A barbet weekend and grooming

On Saturday I had the pleasure of Eton and his owner, I am pleased to say we have experimented with a new brush on his coat. We must have removed nearly a black bag of hair, and he still looked like a barbet when he left, so now we sit and wait to see how the coat grows back. Learning about the breed and their coats will take time, in some breeds coat colour makes a difference, and whether the dog has been castrated or spayed can make a difference.So far I do think that shaving black dogs makes the coat curlier and thicker, but thats not 100% accurate. The future for a perfect coat will be the ratio of undercoat to the top coat, and the length of undercoat. If you look back at the old barbet, it would have been shaved with the sheep or as a peasants dog would have got so matted that as the hair grew the dog would scratch the matts out or they would get caught on something and get pulled out, not a nice thought as some areas would always remained uncomfortable for the dog, as some old books describe, the barbet was a smelly flea infested dog.

Understanding an HPR

This gives a brilliant explanation to the gundog breeds known as HPR (hunt,point and retrieve)

HPR what does it mean

Where does the barbet fit in, there is no doubt as owners in this Country will tell you it can hunt (without training), I have witnessed a son of Bepop pointing and several owners again have told me that their barbets do point so its not beyond the breeds capabilities to strengthed this feature. As for retrieving, well, 11 barbets in the Uk have passed their basic aptitude test for the breed called the TAN which included retrieving in water, so that one is easy to include.
I have just read a book all about training a young pointer to point, so much work goes into training even with dogs that have natural ability, although it seems that alot is about your relationship with the dog and how you work as a team.