I never thought for one minute that Karen, the wife, would have loved going beating so much.

For those who don’t know, beating is when a team of people and dogs walk through a series of  woods in a line in order to drive out pheasants over the waiting guns to shoot (missing in most cases!). We normally do at least 6 drives in a day. Can you think of anything more horrid than getting tangled up in brambles, getting soaked to the skin, cold and muddy every saturday from October to February – all for £25 a day!

All credit to Karen, she has never done this before and did it to help out for a bit to start with, but has truly got the taste for it now – so much so that over the last few weeks she has been saying things like “It would be better with a dog” and “Shame your dogs wont work for me”. Little did I know what was coming!

Anyway, the long and short of it is last Sunday, we drove to Wales to pick up a Golden Labrador which has excellent breeding but has just been badly looked after. The Chapples always seem to be a soft touch for a worthy cause and so having made a small donation to Labrador rescue people, we bundled this very shy 14 month old lab in the back of the Landie and took her home.

As it turns out, the poor thing has had 4 owners in its very short life – none of which realised what was involved in having a bouncy puppy in the house – it also has had 4 names so not surprisingly she is a bit messed up. Apart from that, she is a very loving and beautiful dog – she just needs to know some stability and one to one love.

I get most of my dogs from this type of  environment and they all have turned out brilliantly and very faithful and hard-working – as well as being great companions – I have no doubt Karen will turn Grace into a great dog as well.

So far, the training is going well – for both of them . She is Karens first dog so they both have a lot to learn, but the bond is already coming. For me it’s very difficult as I am used to having all the dogs with me – I have to ignore her as I cannot let a bond form at the moment.

Karen was out in the rain at 5:45am this morning – now that dedication – I was still in bed!

Will doubtless keep you posted on progress and some more pictures.