It`s not very often dad or myself get the weekend off. But last Saturday I got to go ferreting with my friend Chris and his dog Tan. I took our young Beardie Wilson with me.
It was his first time seeing ferrets and as I suspected they did not faze him at all. Once he knew that a ferret in the hole meant a rabbit out, he was hooked. Wilson likes to hunt for himself so kept busy in front of us. I am pleased to say if he marked a hole there was a rabbit in it. He also saw cattle for the first time and did not bat an eyelid at them. The weather was cold but sunny and we really enjoyed ourselves. Chris is a very exprienced dog man and I would like to say thank you to him for letting us tag along. We had a good day and the farm we were on has a few less rabbits now!

Happy new year to all and we hope you have a good 2012.It`s at this time of year people start thinking about having a new puppy to train. Just remember it is worth doing your resarch in advance and making sure of what you want from your dog, planning ahead is always a good idea. 

It is so nice to be able to manage your own website, with a little help! We have added four new pictures to our stud dog gallery.
Merlin, Wilson, Mr Smith and at long last Mr Jones.
It is very difficult to take pictures of dogs who are not used to having their photo taken, and even more difficult when they have Collie in them because they like to use their noses on the ground and so don`t look up very often! I need time and patience to do the dogs justice, neither of which come together!. Anyway less about my photography skills (I should know what I`m doing, my dad`s a very good one).
 Merlin will be two in December and I am pleased to say has turned into a very hansome chap. He is sired by our  Border Collie King Arthur. Early reports of customers with Arthurs 1/2 Crosses say they are achieving in all fields and are very easy to train.As for Merlin he has his first litter of 3/4 Greyhound 1/4 Collies on the way and are due at the end of September.
 Mr Jones has now got his picture in the gallery. Although he has been siring pups for two years,it is difficult to tell what coat his pups will have. So we have to wait and see whether Mr Smith ( he has his first litter to a Greyhound now), who has a much thicker, longer coat will throw.
 And then theres Wilson. What can I say, he lives in the house with us and is a real character. He is still a bit young to use at stud but I took the chance of a nice picture to upload of him for the future.

I don`t know who said that but it`s very true. In 2009 I wrote a piece about "Mr Jones", mentioning he had a brother "Mr Smith". At the time "Mr Smith" was very shy and reluctent to perform his stud duties in public.
Being smaller than his girlfriends he needs a little help. Well I am pleased to say he has got over his shyness and has his first litter from a Greyhound on the way. They are due at the end of August. We are looking forward to see what coats and colours he produces, he has a much rougher coat than his brother.
It has only taken four and half years of waiting but we are there now!

Congratulations to Nick Rollings and his 3/4 Collie "Nell"  on coming 5th in the Essex Joint Council of Wildfowling Clubs annual gundog test. "Nell" was the only lurcher taking part out of 34 other dogs.She had to perform four different tests including having to find and retrieve two dummies on the saltings.The article appeared in last weeks "Shooting Times" for anyone wanting to read it.Nick has been buying his lurchers from us since the early 80`s and has always done a variety of jobs with them. He tells me she will also be appearing in an article in  next month`s "The Field" magazine. Keep up the good work Nick.

Twenty eight years ago our good friend Brian Plummer bred a beardie cross border collie who he called Richard Jones after the local vet. The mixture of beardie and border collie proved to be very popular. Round about 1990 we repeated the process with our own beardie bitch called Fiona and our border collie Rufus. Fiona only had one puppy, luckily it was a red merle dog. We called him
Dougal as we already had a dog called Zebberdie(anybody remember the Magic Roundabout !).
Dougal died about 4 years ago at the ripe old age of thirteen. At the time we had not got a suitable working strain bearded collie dog to repeat the process again, then along came Hector.
Hector as most of our customers know arrived from the Outer Hebrides’. We already had a blue merle border collie bitch called Scallywag descended from Rufus(grandfather) her dad being Drooper.
When Hector was old enough we mated him to Scally. She had eight pups of which we kept two blue merle dog pups called  Smith and  Jones .
At the time of writing this article Mr Smith still does not know what girls are for! Mr Jones on the other hand thinks girls are wonderful and lost his virginity last year.
His puppies are proving to be lightly built and highly intelligent , with most being smooth coated and we are now breeding from him on a regular basis.
These dogs incorporate 25 years of well established border collie blood lines and the now tried and tested beardie lines speak for themselves.
Mr smith and Mr Jones are the start of a new generation of Hancock lurchers and we have no doubt they will prove very successful for the next 25 years.