retrieved it after a second shot only seeing the gun’s direction and coming back he hesitated jumping in a steep river. I signed him to stay at the field in the other side – a big goose that has been in dirty water is less hygienic to cut out in parts and very heavy to carry home. So for this moment I made use of the hesitation. If it was a gundog competition it would cost a lot of points. These situations are also why some people do not hunt with their dogs when they want to use them in competitions.. you can easily “spoil” certain pieces of your training.

A big thank you to Lieuwe for inviting me and Kaspar and thank you for letting me take the geese home for my dinner table.

Last summer we found this beautiful children’s playhouse on a Danish campsite on Læsø. It reminded me of an Austrian log house that is found in the snow and so we decided to use it for our holiday greetings card this year. Is it not cute?

We wish all of our friends joyful and Flatastic holidays, may it be good for you and your four legged friends too. ❤️

We are spending Christmas with our three wonderful black beauties on the couch revoking from a nasty flu, contemplating on next year’s plans and enjoying looking back at the year that has passed.

I am thankful first of all for all the great learning while training my dogs at Jachthondenschool de Kust, by Jantine Veldhuizen. I feel privileged to have a safe place where I can practice the art of failing and succeeding without any personal shaming or pressure.

I am also thankful for all the loving care my dogs were able to receive from Physiotherapist Fysiotherapie voor dieren Marijke Hegemans, Holistic Vet Den Hoek and Diergeneeskundig centrum Alphen Ad Rijn.

Apart from all the love, companionship and joy we enjoyed with our dogs at home in the past year we also look back at many accomplishments from our dogs and their littermates. Here is a short overview of the fruits of our efforts in 2022:

Flow of Spirits Silver Skipper

FRC club show 1st place open class bitches

WFRG Talentenjacht working test open class 4th place

Working Test A certificate

Danish Flatcoated Retriever Club show 2nd place excellent bitches open class

WFRG Club show 4th place excellent open class bitches

FRC apporteer trofee 8th place

WFRG trofee 9th place

Raad van Beheer WOW (yearlist show results) 45th place out of 243 entries.

Flatastic Black Peace

C-diploma CDD

1st place Danish Debutant prøve

1st place CDD B

SJP C

SJP B

3rd place SJP B

Working test B1 certificate

Danish Flatcoated Club show Roskilde 1st place intermediate class & BIM intermediate class.

Gundog show Doorwerth BOB working (1st place Excellent) & 3rd place all breeds working. 1st place with sister Lotte in couple’s class.

Raad van Beheer WOW competition 60th place out of 243 entries

Flatastic Red Strength

CDD-B

Danish Deputant prøve 3rd place

SJP B diploma

SJP B diploma

Danish Flatcoated Retriever club 1st place VG Intermediate class

Gundog Show Doorwerth 3rd place excellent open class bitches & 1st place couples class all breeds with brother Kaspar.

Raad van beheer WOW competition 109th place out of 243

The two Trophy’s of the flatcoated retriever clubs are now completed. It was our debut in these flatcoated retriever finals with 4X triple retrieves and not an easy task to participate in whilst Rumi being in heat and just out of heat. It cost us a couple of brain farts and she was a bit more distracted than normally but nevertheless she showed that she is well into this level’s requirements. So I feel proud of Rumi and all the hurdles we have overwon together. The FRC – Flatcoated Retriever Club published some very beautiful photos taken by Ad Ordelman and Robin Polman. Enjoy

It is autumn and it is the busiest season for us. While all finals of the gundog competitions are in full motion – hunting season is also at her peak.

I am driving back and forth from hunts and competitions and the three musketeers are luckily in top condition.

Rumi (Flow of Spirits Silver Skipper) and I came in 8th place at the Flatcoated Retriever Club’s Trophy. The competition is a copy of the Dutch Championships (triple retrieves) though on shorter distances and more retrieves – 12 in total.

Rumi was unfortunately in heat and I had already accepted that we once again had to stay at home. It turned out though that the organizing party was motivated to invite us despite her heat and after consent of the two participating male dogs we found a way to participate without causing distractions.

This meant that Rumi spend the day locked up in the car and only taken out for the 4 takes. It is not the best way to be in a competition but considering this fact and her hormonal state I think we did allright only missing out two retrieves. The most difficult drags – she did very well so that was very pleasing to me.

I would like to thank FRC for a special day of gundogging. I felt very appreciated and valued by the club – thank you for all the trouble you went through to spoil us. Thank you for the flexibility and effort and thank you for the great goodybag. I really enjoyed the rest of the dogs too. Rather special to have the top of the Dutch working flatcoated at one place at once. Congrats to Marc & Janne who won the Trophy 🥳. Also a big thanks to helpers and judges.

On my way home I got a call if I could step in to retrieve on a hunt early next morning.. so me, Rumi and Lotte had a short rest that night.

Rumi got a wonderful chance to work on her speciality: finding hurt ducks alongside water. She taught Lotte the tricks of catching diving ducks and Lotte also showed the same drive to continue searching as her passionate mother. After the drive she managed to find 5 hurt ducks that had been hiding successfully from other dogs..

Their will to hunt and continue sometimes takes the best of my patience but in these situations I feel so utterly proud and amazed by these black beauties.

Some photos from the past season:

Thank you to my husband for allowing me to spend so much time and effort with our flatcoats this time a year.

Last weekend (29th & 30th Oct. 2022) the WFRG held a working test in Lochem, East Holland close to the German border.

On Saturday Hans Mansveld & Spyke passed the test with a certificate in the C class. Me and Kaspar managed to pass the B1 test with a certificate.

On Sunday it was Rumi’s time. She achieved a working test A certificate. Our first one 🥳

Apart from enjoying working with our dogs the weekend gave the opportunity to catch up with other Flatastics. I also had the pleasure of spending two nights at Josine & Mathijs’ place with half sister Ragne. Thank you for having me and the 3 musketeers visiting.

In the middle of the hunting season I decided to have a different shoot. My friend & photographer Anita from Arista Photography took us out on a very sunny day to catch some shine on the black coats. Here is a collection of the photos:

The day before yesterday we received the sad news that Rumi’s mother Flynn (Khila-Flynn Umbra Fida) has passed away at the age of 11 years old after 7 weeks of illness caused by a tumor in her nose.

Flynn was a special lady – like Rumi a dog who chose herself who she liked and she had a mind of her own. I loved her for her sweet and vulnerable presence, she was not only a fantastic working gun dog but she was very beautiful too. I am very thankful for all the great trades she has passed on to her daughter grandchildren for us to enjoy.

Sadly I have not been a part of her last years – but before that I was privileged to be somewhat close in her life and therefore have many wonderful memories of her to cherish.

Flynn – enjoy hunting rabbits with Mille and your other friends in the forever hunting fields. We also wish all who love Flynn the best in grieving this loss.

Last Sunday Lotte & Kaspar participated in the Gundog show Doorwerth. It was a very warm and dry day and the dogs were having a hard time even in the shade.

Kaspar was brought out in the working class for the first time and he made it to the finals with all the other gundog breed winners of the working classes.

Lotte was for the first time brought out in the open class competing with much more mature bitches.

Our results:

Judge Mrs Richy Lochs judging the flatcoated retrievers:

Flatastic Black Peace “Kaspar” BOB working (1st place excellent)

Flatastic Red Strength “Lotte” 3rd place excellent bitches open class

Judge mr. Hans van den Berg judging all breeds working final:

Flatastic Black Peace “Kaspar” 3rd place working finals (all breeds)

Judge mrs. Linda Weijnans judging couples:

Flatastic Black Peace “Kaspar” Flatastic Red Strength “Lotte” 1st place couples class all breeds

We are very pleased by the wonderful results – a special thanks to Josine and Mathijs who saved my day by helping out. Congratulations on your results – also for halfsister Ragne ( Beguarded in a conch shell Flat Our Pride) who won the puppy class with a deserved excellent.

The competition season is full in action and the hunting season has commenced as well. In the Netherlands hunters are working hard to save the farmers’ crop from doves and different birds. In Belgium the duck season is already in full action and Flatastic Aquamarine Acceptance “Jason” and Flatastic Green Compassion “Fien” have been out in the fields together for retrieving.

Flatastic Platinum Alignment “Gurbe” obtained a very impressive SJP B diploma on game with 75 point out of 80.

Flatastic Silver Will “Bruce” has a SJP B of 69 out of 80 point and is now qualified for MAP B competitions.

Congratulations Lieuwe and Klaas with your great B diplomas.

Yesterday Rumi and I finally obtained our 2nd SJP A allowing us to subscribe to MAP A competitions. MAP A is the highest level of gundog competitions on game – designed to resemble real hunting situations. The competitions serve as selection competitions for the the Dutch championships called Nimrod.

From now on only the fun stuff awaits the two of us Rumi. Thank you for everything up until now.

Two weeks ago me and the dogs started our summer tour by visiting Yvonne Scheltens – a fellow flatcoated breeder (Tricksywood’s) and gundog trainer in the beautiful Drenthe region in the Netherlands. We shared some great training time with both our young dogs and their mothers in the challenging terrain Big thanks for your hospitality Yvonne and looking very much forward to our future plans…

From the north of NL me and the happy three dog campers travelled to Denmark to join a weekend of training with 60+ other flatcoated retrievers. I had prepared a small lecture on stress in working dogs for the Danes and on the photo underneath you see a very hot room with interested people sticking to it despite the conditions – after a long hot day of training (only cooling options for the dogs) sitting in a warm cabin taking in serious dog knowledge is only for die hards. My respect and thankfulness for your engagement in becoming a better owner/handler for your dogs!

Luckily I also had time to train my own dogs. Training three was a challenge – so I had asked Josine (owner of + Line) if she would like to handle Kaspar for me. I joined with Lotte and together we started at the beginners team but moved on to the open class team on Sunday afternoon led by Carsten Druekær (trainer and gundog judge). It was very enjoyable to be trained by Carsten – he is a complete training nerd – loves to go into detail with learning stuff and he has a huge heart and understanding of dogs’ beghavior and technical execution of an exercise. He will never let any of us become dull in training our dogs and he gave me a leap ahead in one afternoon. Carsten I will come back for more as soon as I am back in DK! Another joy of training abroad is the fact that there are different traditions to working your dogs. For us – practicing working in a manner where the dogs had to pass one another from close by and be passed by others too was new and very useful to practice.

Such a training weekend is very enjoyable- first of all it can really push you into a new impulse in your own training but secondly it is a great opportunity to meet other flatcoated handlers, breeders and trainers. Reminding me that we really need to work together to preserve our wonderful breed. This year Annette & Jørgen (to whom a big thank you for arranging) added tracking to the menu and due to lack of time – I asked Lene and Jan from kennel Whimbrel if we could visit later in the same week.

Jan was so very kind to make several red deer tracks to all of the dogs including half sister Ragne of Josine and Mathijs with whom we have been camping all week on Fyn. All of the dogs enjoyed the tracking and especially little Ragne gained huge amounts of self confidence when she discovered her tracking skills. Rumi was so powerful that Jan had to take over the line. I could simply not hold her.

Big thanks to kennel Whimbrel – Lene and Jan for having us and especially Jan for the great tracking experience.