would you work your dog if you weren't paid?

[gdunc]

I get paid for grouse days but not on the local small time syndicate shoot. TBH I get my money's worth training and working my dogs as I need on the local shoot - on the moor it's up to the keeper and rightly so.

[Rookie]

Are those 'wages' for picking up with a team? I'm on £20 tops for beating

For beating but everyone mucks in and helps out where they can to get the job done from start to finish. I usually have only 1 or 2 dogs out but if I had none it wouldn't make a difference. In the main, pickers up get the same as the beaters in this area.

[trekmoor]

I was asked to pick up on a Scottish Highlands estate by it's owner who'm I'd met while picking up on another, nearer estate. The pay was £70 and this was pheasant shooting. The same man informed me that another estate, even further from civilisation was paying £80. I'd have had to leave my house at about 6 a.m. to get to the man's estate and maybe not get home again until 7-8 P.M. ........... I didn't go, I'd probably have fallen asleep behind the wheel on the way home.

Trying to get enough pickers up and beaters must be a bit of a nightmare for these out of the way estates, hence the much higher payments offered.

Wullie

[Vikki]

I pick up on 3 shoots and get paid £40 on 2 of them and nothing on the 3rd. I don't mind not getting paid on the 3rd as we have 2 beaters days at the end and each is normally about 150 bird days. I do it to see the enjoyment of my dog picking up, he is just so happy to be out doing it and for the banter and fun day out with the others picking up and beating. I love it.

[andy761]

For the money they offer i dont do it for that. I like working my dog so do it for free..... well as long as they provide me with lunch and dinner and buy my beer i'm happy, Dont like shoots where they feel better than you, and are doing you a favour handing over the envelope with about 15 quid in

[IBIS-MOJO]

Did not work my dogs but did a FOC days work for the keeper yesterday on the shoot I beat on. Helped put up a wire fence on a disused railway bridge, the birds on a warm day sit on the bridge or higher up on the bank. The fence was to stop dogs going over.

Warm day but managed to get some training done with the dogs on some nice ground.

[EOHINYORKS]

I've read the Taxman is starting to take a look at Beaters & Pickers up. If you're self-employed or voluntary you're OK but if you receive money and attend on a regular basis the Taxman considers you an employee and wants you in the PAYE scheme.

[Judy]

By the time I've paid my expenses they'd owe me money!

[trekmoor]

I think the taxmans been trying to get his nose in the trough for years now. On the one estate where we, the beaters and pickers up were told we'd have to supply names and addresses before being paid for "tax purposes" we all refused and implied we would not go there again. No more was heard about it.
I know next to nothing about business but I have wondered if the idea of supplying names and addresses was more to do with the shoot being able to claim money back from their tax bill ???

Wullie

[Bamburi]

I know next to nothing about business but I have wondered if the idea of supplying names and addresses was more to do with the shoot being able to claim money back from their tax bill ???

Wullie

it could be, as the money they give it out in cash isnt accounted for so somebody somewhere has to pay the tax on monies and profits received by the shoots, they would say that they have already paid the tax on it and we are getting whats left .
so if they take names and addresses they can then say to the tax man "look this is who we gave the money to so its tax deductable" ................i think