"Last weekend saw us at Powderham Castle in Devon, to avoid the traffic we left at 4am. We arrived at Powderham just as day broke and because for once we had made excellent time we had to wait outside the park before being escorted onto the showground.

Powderham is situated right alongside the Exe estuary, watching the sun rise over the water was just amazing, add to this the deer park that was full of over testosteroned fallow bucks, and this place was a wildlife spectacular. We watched as the bucks gradually rose from their overnight sleeping places in amongst the marsh grass. They stretched for a while before thrashing around in the grass with their magnificent antlers, this served to give them what looked like a massive grass birds nest on top of their heads. Once the nest completely covers their heads and eyes they tip their heads back, noses high in the air, and repeatedly let out a deep grunt. As each buck strutted his stuff as a fellow male I’m fairly sure he was thinking, “damn I look good.”

Now I’m sure that to another buck this looks pretty awesome but the hinds were doing their very best to keep away from these idiots that had so much grass on their heads and testosterone coursing through their blood that they could neither see where they were going or tell which planet they were on. Ahhh, the things us males get up to just to impress the girls!

Anyway, quite often people have problems where they own two or more dogs. Having two obviously has all sorts of benefits but can often lead to or encourage problems. Two dogs are far more confident than one - straying, hunting and aggression can become a much greater problem if the dogs forms an allegianc - a mini pack.

I had a very interesting discussion with a lady over the weekend concerning some retrieving problems that she was having with a three year old Labrador bitch. In short the lady owned two dogs, the one in question and a seven year old bitch. The dogs had been allowed to run for the same retrieve and the older bitch was charging the youngster off the retrieve to ensure that she got it. The interesting bit was that this dominance was then influencing the youngster when taken for training sessions on her own. The lady found that if she picked up her training bag with both dogs present the older bitch would straight away start to show dominance over the three year old.

In spite of the older bitch being left indoors whilst training, the youngster would still avoid going for a retrieve. The lady discovered that if she separated the two well before showing signs of training sessions then the youngster would now retrieve.

Now this is not rocket science or earth shattering news, but it does show how easy it is to inadvertently create problems when living with dogs. For owners of companion dogs this would probably not be of any real consequence but for Gundog trainers this reluctance to retrieve around an older dog could make life difficult.

Manage your dogs even during play, excessive dominance can have effects in other areas. Everything should be in moderation; watch, listen and observe your dogs, there is a load of stuff to learn.

By the way a big 'thank you' to all of the people who come to talk to us through H&C and at shows -Your experiences, advice and knowledge continues to enthrall us and of course we are the lucky ones as we get to hear all of this wonderful dog stuff!

PS. Dexter our Battersea Staffy has just climbed up onto our Gundog Accessories display and helped himself to a great big duck dummy: “Hey Dad look what I found, it’s really cool.” I can’t ever imagine being without dogs!"