Ed has gone to Germany several times on business trips.  On his last trip he met Ralf and Conny Malz (Beautyfield Flat-Coated Retrievers), who share their home with four Flat-Coats in the town of Kassel.  Ralf and Conny both do field work with their dogs, and she trains and shows them in agility and conformation.

Our first weekend in Germany we headed to Kassel for a visit with Ralf and Conny.  When we got there six Flat-Coats and a Labrador greeted us.  The Malz's had invited two of their field training friends (and their dogs) to meet us.  We had a very good time discussing training methods.  The two additional FCR's belonged to York, who I think, heads up their training group.  York does not show his dogs, but  his two bitches, Orietta and her daughter Alexa, are lovely Flat-Coats, moderate in size, well balanced with very typey heads.  Both bitches could easily finish their championships here. Orietta was bred in Austria.

I got out my camera and asked Conny to stack the dogs so I could take their pictures.  It got to be quite funny, as I kept telling her to move the bait down so they would not be looking up at her.  But the European dogs are free stacked with their heads looking up, and once I understood that I let her present the dogs her way.

After the other guests left Ralf brought out the 1990 English Directory of Flat-Coats, as well as two Swedish Directories.  He and I had a great time looking at the dogs and discussing what we like and dislike.  In his opinion, the best Flat-Coats are being bred in Sweden.  The following day, Conny was going to be showing two of their dogs, Randy and Coco, at a show in Luxembourg.  We were delighted to be invited to come along.

Conny cooked a great meal of pizza and salad, some of the best pizza we've ever had.  After yet more talk about Flat-Coats Ed and I retired to their guestroom.

The next day we went to Luxembourg.