I PICKED THE WINNER !

[Canburne]

There a few open trial flatcoats in the west country including one which is about half a mile away from me now!!! And that one worked a full season in my picking up team. It also won the Flatcoat FT Bitch at Crufts this year........

[trekmoor]

I'm pleased to hear there are still some good working flatcoats ..... hope they don't breed themselves into a corner. There used to be 3 or 4 people who worked them up here but I haven't seen a flatcoat at a shoot for donkeys years now.

Wullie

[Naj]

I've got a mate south who has always had one as a shooting dog but he was telling me it's getting increasingly difficult to source suitable pups & even then there's a wide divergence in how they turn out. He's had some great ones & others that were a bit dippy, but they all did the job. Had another mate locally who loved them as a rough shooting dog & his last one came from a breeder in Scotland who had a team of them for picking-up, but that was a good while ago.

Naj

[Alice]

A few years ago I went on a shoot where one of the other pickers-up had a flatcoat and a cocker. The cocker was a bit of a hooligan and occasionally buried his retrieves, but the flatcoat was an absolute 'gentelmans gentelman', very placid, would handle easily at great distances, and was reportedly a doddle to train. He was the only flatcoat I'd ever met and I was AMAZED when I joined internet fora to find that they have a reputation for being scatty and slow to mature.

Since then, I've met another flattie on a different shoot who also had the same traits of being very laid-back and easily handled- an 'old mans dog'! Maybe someone's breeding them down here to be this way?! Neither of the dogs I met would be any good for trialling, but as a hassle-free picking up dog I thought they were lovely.

[Naj]

I think the main problem with the Flattie is that people make direct comparisons with the Labrador, which is better suited for test/trial type training & work. For picking-up & general gundog work it's as good as any other dog, if you can source the right stuff.

Naj