A few words from our Club President .....

       "The dog is loyal to his master with the best and truest of love. The dog hath great understanding, knowledge and judgement. The dog hath great fortitude and goodness. The dog hath a fine memory. The dog hath a great sense of smell. The dog hath great diligence and power. The dog is valiant with great valour and is greatly subtile. The dog hath much nimbleness and power of perception. The dog receiveth orders well, for he learns as quickly as doth a man. Much frollicking is in a dog. Dogs are such fine creatures that rare is the man who desireth not one for this purpose or for that ......"
Gaston Febus de Foix-Béarn wrote this in his 'Book of the Hunt' (begun in 1387)

   That quote from Gaston de Foix's Livre de Chasse tells us, as if we need reminding, that our close relationship with the dog has a history that runs into the mists of time. Gaston de Foix's knightly beauty was such that he was likened to the sun and his peerless work, with each of its 86 exquisite miniatures fully integrated with a decorated text, is known generally as Gaston Phebus. It is a treatise that deals not only with the hunting of animals, the breeds of sporting dogs and their management in kennels (Froissart in his Chronicles tells us that Phebus himself possessed 1600 hounds) and when sick or injured, but also stalking and shooting with crossbows and long bows. "Truly I trow" says Phebus "No hunter would take his game falsely".

   The chivalrous spirit which imbued such mediaeval texts still had obvious resonances four hundred and more years later. "I conceive" wrote Colonel Thornton in his Sporting Tour Through The Northern Parts of England and Great Part of Highlands of Scotland published in 1804, "that the great pleasure and elegance of shooting depends on the good order in which the dogs are kept".

   Although Thornton was writing about walking up grouse over pointers his observation is as relevant to the circumstances of game shooting now as it was two centuries ago. It furnishes, moreover, a perfect philosophy for the gundog trainer. 'Good order' in gundog work is what The Bristol and West Working Gundog Society has been about since its inaugural meeting in April 1971, and this web site we hope, will become a vital element in furthering that ambition.