Southern Inter Club Team Event Sunday 18th June 2023.
Brissenden Farm Frittenden by kind permission of Dick Munton and his team. Hosted by Utility Gundog Society Kent & East Sussex
We were represented by a team of three ladies, Christine Thurlbourn, Open dog, Carol Ford, Novice dog, Mari Jackson Novice dog/Novice handler.
On arrival we received a very warm welcome with bacon rolls, tea & coffee and a very generous goody bag.
15 teams of 3 dogs & handlers (Open, Novice and ND/NH) competed over 5 tests for the Arun & Downland Challenge Shield. The judges were John Stubbs, Colin Pelham, Alan Buckland, Kim Jinks and Kelvin Nettleingham. There were also awards for highest place individual in each category.
To describe each test in detail would take far too long but generally they consisted of a mixture of marks, memories and blinds with all 3 dogs sat up and the judge nominating which dog was to take which retrieve, on two of the tests we nominated who from our team would complete which part.
The day continued to be very hot and humid, everyone was delighted with the elevenses that were brought round, very cold ice lolly, tea, coffee & cookies. We even found shade whilst waiting for each test. Copious amounts of water were consumed by both dogs and handlers!
We all felt we worked well as a team, unfortunately we were not placed but we had some wonderful feed-back from a couple of the judges, it just was not our day.
After the tests were over everyone was invited to partake of a hog roast followed by strawberries and cream, home-made cake and for those not driving, a glass of Pimms!
The rain almost held off until the end, it just started to rain as the raffle and prize giving were done. A huge thank you to Gill Sweeting, Working Test Secretary of UGS Kent & East Sussex and her team who worked so hard to provide us all with a very enjoyable day.