I just got back from watching my pup run at summer camp in S. Dakota. All I can say is wow. Wow to the scenery, the birds, the dogs, everything. My 15 month old Brit is with a field trail trainer from Virginia. He takes 30-40 dogs up to S. Dakota every year to train, and get his field trial dogs ready for the circuit. I was amazed to watch some of his dogs work. It really is something to watch big running Brits that handle well work sharptails in the plains. The All Age FT dogs would run 300-500 yards consistantly and head out 800+ at times. However, they would still handle very well off the whistle and E-collar. It really is something to watch these dogs work. One of the dogs in camp is the High Points Brittany in the U.S. right now. And IMO he wasn't even the best brit there.
My pup is 15 months old and doing really well. She is broke to wing and shot, broke to flush, and backs nicely. When I get her back in Oct I will only have to work on polishing her up, and work on her raising her tail when shes standing. Once I'm comfortable with her being 100% steady I will start to work on her retrieving. She will run 3 Derby trials in Iowa, Nebraska, and S. Dakota in the next couple weeks. Hopefully she will get her 2 championship points and I can pull her from Derby. I can't wait to hunt her this year in Georgian and hopefully bring her back and hunt back home in WA as well. If you ever get a chance to send your dog off to camp in the Dakotas do it. You simply can't reproduce the amount of wild birds they will see out there in WA or GA (where I now live).
The dog my dog is backing in the 6th picture was the 2006 American Brittany Club Gun Dog Classic Champion. And there were several dogs in camp that were a lot better and bigger running then her, even though she is a great dog. The quality of dogs that I got to see run was simply amazing.
