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French Friends
We had the good fortunate of having three good friends from France visit our home, kennels and hunting lodge this year. All three are trainers and handlers in France. Rene and Jean-Louis are professional trainers and field trial handlers and Dominique is an amateur field trial handler - and they are all exceptional at what they do! All of them also own Epagneul Bretons (French brittanys) and so we had many good hours of discussion regarding the breed, pedigrees, ancestors and all the things us dog fanatics like to talk about. There was much laughing, joking (and interpreting!) going on as you can see from some of these pictures. We truly enjoyed the eight days that they were our guests and they have promised to return. Please be patient with the loading of these pages as there are many pictures included. There is also a second page with additional photos you can view.
During the same
time that our visitors from France were here, Steve and Jake Smith of Pointing
Dog Journal and Mike Lardy, retriever trainer, also joined us for a few days of
South Dakota wild pheasant hunting. The weather was excellent for December in
South Dakota and the pheasant numbers were better than they've been in forty
years so there was no shortage of game! Our French friends were amazed at how
many birds they saw each day, as they said "more then they would see in a
lifetime".
Tatoo is
the Breton pictured in most of these shots. Tatoo is our dog that we have had in
France in training with Dominique and Rene and was entered in both the Spring
and Fall 2004 field trials in that country. Tatoo just turned two in June so
when he first began trialing he was a bit younger than they usually start
trialing dogs in France, but he did an excellent job of it and succeeded in
getting his TRAILER title in the spring trials. He was also entered in some
conformation shows and won a CACS. This fall he was awarded 'Excellents' in
woodcock trials. Of course all trials in France are on wild birds (partridge in
the spring trials) and therefore replicate actual hunting conditions. We plan on
returning to France with Tatoo for the spring 2005 trials. Due to Tatoo's
achievements thus far, he was attained a sire rating from the CEB of France of
"EXCELLENT". He is the first American owned Epagneul Breton to have been awarded
a Trialer designation, to have won a CACS in a French conformation show and to
be officially rated as an "Excellent" sire by the CEB so we are quite proud of
his achievements and grateful to Dominique, Rene and Jean-Louis for the help
they have been to us to accomplish this!
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