Fern

Fern was born on the 1st of April 2006, contray to her birth date she is no fool!!

She joined us at 8 weeks old and from the day we picked her up from her breeder (Mr Paul Birkbeck) she has never been one bit of trouble. She has an outstanding temprement

Fern is a fully trained (by ourselves)working labrador retreiver, We use her for picking up and beating on shoots. She always gives a good account of herself in the field and is a valuble member of the team. She's a very keen worker even though she's now 5 years old, she's showing no signs of slowing down. She is equally at home in water and during the 3 seasons she has been working she has made some outstanding retrieves. Fern has also been trained to track wounded deer a job she really enjoys as i always give her a piece of the liver on a succesful find. I found out her tracking skills when Ferns breeder Paul phoned me one evening.
He had shot a roe doe at the side of some dense woodland and it had jumped a rabbit fence into the wood. He had heard it crashing through the wood and soon realised with the fading light that he would struggle to find the deer on his own. I live only 5 minutes away so he phoned me to ask me to go with fern and help find it as he wanted to make sure the deer was humanely despatched.
On Arrival Paul shown me where the deer had been shot. I told Fern 'Lost' (the command i use to tell her to find). She found the scent within seconds and jumped the fence where the deer had and disapeared into the dense wood. Within 2 minutes she was back at the fence, her tail wagging indicating she had found. I jumped over the fence and followed her. The deer was a good way in the wood and had fell in some heavy cover under a large rhododendron bush well out of sight. There is no way we would have found the deer without a dog. The deer was dead, it had been a well placed heart / lung shot. I dragged the deer back to Paul and to say he was delighted would be an understatement. Paul bred Fern and he was as proud as i was on her good work. We gralloched the deer and gave fern a piece of liver as a reward. Since that memorable day Fern has gone from strength to strength tacking many wounded deer, preventing them from suffering if left unfound. We have since offered her services to stalkers who don't or can't keep a tracking dog themselves. I don't charge for the service, my reward is watching Fern working and seeing the relief on the stalkers face when she finds the deer.
We are extremely proud of her.