Quartering and a word on feeding – 30th July 2008

All work and no play…well, things aren’t like that around here.  Yes, I know I should be concentrating on the quartering, the drop to flush etc but sometimes we all need time to unwind.

The blurry photo is Grace tucking into a chunk of lamb ribs.  It has been 5 months since I switched her to a raw diet and we haven’t looked back.  It isn’t as complicated as I had guessed and she is definately better for it.  I could not recommend it more highly.  She is only fed on a specific blanket so feeding her in the house isn’t a problem.  She will not take the meat off the blanket.

This evening I went up onto the heather.  Grace really impressed me with her running.  She took a few moments to get into her stride but then seemed to improve by the minute.  She ran a good wide beat working equidistant both sides of me (she is turning in the photo, arrowed).  She ran flat, didn’t back cast and took a good chunk of ground with each cast.  I was really pleased.  We had some very close encounters with sheep (15 feet or so) and she didn’t bat an eyelid.  I had to force myself to walk forward as watching her run was absolutely transfixing.  It’s days like these that justify all the work you put in to training…and we didn’t even find a bird (not that I was expecting to).  Wonderful.