Who we are & what we do...

We are Philip and Rachel Birt and we are privileged to live in a beautiful part of Dorset with our gundog family.  Our gundogs are a big part of our lives, we live with them, play with them, have fun with them and train them, but above all else, we love them.

We have a passion for all things canine and particularly the working and gun dog breeds.  Over the last 40 years we've owned several different breeds including G.S.D.'s, Labradors, and Border Collies. In fact my first dog, a poodle, was bought for me when I was eleven, to cure my fear of dogs! ​We have owned, trained and bred several different working breeds more recently working with those in the gun dog group, concentrating on the working variety of Cocker Spaniel.

We encourage our dogs' natural working abilities, combining these with steadiness, basic obedience and good manners. All our teaching is force free and based on progressive reinforcement training. Our ethos is to build a fun working relationship centred around trust and mutual understanding.

Our dogs enjoy a variety of disciplines. Phil competes at flyball with Drummer and I am totally addicted to Talking Dogs Scentwork(R) and in November 2015 I became a Talking Dogs Scentwork(R) Accredited Handler and am having great fun developing our team work skills with Bootie, Rossi and Ayla in particular, but all our dogs thoroughly enjoy the sniffing game!

​We are hosting some Talking Dogs Scentwork(R) workshops in the early part of 2016 and throughout the year I shall be working towards becoming a Talking Dogs Scentwork(R) Accredited Trainer.
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