Readers’ letters
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The happy tale of Harry and Maddie
How interesting that Sapiens should write about re-homing a gundog in the April issue. Five years ago, a few weeks after losing one of our favourite black labrador bitches, we were contacted by our local kennel, who had looked after our dogs on many occasions, to ask whether we’d be interested in taking on five-year-old Harry, whose owner had died. We were doubtful at first as we hadn’t run a dog for many years and wondered how he’d fit in with our four remaining labs. We were assured he was a real ‘gentleman dog’ so agreed to go along and say hello. We found that he had been trained by a well-known trainer in the area so took him on after having a training session with one of his former owner’s friends, learning the commands he was used to.
Over the past five seasons he has been an absolute joy to work with, coming out on around 50 days each year, as well as a few pigeon days between seasons. Because of joint problems he can no longer work all day but will probably come out next season, at the age of 11½, and work one or two of
