Have dog, will travel

Owners are prepared to clock up the miles to get back out in the field after a year of lockdown, as David Tomlinson discovers in Suffolk

I WAS SURPRISED TO hear that the Kennel Club’s recent online survey has revealed that 60% of competitors want events to return as soon as possible. Only 60%?

The enthusiasm of gundog aficionados to get back to doing what they and their dogs enjoy was brought home to me last month when I joined 20 handlers, all members of the Hungarian Wire-haired Vizsla Club of Great Britain (HWVCGB), for a pointing and hare day in Suffolk.

To those unfamiliar with the world of HPRS, the fact that all the handlers were members of the HWVCGB but only a minority were running wirehaired vizslas may seem surprising. However, it’s usual for owners of working HPRS to belong to a variety of different breed clubs.

The HWVCGB has a well-deserved reputation for staging training days, so for HPR owners who want to get out and do things with their dogs, it’s one of the best clubs to belong to.

I was delighted to find a rich variety of dogs taking part, with representatives of the following breeds: Slovakian rough-haired pointer, German shorthaired, longhaired and wirehaired pointer, Weimaraner, Munsterlander, bracco, spinone, Hungarian vizsla and wirehaired vizsla, braque du Bourbonnais and braque d’auvergne.

It was an impressive mixture, with the Brittany the only obvious absentee.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the variety of dogs were the distances many of the handlers had travelled to take part, ranging from Wiltshire and Warwickshire to Derbyshire and Sussex. For most participants, the 9am start meant a departure in the early hours. The fact that they were prepared to do so was not only a demonstration of their enthusiasm, but also a celebration of our freedom to travel. We have been starved of liberties for long enough.

Optimism

Over the years, I’ve been to many gundog events, but there was something special about this day, a certain buzz that comes when old friends gather together after a long absence. The past 12 months with the restrictions and lockdowns have been difficult for all of us, but there was a wonderful feeling of optimism, with everyone upbeat about the future.

The weather undoubtedly helped. The sky was a deep shade of blue, the sun shining with a brilliance we had all forgotten during the dark days of winter. The newly arrived swallows, skimming over the fields, were reminders of better days to come.

As a professional gundog writer, I relished the opportunity to see so many breeds in action on one day and there was certainly plenty of action.