Hi, just wanted to say a big thank you for sending the samples for Fergus to try.
All 3 went down well, one so quickly that it instantly came back up! In the end we decided on the CP27 puppy as it had the added glucosamine (he’s had problems with lameness after a run).
At nearly 9 months old, Fergus has gone from being a dog who turned his nose up at breakfast and grazed all day, sometimes not finishing his dinner until 10pm to a dog who actively looks for his breakfast and polishes it off in one go. He also sits in front of the cupboard from about 3pm looking for his dinner.
Just a quick message to say a huge thank you for sponsoring our team of rescue sled dogs last season, we were over the moon to have this opportunity from you. The suggestion of using CSJ Xtra too has also ensured that Nero held weight fantastically all season and we have recommended this to several other mushers.
Although covid scuppered a few plans we still managed to do incredibly well and held our own against the Eurohounds and racing line Nordic breeds too. Below are some of our highlights from the season:
2019/2020 1st Place Champion at Newnham Bark for bikejor – This was with Nero our rescue Welsh Sheepdog
2019/2020 1st Place Champion at NATB for 2 dog bikejor – Kai and Nero
Tri Dog (Annual Dog Triathlon) 3rd Place – Kai
NATB 4 Dog Open (although we only ran 3 dogs) 2nd Place – Kai, Nero and our new rescue Nala
As well as some other podium placings…
This was Nala’s first season running so hopefully more to come from her this year. In addition to this was Kai’s first season racing again after 12 months off having knee surgery. The key is that all our rescue dogs train at their own pace and build confidence so they can enjoy the sport. Therefore, we hope that all 3 of our team will continue to develop and be even more competitive in 2020/2021 and earning a UK ranking this year with BSSF.
We also have some long distance canicross events planned including a half marathon next month, TDM a multi day race in the French Alps and a 4 day ultra event in the Brecon Beacons in 2021.
We have had race tops, coats, and a logo on our van representing your company (although just purchased a new van so would need to get a new van decal). You can also check out our story highlights on Instagram where we have saved our CSJ featured stories as well as regular mentions on our team Facebook too.
Ffermio – S4C’s weekly flagship farming and rural affairs programme is bringing to you a new short series celebrating the unique bond between shepherd and sheepdog and the art of sheepdog trialling.
‘Ffermio: Treialon y Cwn’ is a Telesgop production for S4C.
There are 3 special programmes which will begin this evening – Monday August 24th at 9.00pm on S4C and then weekly in the same slot up to, and including Monday September 7th.
Meirion Owen
As there are sadly no official sheepdog trial events being held this year, Ffermio has brought together 6 of Wales’ most talented youngsters to showcase the art of sheepdog trialling on a special course designed by Meirion Owen:
Erin Mcnaught
Elin Hope
Cerys Millichap
Logan Williams
Llion Harries
Teifion Morgan
Following all Welsh government Covid-19 guidelines, Ffermio has created 3 programmes which see the youngsters go head to head on Meirion’s course, in a way which not only shows their skills, but highlights the special bond with their dogs as well as their love of sheepdog trialling.
The programmes will also feature the stories of some of Wales’ biggest names in the world of sheepdog breeding, training and trialling including Aled Owen and Gwynfor Owen, and the competition will have insightful commentary from Wales’ captain for next year’s World Trials – Dewi Jenkins.
‘Ffermio: Treialon y Cwn’ is an exciting new competition brought to you by the team behind S4C’s flagship farming and countryside programme ‘Ffermio’. Over the course of three episodes, 6 of Wales’ most talented young sheepdog handlers will take part in a challenging sheepdog trial with a course unlike anything you’ve seen before!
The programmes will also explore the special bond between a shepherd and his dog as well as asking some of the country’s top breeders: ‘What makes a good sheepdog?’. There will be the opportunity to get to know other breeds working on Welsh farms and to meet other working dogs, like those fighting crime on the front line with Dyfed Powys Police.
‘Ffermio’ presenter Alun Elidyr is thrilled to be fronting the programme: “As a hill farmer, sheepdogs are an important part of my life, I simply couldn’t farm where I live without them. It’s great therefore to be celebrating these incredible dogs and their handlers by putting them through their paces on a sheepdog trial course that’s going to really test their skills.”
Commentating on the trials alongside Alun will be world renowned sheepdog breeder Dewi Jenkins from Talybont near Aberystwyth: “We’re incredibly lucky in Wales not only to be breeding some of the best sheepdogs there are, but also to have some the best young talent when it comes to sheepdog trials. I’m incredibly excited to be part of ‘Ffermio; Treialon y Cwn’ and can’t wait to see how the 6 contestants tackle a course that’s very different to what we usually see.”
The course has been designed and built by Meirion Owen, famous as the owner of the ‘Quack Pack’ display team. Meirion usually spends his time visiting shows across the country and running corporate events with his team of collies and Indian Runner ducks. With all the events he had planned to attend this summer having been cancelled, he was delighted not only to work with the ‘Ffermio’ team to arrange the trials, but also to host the competition on his land in Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire.
Explaining a little about the course he said: “It has some of the elements of traditional sheepdog trials but there will also be obstacles that neither the sheepdog handlers nor the sheep will be expecting! We’re introducing things like a bridge and a water obstacle and it’s going to be interesting to see what these young but experienced handlers make of it all. It’s certainly going to be compulsive viewing.”
‘Ffermio’ is one of S4C’s longest running series having been broadcast since 1997 and the programmes particular focus on farming and rural affairs consistently draws some of the channel’s biggest audiences. ‘Ffermio: Treialon y Cwn’ will combine the series producer’s expertise on bringing you the stories that celebrate Wales’ farming and rural communities, with an electrifying competition, that is ‘must watch’ TV.
Tune into ‘Ffermio: Treialon y Cwn’ on S4C every Monday at 9.00pm from August the 24th through until Monday September the 7th.
Although in Welsh, the programmes will have English subtitles and S4C is available outside Wales on Freesat 120 and Sky 134 as well as BBC iPlayer.
There is a very high standard of competition over a different style course than the usual.
Life is strange at the moment isn’t it? We live in a peaceful world (mostly) with people who love to spend time with their dogs. For us particularly, that involves training our dogs to be great at agility. With no shows to attend for the foreseeable future, we’ve taken the opportunity to establish and enjoy more relaxing routines and weekends.
Our dogs have been brought up to utilise their energy and enjoy regular training. They’re fed high-quality food to enhance their performance and maintain tip-top fitness. With no shows or training classes to attend, like many agility competitors we’ve scaled down the agility training.
In our household we currently have four border collies and a terrier-cross and they love learning and being active. They’re on a training programme of: learning how to just chill-out and relax around the house and garden; learning how to loose-lead walk and practicing social distancing around the extra people, bikes and horses we meet on our usual walks.
The Border Collies and Pikachu’s all love working, and although running round an agility course is the most fun in our house, anything that involves figuring out what we want them to do is fun too.
We’ve started using other activities to channel their mental and physical energy. These include:
Waiting in their beds patiently while their dinner is being prepared.
Waiting at doors & gateways until they get called individually.
Waiting for their turn to fetch their toy (Torro (old boy) doesn’t get this and gets 3 x as much exercise whilst we are doing this with the others). And Pikachu was a bit snooty of joining in, but now has her own toy which nobody else can have.
Doing sit, down, stand or a left / right turn before or on the way to their toy.
Loose-lead walking – in the past the main time they were on a lead was on the way to the agility ring and no one was interested in doing that calmly. J
Walking and balancing on logs.
They play most of these games all together, which challenges them further and its intriguing how they learn as a pack members and as individuals.
As we come out of lock down and small training classes are restart, it’s noticeable how some partnerships have definitely got tighter with this extra time we’ve been spending at home with our dogs. We’re going to keep up some of the fun training we’ve been doing as we all enjoy it.
We hope you and your dogs are keeping safe and well.
There’s an unusual family history behind CSJ – the British natural dog food, herbs and treats company – and it’s now on YouTube.
In a fascinating 2 minute watch the pictorial story unfolds of Ceri Rundle’s and her late father H. Glyn Jones’s background in working sheepdogs and huge success in trialling and breeding their world renowned Border Collies.
Packed with old photos of Ceri and her dad though the ages with their dogs – and even one of her shepherdess Great-Grandmother – we also see the dazzling breadth of top winners who swear by CSJ in canine activities from sled-dogs to agility dogs whilst not forgetting ‘the little dog next door’.
In its own quirky and engaging way the video illustrates why CSJ has been so successful over the last 20 years and become probably the best loved pet-food in the UK … developed by dog people … for dog people!
You’re chopping and sautéing, working on your favorite dish, while your dog or cat sits at your feet, looking up at you with those pleading eyes. You know that they would enjoy it if you cooked for them as well, but should you really toss out the kibble and cans and pick up your knives and skillet instead?
Cooking for our pets can be very appealing for those of us who have time to do it; however, there is no evidence to support claims that home-prepared diets are healthier than commercial diets. Despite what you may have read, very few pets actually need to be fed a home-cooked diet because of health reasons and an improperly prepared home-cooked diet can seriously harm your pet’s health, especially for a growing kitten or puppy.
Many pet owners are surprised to find out that cooking for a pet isn’t necessarily as simple as cooking for their human family. Whereas all commercial pet foods must legally meet or exceed certain amounts of nutrients to be marketed as “complete and balanced foods”, studies have shown that the vast majority of recipes that pet owners design for their pets, or obtain from magazines, books, or the internet are deficient in one or more essential nutrients. A big problem is that these inadequate levels of nutrients may not be evident for weeks or even years in adult animals, until the pet has a serious health problem that may not be easily reversed.
Unfortunately, as veterinary nutritionists, we often see the sad stories – the puppies that are brought to our hospital emergency room with broken bones and seizures due to inadequate nutrients and the adult cats with severe heart disease and blindness because of taurine deficiency. While occasional home-cooked meals for adult pets on special occasions (holidays, birthdays) in healthy pets are unlikely to cause any health issues other than potentially an upset stomach (as long as foods toxic to dogs and cats are avoided), more care is needed to make a diet that a pet will be eating on a daily basis if these kind of tragedies are to be prevented.
There are literally hundreds of sources of recipes for home-made pet food on websites and in magazines and books and some of these sources are much more reputable than others. The best pet food recipes will include very precise amounts of specific ingredients (e.g. 100 grams of boneless, skinless, baked chicken breast and 45 grams of baked, mashed sweet potato vs “1 cup of chicken or fish or pork and 1 cup of cooked vegetables”), and will include added sources of vitamins and minerals such as calcium, B vitamins, iron, zinc, and essential fatty acids. While a “whole foods” approach where every nutrient comes from food, not supplements is appealing, it is nearly impossible to meet all of a pet’s nutrient needs without adding concentrated supplements. Supplementing a pet diet is not as simple as taking a trip to the local pet supply store, though.
Most vitamin and mineral supplements marketed for pets are not sufficient to bring the nutrients in a home-cooked diet up to the levels to meet pet requirements, so specific veterinary supplements or multiple human supplements (potentially as many as 7-9 different products, depending on the diet ingredients) are typically needed to ensure that all essential nutrients are included in appropriate amounts. The amount of each nutrient needed depends on both the diet ingredients and also on the specific pet.
If you’d like to try cooking for your pet, the best way to ensure that your pet’s diet is meeting all of his nutritional needs is to obtain your recipe from the pet equivalent of a registered dietician – a veterinarian with board certification in veterinary nutrition (www.acvn.org) or with a PhD in animal nutrition and experience formulating pet diets. These individuals will use computer software to put together the right mix of ingredients and supplements to produce a diet that will provide for a pet’s nutritional needs. If your pet has health problems, it is even more important that you seek qualified assistance from a board-certified veterinary nutritionist.
Once you get a good recipe, it’s your job to follow it exactly – seemingly benign substitutions such as swapping one meat for another can dramatically alter the nutrients and calories provided by the diet. Not making changes to a recipe may be harder than it seems – we recently surveyed our clients who had purchased home-cooked diet recipes from us over the past few years. Greater than 80% of pet owners had made changes to their recipes, either minor or major, without consulting us and many of these changes had the potential to lead to inadequate or excessive nutrients in the diet.
In summary, home-cooked diets can be healthy, if time-consuming, options for feeding our pets, but they should not be undertaken lightly. They should not be fed to growing kittens or puppies or pregnant or nursing animals. The best way to ensure that your pet’s home-cooked diet is healthy is to obtain a recipe from a veterinary nutritionist and follow it to-the-letter.
Cailin R Heinze, VMD, MS, DACVN References:
Larsen JA, Parks EM, Heinze CR, et al. Evaluation of recipes for home-prepared diets for dogs and cats with chronic kidney disease. J Am Vet Med Assoc 2012;240:532-538.
Heinze CR, Gomez FC, Freeman LM. Assessment of commercial diets and recipes for home-prepared diets recommended for dogs with cancer. J Am Vet Med Assoc 2012;241:1453-1460.
Stockman J, Fascetti AJ, Kass PH, et al. Evaluation of recipes of home-prepared maintenance diets for dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc 2013;242:1500-1505.
Johnson LN, Linder DE, Heinze CR, Freeman LM. Evaluation of owner experiences and adherence to home-cooked diet recipes for dogs. J Small Anim Pract 2016;57:23-27.
We’re still in lockdown, the world is still coming to terms with covid-19, and life still goes on as people adjust to the situation.
Coping strategies
Over the last month or so I’ve been asked to share coping strategies that might help people while they’re working remotely, feeling isolated and are concerned about what our new normal might look like. I thought I’d share a few with the CSJ readers.
My sports psychology research and learning has led me down some interesting paths over the years. One common thread I hear from many experts is ‘turn obstacles into opportunities’. And even though this phrase was around long before the coronavirus, it still applies.
For me this means, I could mope around at home longing to get out, socialise, travel and be free to wander. Or I could accept that the situation is the right one for everyone and turn this into an opportunity to get stuck into projects and activities that I never normally get a chance to do. There are lots of new opportunities out there at the moment, we just have to look for them.
Control the controllables
‘Control the controllables’ is another well-used tip. There is little point worrying and wasting precious energy on things we cannot control e.g. when is lockdown going to be eased, when are canine competitions going to restart. We can be mindful of these things, but we cannot control them. We’re better off putting energy into things we can control. Like:
What can I do to maintain my physical and mental health and fitness;?
How can I offer support to family, the community and friends?
Controlling how much/little news and social media I absorb
Focusing on contrallables helps to build resilience, confidence and self-esteem, which are good traits to have in these times.
Don’t let the external affect the internal
My third ‘top tip’ this month is ‘don’t let the external affect the internal’. Start by writing down your key values and beliefs (if you haven’t already). Revisit them and think about how they influence your life and your decisions. Don’t let external influences distract you away from these values and try not to let external pressures sway you. Maintain a growth mind set and live to your values.
Stay safe and make the most of this opportunity to grow.
Vickie Pullin’s four-dog team Rio, Maverick Luka and Luna, at the 2018 Italian snow championships (Massimo Mazzasogni)
A log cabin sits at the heart of the idyllic Gloucestershire property where 12 of Britain’s top sprinters live. There is a hydrotherapy tank next door for resistance training and rehabilitation, and the on-site menu offers performance-ready, protein-packed meals for its clientele.
Most of the elite athletes who live there are huskies, but greysters and hounds are among the 34 dogs who call the place home.
The lone human in the mix, Vickie Pullin, 35, might be the most successful British athlete whose name you’ve never heard.
Pullin was once touted as a potential Team GB snowboarder for the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. A decade later, she’s donning the Union Jack in an entirely different sport: sled dog racing.
The Tewkesbury native is the country’s best female musher. This year, Pullin became the first athlete to claim four British Sleddog Sports Federation (BSSF) championship titles in a single season. She’s staged a meteoric international rise since her first race in 2013 and finally believes she has the experience—and her ‘dream team’ of canine competitors—to become a world champion.
Pullin once seemed destined for the Olympic slopes
Bikejoring is one of Pullin’s best events—she finished eighth in the world with Maverick in 2019. (Jackie Burrell)
Adopting Willow, Pullin’s first dog, marked the beginning of her new dream
Pullin’s 34 dogs go through a 15kg bag of food every day
Rio the black Labrador is 2 years old… He’s done well in tests and has started to take part in trials.
Drake is a 4 year old labrador, who I bought when he was 17 months old. He has won a great number of prizes over the 3 years of competing in gundog scurries. Through the shooting season he also picks up with my other 3 labradors, sometimes doing 5-6 days a week.
Cupar, the German Short Haired Pointer was re-homed with us 7 years ago at the age of 5
He was in a racing kennel with approx 20 other dogs, the majority of them were huskies. He was kept outside all year round and had never been inside the house and at first he struggled being in the house with us, but he settled in after a few weeks. He had been training and racing in his previous home and we got him on the Sunday and raced him in a bikejor race the following week and we won our first race together.
Cupar shows how it’s done
We had 5 huskies, all young dogs when Cupar came to us and through training with him the teams improved their commands, turns and focus and now runs past deer, people and dogs, off-lead with no issues.
Love him to bits
It is down to working with Cupar that our teams have had and continue to have success on the racing circuit. He has also helped trained countless other peoples dogs, as well. If people are having issues with their dogs running or commands etc. we bring them along and run them with Cupar. He shows them how it should be done. They follow him and a few runs later, the issues are usually rectified. We’re currently running him with 2 other dogs – one a young rescue. to get them on the right track. He has taught me so much.
“We have used CSJ CP30 and Hike On since 2014 – the dogs love the food and always empty their bowls at every feed. The dogs train and race hard and CSJ provides them with the energy goodness and stamina to achieve top level results season after season”
Contact Colin and Suzy Spalding on: 07877739590 or email: suzy15@hotmail.co.uk
