Holly's Memory grows up...

Holly's Memory is a pretty little red setter owned and currently being worked by Jan Zarebicki. Holly started out little slow, but once she figured out there were wild birds out there, she came along! Jan is hoping to use her as a trial dog or perhaps to do some woodcock hunting up north, or maybe both! Holly is out of King Cormac x Flushing Whip Flash Edition. I'm sure that our dear friend Holly Bruns is smiling, along with her dad Dale.

Our friend Holly Bruns

Our friend Dale Bruns


Holly's Memory...

Thanks Jan for being a part of the Purest Challenge!

About That Wet Dog...

Scientists Reveal How Fast Dogs Must Shake To Dry Their Fur

(from NPR.org)
If you've ever seen a dog trying to shake itself dry after taking a plunge into water — or perhaps while standing next to the person who just gave it a bath — you've probably noticed that the technique can throw off a shocking amount of water.

That's all part of nature's design, says Andrew Dickerson, a graduate student at Georgia Tech. Talking with NPR's Robert Siegel, Dickerson described his recent study of how fast different animals "oscillate their bodies to shed water droplets," as an abstract of his work states.

If that's too esoteric for you, check out this video:



For his study called "The Wet-Dog Shake," which appeared in the journal Fluid Dynamics, Dickerson and his colleagues slowed down images of animals — dogs, a bear, even a mouse — shaking themselves dry. The footage was shot with a high-speed video camera.

The researchers found that both bears and dogs shake at a similar speed — around 4 Hz and 4-5 Hz, respectively. In this case, hertz refers to the frequency of skin oscillations per second. And it turns out that the smaller the animal, the faster it has to shake to dry. Thus, a cat can get by with shaking around 6 Hz. But its nemesis, the mouse, requires 27 Hz to dry off.

Dickerson says that his work focuses on discovering mechanisms found in nature. The research on how animals shake off water, he says, may have real-world applications in improving the design of washing machines.

But he does not recommend that any human try to duplicate what is, by many rights, a dog's trick.

"If you were to get down on all fours and try to shake off water after a shower," Dickerson says, "your efforts would be most unfruitful."

National Red Setter Shooting Dog Championship

The National Red Setter Shooting Dog Championships will be held November 3-7 2010 in Grovespring MO. Drawing is November 2. For more info, check the NRSFTC website at

http://www.nrsftc.com/schedule_fall.htm

I need a dog like this...

Finn...

Here are some pics of Finn... owned by Joe and Mary Cornely. Finn is out of King Cormac x Flushing Whip Flash Edition.

Tony Blair and foxhunting...

Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he deliberately sabotaged the ban on fox hunting his government introduced, calling it "one of the domestic legislative measures I most regret."

In his memoir "A Journey," published by Random House today, Blair said he ensured that the 2004 Hunting Act was "a masterly British compromise" that left enough loopholes to allow hunting to continue "provided certain steps were taken to avoid cruelty when the fox is killed." He also told Home Office minister Hazel Blears to steer the police away from enforcing the law.

Blair's 1997 pledge to give Parliament a vote on the subject dogged him throughout his time in office, with lawmakers opposed to hunting repeatedly trying to introduce a ban. Each time, hundreds of thousands of hunt supporters marched through London, and in 2004 some invaded Parliament.

"The passions aroused by the issue were primeval," Blair, 57, wrote. "If I'd proposed solving the pension problem by compulsory euthanasia for every fifth pensioner I'd have got less trouble. By the end of it, I felt like the damn fox."

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who described the law last year as a "farce," has promised a vote on repeal. Since the act came into force in 2005, only three hunts have been successfully prosecuted, according to the Countryside Alliance, which was formed to oppose the ban.

"I won a bet with Prince Charles about this," Blair wrote. "He thought the ban was absurd, and raised the issue with me in a slightly pained way. The wager was that after I left office, people would still be hunting."

Blair said he initially agreed to a ban without properly understanding the issue. Then, during a vacation in Italy, he found himself talking to the mistress of a hunt near Oxford.

"She took me calmly and persuasively through what they did, the jobs that were dependent on it, the social contribution of keeping the hunt and the social consequence of banning it, and did it with an effect that completely convinced me," Blair said.

--With assistance from Laurie Muchnick in New York. Editors: Eddie Buckle, James Hertling.

Michigan Amateur Field Trial Club...

Hi all,

This past weekend I ran my red dogs in my first ever "cover dog" trial... went to the hallowed grounds of Gladwin in Michigan... had a blast and although my red dogs didn't have any placements, they showed some potential for running in the woods. One of my puppies also put up a covey of grouse that had at least 12 birds... THAT was fun!

Thanks to everyone who helped us during the trial... especially Tom, who ran around with me and helped round up one of my dogs who decided to run for an extra hour after her brace! Gladwin is a great place and well worth the trip. And the club members were really a great bunch of folks. I'm planning to go back.

Here's a couple of videos I shot during the weekend... sorry I can't I.D. everyone, but if you know someone, feel free to post in the comments. Thanks!

Al Faze

At one of the breakaways on Saturday

Driving to the next course... had a heavy rain the night before, so the roads were a little muddy...

Waiting for a brace to return (I believe this is at Course 7)...

Another brace heads out...

Heading out with one of my red dogs (Ruby)...