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.

On a misty Saturday morning – 11 flatcoated retrievers & one golden retriever met in the beautiful Putten for a working test workshop hosted by Yvonne van Houten from Tricksywood’s kennel and myself. Our two kennels have produced working gundogs and we were brought together by one of my puppy buyers (Lieuwe Bosma) who is training at Yvonne’s dog gundog school (Jachthondenschool Kaya). As we enjoy the same passion for gundogs and share the love for flatties we felt it would be awesome to host a working test workshop – primarily for our own litters. As many were busy with holiday catch ups – there were some spaces left for guests and we were even joined by a very talented golden retriever.

Our program was full and after a short introduction of one another we started the day with heelwork practice. First we shared some tension regulation tools as we had steadyness practice later to come and then we started with the basics of double marking heelwork. This means teaching the dogs to turn on the spot from the front – or hind legs, sitting and standing.

While I was holding the “heelwork bootcamp” Yvonne had the other group in steadyness practice. Using the air & go while working from a line, who would have thought that a group of young flatties could do so well? The handlers were in need of a good lunch and some time to unwind after the morning program. A nice cup of warm pumpkin soup, richly filled sandwiches and plenty of chocolate (and for the dogs a big biscuit) – was all we needed to get started in the afternoon.

Yvonne had a nice marking exercise in and around crow decoys from a hut. We can proudly announce that all decoys were left unattended. No flattie flaws today!

As Yvonne and her helper were shooting around I had a duck and goose hunt at the waterside, doing a baby walk up – retrieving through the cover on a partly marked water retriever, partly on the sound of the foam duck hitting the water. All dogs were easy to work through the cover and all dogs managed to retrieve the huge foam goose from open water.

Not only did Yvonne and I enjoy the day with so many lovely flatties & a beautiful golden boy, it was very rewarding to see how many handlers made a slow shift of attention from aiming to control their dogs to working with the eagerness by positive reinforcement when the dogs do what we like to see. It is a hard change to make from trying to erase errors by control to enhancing the wanted behavior. Lovely to see how the dogs responded and started to do more of the good stuff. What touches me is the immediate improvement in the connection between dog and handler. Well done you all!

In the beginning of the year I made a list of goals in order to have a clear vision of what we are putting our efforts into. One of the goals concerned gundog competition work. I had hoped for a second SJP A for Rumi and at least a SJP B for the youngsters. Yesterday we fulfilled that wish when Flatastic Black Peace “Kaspar” achieved his SJP B with 68 point out of 80. Still plenty of room for improvement- but his official B hunting exams is passed. It was not easy as I was on crutches and my Italian was not very comfortable with these sticks around him. It resulted in a rather creative delivery execution – he is very clever to avoid risks (the day before I had accidentally dropped one of them on his back). Very proud of my beauty & brains guy.

My personal standard and preference for breeding flatcoated retrievers is at least a SJP B or equivalent as it proves that a dog that is bred to hunt is showing that he will retrieve game and have basic obedience. Apart from that an excellent anatomy in the eyes of an exterior judge is preferred.

Kaspar has now proven up to that standard and with his health results he is now complying with the FCI, Dutch Kennel Club and the flatcoated retriever club’s requirements in order to be used for breeding.

But before my lights turn from orange to green Kaspar will as most of his sibling undergo an ultrasound scan to ensure that his kidneys are as they should be. This is due to the early loss of his sister Line (see earlier news feed). I have spend a lot of time contemplating and gaining information wether I should continue with this in mind and I still feel that our breed is troubled by a low gene pool, too many cancer cases, early age death rate is too high generally speaking. Apart from that – very few flatcoated retrievers show the work drive and intelligence that I find so characteristic for them. I still feel both Kaspar and Lotte can contribute to keeping my beloved breed alive – maintaining the gene pool and adding working skills and good looks and function. A few interested puppy buyers are on the waiting list already and we will keep it open and start making plans as soon as we have had the last confirmation on health concerning the kidneys.

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.