The Gundog demonstration is organised by the United Retriever Club: North Midland Area. The U.R.C. is one of the largest Retriever clubs in the country. It was founded in 1948 and operates through nine regions or "Areas" The North Midland Area started life as the Hope Valley Gundog Club, Joe and Eileen Holme of Hope being founder members.

The Club organises training and working tests, using a variety of grounds in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire. We are grateful to the farmers and landowners who let us use their land.

About the Working Test

You will be able to watch a working test as a demonstration of the work done by retrievers. The seven teams represent different breeds which do retriever work;
Black Labradors, Yellow Labradors, Chocolate Labradors, Golden Retrievers, Flatcoated Retrievers,
Chesapeake Retrievers and Irish Water Spaniels.

Each team will consist of four dogs and handlers. Two in each team are Open Dogs, and two are Novice Dogs, showing the different standards of work according to the age and experience of the dogs.

The Judges for the day are Brian Holmes and Cherry Wood from Yorkshire. Brian has   lengthy experience of Labradors whilst Cherry prefers Flatcoated retrievers. They will assess the work of the dogs and award marks. The dogs will be retrieving dummies made of canvas, but in the real world of shooting dogs would retrieve game. There will be a commentary explaining the work of the dogs and the different tests or exercises. The different breeds will all do the same tests, but will have their own style of working. The handlers will control the dogs with hand signals, voice commands and whistles.
There will be a trophy for the winning team and mementoes for the ALL the team members.