Maybe a strange request or not! but I'm looking for a dog that some one would let my daughter show.

My 11 year old daughter is desperate to learn to show and wants to attend ring craft classes and weekend shows, we have a very health 14 year old black Labrador who of course she can't take to shows and I don't want and wouldn't introduce a young Puppy to our elderly dog at this stage.

My back ground is Flat coats and sometime in the future when the time is right I would like to get another FCR but not now, as our breed knowledge is Retriever's then we are looking for a Golden Retriever, Lab or FCR but would be open to suggestions for a very keen young dog handler to learn, I feel she has some natural handling skill's there but then I'm her mother.

We live in West Berkshire.

Shame your not near me, Tilly is the perfect dog to learn with.

Yeah, its a shame we're in Essex/ London as I'd be more than happy for her to have a go with my 8 month old girl.  She'd prob do a much better job than I do!

Have you thought about going along to your local ringcraft & talking to people.  Lots of people at mine have several dogs and come are constantly getting dogs in and out of crates or cars so maybe someone there might like a hand and give you some experience in return?

Thanks for the replies.

Yes I think I will there is a local ring craft class close to us so will go along and ask, I said to my daughter it might be a case of meeting people at shows with more than one dog and they let her show one of their dogs whilst they show the other's.

May also be worth joining the Young Kennel Club and going to some of their activity weekends to get to know other juniors.

Hopefully ringcrafts nearby will have someone willing to help her out too. 

It's Richmond Champ show next week, if you were able to go along, its the Junior Handling Semi-finals.  It would be good experience for her to see what goes on and again, you may pick up some leads.

It is most definately worth going to your local ringcraft. My 14yr old daughter and I attend with our dogs but she gets to handle lots of dogs as shes started JH.  She now has a partnership with a lady at RC with her whippets and thats what she handles mostly. Shes now in line to handle an afghan once its matured more.
Whats lovely is so many exibitors we've met has happily voluteered thier dogs to her for handling classes.
I agree with above join the JHA and YKC.
Wishing your daughter lots of luck. Its tough, they are really put through thier paces with alot of judges, but its alot of fun too.

  Please Pm me if you need any advice. happy to help.

Thanks for all the useful tips really helpful, I will look into Richmond as that would be really interesting for her, and me ;-)

Might take you up on the pm help willwood thank you.

If you both want to watch the handling at Richmond, get there at 9 for the start of the classes.

As above, my daughter didn't start showing till 4 years ago, she only had the "pet" dog when she started and although that dog was never going to win much in the breed, she was a great handling dog to learn skills with and subsequently lots of super owners have let her handle their dogs in handling classes.  Good experience learning how to handle different breeds too and to know more about them (it's sometimes a question asked by judges, ie what were they bred for, exercise etc)