Is a Barbet a Gundog?

Martha surprised me on Saturday, so her new title will be Amazing Martha.
We have been on a new shoot which is quite near us and they were short of beaters so we went along, sadly Bepop is a bit big for this shoot as due to the distances we cover, sometimes a landrover is needed so the size of dog is very relevant. Anyway back to Martha......On the 5th drive of the day she appeared along a track with a huge cock bird that had only a leg injury, this was her first experience of a warm bird and to add a very large alive bird and she presented it to me beautifully, a very proud moment :). I didn't think the day would get better but on the last drive, when we were all exhausted as it had been a tough day with only 6 beaters and 2 dogs, a Spinione and a Barbet , amazing Martha worked like she had never done before.The last drive is called the the Water meadows, and with all the rain and flooding it was extremely wet!!!!, she worked the hedge without any instruction and flushed the birds and as she was doing all the work I got out my camera, and suddenly she appeared with a shot bird, so there you have it, Martha excelling at a job. At the end of the day she got a few more pats than normal from the guns, and a few more asking, ''what is your dog again?''   .

Martha has a beautiful sister

 Meet Lili, the sweet sister of Martha who is living in Holland.......they could be twins. lili is going to be doing gundog training, so I hope to follow her progress and show Martha how clever her sister is.

Hallie and dog training

Well, Hallie has now been enrolled in weekly dog training classes and after two weeks she has settled in nicely amongst the labradors which outnumber her by 5-1. I am helping out at the classes as I am very interested in not just the training but also the behaviour of pups and Hallie at not yet 6 months old has to lie down and watch the first class for an hour. To be honest I didn't think it would be possible that Hallie could be that good!.
The first week we sat together and watched the puppy class,  a group of 6 puppies ranging from 6 months to 8 months, it was very noisy, but  Hallie remained relatively calm throughout. Hallie then joined the older dog class and behaved extremely well and was much steadier than I could have hoped for as training with other dogs especially for a pup is very distracting.The second week she was tied to a piano on the stage, with my coat as her blanket and I sat near her whilst the first class was held, and after intently watching the class for awhile, she then lay on her side and slept. I woke her for her training session and once again she excelled, and her three dummy retrieves were all to hand :) So she is learning to chill amongst chaos, and she is learning to work with distractions and what is best of all for me is that when the classes are finished, she turns into a complete hooligan and wants to play and cause chaos with all the dogs. So she is not just a perfect puppy that is easy to train, she is learning what is expected of her in different situations.Fingers crossed for our third week, I will keep you posted.