WHEN Sue Margerison was picking up on a shoot in Lancashire with her first curly-coated retriever almost 20 years ago, there was a moment on one of the early drives that she will never forget: ‘The gun in front of me had sent his field-trial labradors after a runner, but with no luck, so I asked if he’d mind if I sent my curly after it—he didn’t look convinced,’ she laughs. ‘I sent my dog off and he’d been gone a good while, before he came back with that pheasant. The gun couldn’t believe it—he was teased all day about a curly beating his labs. It was fantastic.’
Persistence and tenacity are qualities you can depend on in a curly-coated retriever, Mrs Margerison asserts—once a curly is on the trail of something, it won’t give
