Charlies Chatter - Mk.2

[cuda]

If you don't - yer dug Will !!!

Think there will be a few more labs now but we might just come over and watch the bedlam at your class - especially if Charlie is the demo dug

Fire brigade and paramedics are on standby - just in case you have another "Hamlet moment"

[trekmoor]

My scorched nose is healing up nicely after my last Hamlet Moment, trust you to find that very funny.
Think I'll let Charlie loose near your lab pup, he can show her how to catch mice just like he did for her Maw.

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Bannatyne's Bog - 2 p.m. - Mainly sunny with cold winds.

Dogs - Charlie, Billy and Libby.

It is Billy's birthday today , he is now ten so he got the birthday treat of doing a fair bit of hunting as the other two dogs walked to heel. Poor , auld sod....he is going deaf and this showed as he hunted . He tries to do as I want so he keeps stopping or turning back to me to make sure he is still doing O.K. His ears don't hear the whistle so he stops or turns to use his eyes instead.
I'm not sure I can use him next season as a picking up dog. A deaf dog in thick woodlands can get into all sorts of trouble through no fault of the dog's.

After hunting Billy I gave Charlie a hunt and he certainly did need the turn whistle but it could have been worse , he did answer to the whistle.
Libby----- I took the chance while hunting spaniel fashion today to train Libby to turn to whistle at about double to treble reasonable spaniel hunting distances. Being turn whistled at only 30 - 40 yards from me is not something she is accustomed to and she kept right on truckin' until I added a yell to the whistle command a few times. I think she thought I was working a spaniel behind her those first few times as I do sometimes do that and Libby has taught herself to ignore those whistles.

We arrived at the stream that runs along one end of this ground and Billy was already in there by the time I arrived. He was lying flat on his side in about 6 inches of water to cool himself down. I preferred this to his usual habit of lying flat out in muddy puddles however.

Since the river was there I thought I'd progress Libby's water training a bit. The river ran fast and shallow where I was but then became a fairly deep pool on a bend 40 yards downstream. Many dogs have a habit of marking the fall of a dummy into fast moving water and will go to the splash but will then fail to understand that the current has taken the dummy downstream from it's splashdown area.

I intended throwing the dummy about 20 yards downstream where the fast current would take it into the deep, slow moving pool. I made sure Charlie could see this dummy fall too as he has water experience and Libby has very little. I've lost dummies in rivers more than once when doing this sort of training when the course of the river takes it where it is impossible for me to follow due to thick cover or ravines.

Libby did as I'd expected and went to the splash when I sent her about 10-15 seconds after splashdown. She did look puzzled but as she was in non-swimming depth water she decided to follow the river by running along close to the bank. She chose to run the nearside bank but that came to an end at some fallen trees so she went over to the far bank and then continued to search her way downstream. She saw the dummy, a white one, over on the far side of the pool and swam out for it then returned by much the same route as she'd taken to get to it. I thought it was quite good for a first attempt at this.

I did the same thing again and she repeated her previous performance but did it a bit more quickly. I then did the same retrieve with Charlie who was in no doubt as to where to go to get the dummy, he had it in his mouth in no time flat.
I didn't give Billy this retrieve to do just in case something went wrong and I had to shout commands at him on his birthday. Yes, I'm a bit soppy in some ways.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

Bannatyne's Bog - 8.30 A.M. - sunshine and clouds, moderate winds.

Dogs - Charlie

I cast Charlie off to hunt in a small rough area of grass and brambles in between office buildings . He'd only gone 20 feet from my heel when he "found with his feet." A rabbit erupted from the tussocks right under his nose. He certainly had not found it by scent and both he and I were taken completely by surprise by this rabbit appearing within 3-5 seconds of starting our hunt.

I'd been expecting Charlie to pull out to a hedge well up ahead so I already had the whistle ready in my mouth when the rabbit headed for the exit so Charlie stopped to whistle about 4 feet from the rabbits couch. I think I was more pleased by my fast reaction to the rabbit than I was by Charlie's fast reaction to the whistled stop !

About 2-3 minutes later we'd reached the boundary hedge and ditch beyond which was the short grass of an office block's lawn. Charlie found and flushed a rabbit down in the ditch but the rabbit ran to the end of the ditch 15 yards away before running off over the lawn. Charlie appeared from that end of the ditch too and was all for continuing to "see the rabbit away" over the lawn ! That chase was also stopped by the whistle. Charlie is really good at "seeing rabbits away !"

There were no more rabbits around so I put him back in the car and headed back down the hill a bit to the bottom end of where the huge shopping centre is plus all the pubs, nightclubs and smaller shops. To put it mildly it is not a pretty bit of unspoiled countryside but rabbits live there among the very thick bramble bushes interlaced with wild rose stems and young, fresh nettles. Other natural cover takes the form of shopping trolleys, empty beer kegs, plastic bags and a multitude of empty plastic bottles.

Charlie had another 4 "off the nose" flushes among all that stuff and one really good flush on a rabbit I caught glimpses of under the brambles as Charlie followed up on it to try to push it out. He succeeded and the rabbit almost ran over my boots .....which gave me the chance to catch the fast following Charlie and to sit him a few feet back from where I'd done a rugby tackle on him ! He definitely is not stopping to flush after 4 years or so of never having to but at least his stop to whistle .....and to rugby tackle has survived.

I saw 3 other rabbits but Charlie only saw one of them and since I was walking him to heel at the time he didn't try to chase it.
His idea of proper cocker hunting range extends out to about 60 yards ....or further if I am moving too slowly to keep up with him . He needs an awful lot of whistle turns to keep him in .... either that or an ack-ack gun to shoot the game he flushes ! Maybe I'll only use him as a demo dog for the retrieves when I take the spaniel class next week.....

Despite having hunted through some really bad cover this morning and over a sea of young nettles in places he is very happy with himself....Charlie doesn't seem to feel jaggy things, not even very thick nettles.

Charlie the Magnificent among "natural" cover .



Wullie

[Matt]

Hi Wullie,

I've just finished Charlie's Chatter - it's taken me a while to get through all 600-odd pages! Fascinating reading, and some really useful tips. I've enjoyed every minute and irritated my wife no end by responding "reading about dogs" whenever she asked what on earth I was up to starring at my phone for hours...

Anyway - I had a question - in a post from February where you'd taken Charlie out pigeon shooting you said this:

The crow worried me because I didn't think it was dead so when Charlie ran in to grab it I roared my head off at him and he came back.

My picking up has only been on pheasant, partridge and pigeon so far - why were you worried about the crow? Do they fight back and peck at the dog if they're still alive?

Moving onto Libby's diary now...

[trekmoor]

Hi Matt, a part of Charlie's Chatter part 1 is missing because it was sent into a now defunct forum.

Crows will peck viciously at a dog if still alive and they also sink their claws right into a dog as they peck. Do not send your dog for crows if there is any chance at all of the birds only being wounded.

Glad you enjoyed C.C. ..... Charlie is still my favourite dog . He is a force of nature ....he does his own thing but that usually coincides with what I want anyway. His sire Billy is just as keen as Charlie but he is not a thug ! Billy is a gentleman of the cocker world ......but he is now rather deaf and is unlikely to be worked any more.

Libby is very like Charlie in many ways but she is very different in one respect. Charlie would get a row or even a shake and then just grin and carry on working. If I tried that with Libby she'd go in the huff and run back to my car !

Wullie

[Alice]

Wullie, CC 1 is still here- it was copied over, it's just 'read only'!

[Rascal]

Gawd how I hate old people.....

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4651#p55595

Remember this Wullie?

Rascal

[Mike A]

As much as you hate cooo's Rascal ?

[Rascal]

Almost Mike, almost.....

[Judy]

Hark at her, she's just had her 104th Birthday! Makes Wullie sound like a spring chicken!

Cluck cluck.