Rumi and I have had the privilege of being invited for larger commercial hunts in Belgium during the last couple of years. This has been such a learning opportunity for me as a handler and it has brought out the best hunting skills in her. Having a high drive dog and combining hunting with competitions in the same season is not the easiest path to choose, but I enjoy this combination more than my ambition.

Our competition season ended a bit disappointing.. first we had to stop during a our first working test A. Rumi had hurt her paw while jumping a fence. Then I became ill and missed the FRC AT. Finally recovered and ready on time for the WFRG Trophy, then it got cancelled due to Covid-19. So not quite the end of a season we had in mind.

End of competition season means more time available to go hunting – therefore I gladly accepted an invitation to join a so called farmer’s hunt in the Northeast of Netherlands. A farmer’s hunt is a small hunt, in this region mostly focusing on regulating the enormous amount of farm land damage by geese. In the Netherlands we have geese in amounts that one can surely call it a plague for farmers and grass areas. They destroy large amounts of crop and fill the fields with excrements – causing high nitrogen release into the environment.

Hunting geese is not an easy task – they are extremely clever and communicate with each other. They spot you very easily in the field and wearing camouflage clothing and hiding well is necessary. Having a dog who is sitting quietly and holding position is essential. For Rumi who is used to retrieving a large amount of ducks on each drive, this is a bit challenging but luckily she is a quick learner. I enjoyed the cold morning – out in the field from sunrise, trying to differentiate the birds while passing. I have great respect for the hunters and their field knowledge and love for nature and care in their decision making. Today was also very special as one of the hunters was lucky to harvest (Dutch language use this term) her first goose. Rumi had the honor of retrieving the goose in a stream.

After the goose hunt, we walked a great deal of farmland with watersides in chance of ducks. Especially male wild ducks are in high numbers and make a good protein source in our diets. As these hunts are only successful if the hunter approaches very carefully I stayed on a distance. Therefore Rumi had 3 retrieves – all blind and by directing on water – I am so proud how well she followed directions and in cold and windy waters. The last retrieve was a duck with an unfortunate wingshot hiding in thick cover of water plants. “Go search” and then it is pure joy to see a flatcoated retriever doing what they master to perfection: working the scent of the wind in the waterside cover. Some turning tail action and I know that she has picked up the scent. Into the deep water, pulling the duck out through the cover and then tangled in water plants pushing herself out of the steep waterside with the duck. I am so proud of her for this beautiful retrieve. Tomorrow I will prepare the duck and enjoy it with my family. Thank you Lieuwe for this wonderful day in the field.

Last Friday Rumi and I finished the official SJP season by giving it a go at the SJP A. It was a long shot to expect that we could succeed in getting two SJP A diplomas in one season with the circumstances that we have had. We are very happy with the one A in the pocket so why share this post on not having completed our “goal”? Because there has been an important lesson in the whole proces for me, which I think might be worthwhile sharing. When you have a sport dog and you have high ambitions it is very easy to get drawn into all aspects to enhance the winning chances. Training with a high-end trainer, knowing the right people to have access to terrains etc., having chances to bring your dog to shoots, improving your own skills, training your dog as much as possible.

It can be a very addictive state of mind to be in and it can also take the joy out of being with you best friend in the field.

Due to Rumi’s permanent shoulder injury it is no longer possible to have a full training schedule for her. Therefore I loose mental training time and if I would have to compensate for that – getting control back would mean pushing harder and maybe in a way that is not close to my heart. So “the sand slips between my fingers” while I am looking at it. Looking from that perspective the glass is half empty.

The other side of things is that my beautiful girl has taught me to value every day without pain or worry. She has taught me another very valuable lesson: to be real and allow imperfections. Accept the place we are at. Accept her nature and work with it the best we can within the limitations. This also means taking a piece of the humble pie once and a while. Looking at it from this perspective the glass is half full.

The wonderful thing about accepting being right where we are at – is that it allows “flow”to appear. So I am very thankful for having Flow with my Flow-girl.

Maybe this personal note may serve as a little reminder for some of us in the dog-handling business. To step down once and a while from chasing goals and just checking if we can still drink from the joy of being in flow with our dog and the partnership. Thank you Rumi for this wise lesson!

While we are still continuing training – also with Rumi as much as possible – patience seems to be the key word with the two youngsters (or should I say monsters?). We are dreaming of flow in the future – for now it is mostly that they are having flatastic fun and I am trying to keep up and being at least half a step ahead. Again a major life lesson in staying in the moment and not getting caught up in result thinking.

But enough philosophical contemplation – another thing that took some patience was adding our youngsters to the Flatastic website with their own page. If you are curious – follow the link: https://flatastic.nl/dogs/ or look at the page dogs here and check out what we made of it. Would love to hear what you think.

3rd of October 2021 was the day of the Dutch flatcoated retriever club to have their yearly club show. The flatastic gang was present and we even won the offspring class – an unofficial class but it was great fun to participate. Frans de Vries had designed a flatastic logo to wear on our similar t-shirts:

It was a long day with rain pouring repeatedly – not the best way to get familiar with dog shows, but I must say I am really proud that we pulled through. In good company and with sufficient catering we managed to get through te long waiting hours. Thank you to all the owners for participating and Barbara and Caroline for helping out showing my two youngsters in the offspring class.

In one week beauty & brains…
Rumi achieved her first SJP A diploma last Saturday in Oostvoorne – 87 points out of 100. She may have a strong will of her own but when it is aligned with me she is magical to work with.
We were placed 2nd and received a cup. 🥳

After our Danish debut it was finally time to go Dutch with the Flatastic gang. After a persistent pledge of Barbara Ras to enter mommy Rumi too in show competition I decided to do so. Guess what – she won the open class!

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Also the youngster were in good show mood – Kaspar got placed 3rd excellent in breeder’s class and Lotte an excellent in same category.

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Not only our own dogs did very well at the show – all other Flatastic Aura litter mates present received Excellent. Congratulations to all owners with their results & thank you for participating in the show.

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Past weekend we were participating in the Danish flatcoated retriever club event in Nordsjælland not far from Copenhagen. Saturday was Markprøve B and our dynamic duo were signed up for Brugsprøve. The Brugsprøve is an accesgiving obedience and retrieving test one needs to obtain in order to enter working tests and field trials. It was held in a forest and the strong wild life smells there was a bit challenging for our “twins”. The judge made it clear that we need to practice obedience in these surroundings. I was thinking how to explain how difficult it is in the Netherlands to have access to these kind of grounds. But the feedback was right on spot. We did pass though. Happy me.

Next day it was showtime. To me it was a bit special as it was held in my hometown where I was born and raised. Judge was Susanne Tillge and all of our dogs obtained excellent qualifications. Kaspar used all of his charm and won 1st price in Junior male class. He even obtained a junior certificate as the judge saw potential for him to become junior champion. The greatest thing though was that he loved all of it and won a yellow dummy. a pretty beer glass and chocolates.

Judge Susanne Tillge DK:

Kaspar: 15 months junior male, good size, good male appearance, long well shaped head, correct bite, big nostrils, tight lips, dark eyes, tight eyes, well placed ears,beautiful top line, strong hind body, well placed shoulder, well placed tail, correct angulated front and back, good bone, strong paws, good coat, fluent and healthy movements, wonderful temperament.

Lotte: 15 months junior bitch good size, good feminine appearance, long well shaped head, correct bite, beautiful top line, a little low placed tail, strong hind body, well angulated front and back, strong bone, tight paws, good coat, healthy movements and wonderful temperament.

Rumi: 5 years open bitch, good size, good feminine appearance, long well shaped head, correct bite, tight lips, big nostrils, dark eyes, tight eyes, well placed ears, beautiful top line, well hind placed shoulder, strong hind body, well placed tail, well angulated front and back, good bone, tight paws, good coat, healthy fluent movements, good temperament.

This morning I was invited to join a summer hunt with Rumi by a befriended hunter. However according to Dutch law it was not a hunt, but it is a part of pest control for farmers as the country is suffering from huge amounts of geese, eating their way through the profit of farmers. It was in the North of NL and I am very impressed by the huge number of geese I saw this morning. I have now seen with my own eyes how incredible the damage on crop is after a goose-stop on a piece of land and I can imagine farmers get really tired of seeing their efforts being ruined by these birds. At the same time, it is an amazing gaze when 500 geese take off into the horizon all together. Such incredible creatures.

We were in the field at 6 o’clock setting up the decoys and building a hiding place. We sat for 4 hours and all the geese had set their minds on the neighbor’s field instead, so Rumi and had little action and a lot of steadyness training.

It was a very enjoyable morning as it was a good example of how much it takes to manage the fields and for hunters to have knowledge of how Nature works, the terrain and also for us handlers to put in practice what we spend years to teach our hunting dogs.

At the end of the morning Rumi and I were asked to search for two birds. One in a grain field and one in a large river with strong current. Both birds were picked up and it was great to see my beautiful girl back in action.

We were forced to postpone the litter reunion 3 times this past year due to covid lockdowns.. so it was with great joy that I could finally invite all owners to our first reunion.

A great effort was made to change work schedules and drive a severe range of km’s to be able to attend from the owners part.

Our goal was having a great day together enjoying our dogs while learning a little bit too.

Caroline and Pernilla Nilsson were kind to provide an introduction workshop in presenting your dog in preparation of the shows this autumn.

After lunch we did some ground exercises for good body management of your sporting dog and we enjoyed a hilarious fun game estafette style with walking on the leash – no corrections – carrying an egg on a spoon, holding a baguette (instead of a dummy-no chewing allowed) and carrying a serving tray with water glasses. 3 teams and first one in with lowest damage won. It was great fun and surprisingly the flatastics were less bandito style than expected.

Thank you all for coming and sharing the day together- it was very special for me to see with my own eyes what have become of the dogs after a good years time.

A big thank you for the help provided of friends to make this day possible. For more pictures please go to the Aura Litter 2020 page on the website.

Every summer the WFRG (working flatcoated retriever group) organizes a working test for flatties only called the Talent Hunt. Inspired by the Swedish “Flatmästerskabet” and with the purpose of bringing all levels of working flatcoated retrievers together in a good atmosphere to enjoy typical flatcoated style of working.

Having had a bit of a rough training year for our youngsters due to Covid-19 interruptions and a trainer dropping out shortly after being back on training track, we were a bit insecure wether we would be able to join the WT. So we decided to join the baby class for completely inexperienced dogs – being able to work the dogs from the collar and leash not risking steadyness challenges.

Our worries were without reason because the dogs did absolutely fine! Plenty of details to continue working with and far from perfect but the basics were fine – their excitement levels were good to handle and they managed very well on the hot and long day out in the field.

For me the day was very special – it was such a joy to be with the 6 Flatastic Aura “babies“ in the competition and a am so proud of Rumi and Brösel’s offspring, but even so of their handlers who take the time to train their dogs well and taking care of their well-being while doing so. That is in my opinion very valuable. On top of that it is such a wonderful thing to share the passion for this breed and working with them. Though working your dog at a competition is not a team sport (except from you and the dog being a team), the presence of good company with like minded people delivers the cherry on top.

Another sweet cherry on top of this great event: Marja and Shelby were among the 5 best contestants of the baby class “snuffelklasse” so they were invited to do a final run of a double marking of approx 80 m. They did great and came in on a nice 4th place. Congratulatitons Marja and Shelby and the rest of the Flatastic’s with their first WT certificates.

A day in the park

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Training young flatcoated retrievers with passion for hunting is not a walk in the park. It sometimes feels a bit more like a jungle tour and there are days when you just have relax to what is and try again with a smile. But when you look back – you suddenly see how much the young dogs have learnt already. We had the pleasure of being visited by Caroline Nilsson who needed moving models to test her camera. This resulted in some lovely impressions of our training last Wednesday.