lurcher lab

[Dawnrazor]

"snobbery"! correct!!! I think it gives the impression of a cowboy outfit when I see things like shabbily dressed keepers, dirty untidy vehicles, beaters standing about smoking joints!!! I kid you not!!! And lurchers, they seem to go hand in hand. I've yet to see a good day when I'm met with such things in the morning, my boss rolls his eyes and shakes his head!! It's called standards!! "Snob".....me......yes!!!!

*edit*

Sorry Wullie!! didn't mean to hijack your thread!!

[Springfield Pointers]

As a keeper, lurchers on a driven shoot is one of my pet hates!! Along with keepers wearing "camo" on a shoot day, it boils my blood so it does!!!
I've had a good few lurchers over the years but don't think the shooting field is the place for them.
I will now wind my neck in, take a sanatogen and wait for the abuse!!

...you forgot the pump action 12g.

[Miesque]

So if I told you mine picks up on one of the top end driven shoots in Ireland, staff are all well turned out particularly the keeper (there is a dress code) and the shoot vehicle are all well maintained.....? We usually shoot 300-400 bird days. Nothing small, nothing cowboy and nothing shabby about the estate.

[Dawnrazor]

, nothing cowboy and nothing shabby about the estate.

Apart from the lurchers!!
We'll have to agree to disagree.

[Judy]

There is always an exception to prove every rule! I have to say the guys with lurchers in this area are much as Dawnrazor describes rather than posh ladies with obedient dogs.

[Gavin]

I can see both sides here as someone who owns both lurchers and spaniels. I've seen plenty of useless gundogs over the years so I agree with Dawnrazors point about standards. However, if Miesque has a lurcher that's obedient and capable of picking up to a high standard, then why not?

[trekmoor]

I am certainly guilty of having a dirty vehicle ....inside and out. My wife calls it the "muck truck." It gets splattered in mud every shoot I go to and every time I go fishing. I could probably go out to it right now and knock several pounds of mud, leaves , grass and twigs out from under the wheel arches but it would be muddied up again tomorrow or the day after.

It gets a wash about once a month ........whether it needs it or not !

There is a loose sort of dress code among the pickers up at the shoots I go to , we do not wear jeans and that's about it. I never have worn jeans or even combat trousers to shoots but things have changed for I never used to wear a cammo jacket or a beanie hat, or a baseball cap either. I sometimes wear a cammo jacket and a beanie hat now though and many of the other pickers up do the same. I wear the cammo jacket because it is very light and the beanie is worn during strong winds.

I have never owned a lurcher although I often fancied getting one. I was born and brought up in the top flat of a tenement in central Edinburgh , right beside the Jambo's football stadium. As a "townie" with no countryside connections it was difficult to get a job even as a beater back then and keepers tended to be highly suspicious of anyone with a lurcher so I stuck to spaniels and labs.

My first employment as a beater was given to me by a keeper who caught me red handed hunting my spaniel pup through one of his woods. I was not carrying any kind of gun and after a good ballocking from the keeper during which he cast aspersions on my ancestry in no uncertain terms he chucked me off his ground and then a few moments later came after me again. I thought he was going to get nasty all over again and this time I was not meekly going to just stand there and take it.

He had reconsidered things though. He offered me the chance to hunt my dog "legally" and I accepted at once. Whenever we met at various shoots following that first meeting he never missed the chance to tell everyone around about how he had "discovered " me.....just for the laughs it got. We got on very well and I miss him a lot.

I have only met 3 keepers I did not like in my life . I have a lot of time for that profession .......even if they are snobby buggers !

Wullie

[Alice]

Much as it pains me to disagree with Dawnrazor, I'm afraid I do.There's a lot of prejudice around lurchers, but if one can do the job, it should be judged by its work not its looks or what others of its type do.

[Miesque]

Mine is well known by most triallers in Ireland - he comes to tests and game fairs and there is no more rapt member of the audience than Archie, he will sit and watch tests for hours merrily marking down dummies and never getting bored. He caught the attention of one of the top Irish breeders when we were stood nearby at a test and the guy started flicking the lid his lighter idly. He was gobsmacked the lurcher picked the noise up as a gun being cocked and was completely focused on him waiting to mark down a bird! He's generally referred to as the pseudo-labrador, as far as he is concerned he is one.

[Dawnrazor]

Heathens.......Heathens!!!!! Like I said, we'll have to agree to disagree. I still do not think a driven shoot is a place for a lurcher, I would not allow any here, I'm headkeeper here and it's my show so to speak, my standards are high and, fair enough, old fashioned!!! I've seen standards among young keepers drop over the last ten or so years, under keepers shooting at trials dressed head to toe in real tree camo and using 9 shot semi autos. Now, everyday work wear for me is often camo, my everyday work gun is a 9 shot semi auto, I would rather shave my balls with a cheese grater than turn up like that on a driven day!!!! I hate to see young under keepers turn up on neighbouring shoots dressed like they're a builders labourer!! Tweeds, shirt and tie and clean shavenis how keepers should turn out on shoot days.I see to many scruffy and with a lurcher, "just giving it a run, saves taking it out when I get home"!!! not here and do not apply to me for a job son!!! That sort of attitude I find means I find poor, or poorer standards than I would put up with when I go to their places, cartridges not picked up from previous shoots, butts not strummed or no paths strummed to butts or gun pegs, other things like that, it seems to have come about since I've been seeing lurchers on shoots, something unheard off only a few short years ago. If someone has a good trained lurcher, and they are happy turning up with it and it's ok with the keeper, boss, shoot captain, fair enough, just not here or anywhere I work!!!!