Libby's Diary

[trekmoor]

Agreed, my daughter had a rescue pointer bitch which went with her on her 6 mile morning runs. The bitch was on a lead at first but was soon running loose beside my daughter. That bitch had never been a street stray though.
The owners of the gsp male say that their dog will do as it is told on the lead which seemed to be true but they dare not let him off or he just goes no matter what they do. I see no reason to disbelieve them and since neither they nor I know of a relatively small well fenced in area, like a tennis court, we are a bit stuck when it comes to trying to control this dog when off lead.

The dog takes off to chase/follow any nearby birds so since I cannot take him onto the estate I am thinking that after some training, perhaps with the e-collar, I may try going with the owners and their dog to a loch where people go to feed the waterfowl....... anyone fancy eating pegged swan ?

To judge by the dogs general "look" I have a very strong suspicion that he has been beaten at some point in his past. He was a little bit wary of me and yet I never laid a finger on him or tried to make him do anything. It was just a "getting to know you" session where we sort of assessed each other. The dog was "rescued" from an island in the Mediterranean and according to his owners, they had to "teach" him English !

There seems to be quite a lot of rescue dogs coming from the Med area . I don't think I would ever sell a puppy into that area.

Wullie

[Naj]

Just about all the rescued gundogs from the Med will be problematic. Hunters over there seem to think that the dogs will train themselves so chuck them in at the deep end without anything in the way of training, treat them roughly with any training that they do do with them then literally chuck them out on the street if they don't make the grade. Apparently many hunters get shut of a dog in this way at the end of the season & might start again with a new dog the following season. The drop-out rate is immense. Seems that there are a few Brits over there on rescue missions & we're seeing more & more of these dogs advertised over here but some of them must be half feral by the time they're rescued.

Naj

[trekmoor]

I've been noticing brittanies being brought here as rescue dogs from the Med area for a couple of years now . Then a man from the army I met told me about shooting in Cyprus . He went shooting with the locals once and said nothing would ever make him go again ! Their standards of gun safety were so low that he said he'd felt safer fighting terrorists in Afghanistan !
He was not at all impressed by the standards of dog work either !
My son took his family for a holiday on one of the islands in the Med and he didn't like seeing all the stray dogs , some of them in terrible condition, running around the town.

20 years ago I refused to sell one of my litters gsp pups to a very wealthy lady from the south of France. The bitch pup she wanted was very flashily marked and she made the mistake of telling me she wanted a pup that would look "tres chic" as she strolled down the street in Cannes. She was very annoyed when I refused to sell her the pup.

Wullie

[h&t]

don't you have 6 months quarantine in the UK? can't see how the dogs come from abroad...
I lived in one middle eastern country. When some locals heard I am going away for a month and taking my dog with me, they exclaimed - just leave it here, you can get another one when you come back if you can't find the same one!

[Miesque]

We've got a pet passport and rabies screening programme so for most countries the dog doesn't need to be quarantined anymore

[trekmoor]

This is in Libby's Diary but it has nothing to do with Libby .....she was only there for the beer. I went out with the couple who own the rescue GSP again this afternoon. I cheered them up right from the start by telling them there would be no fee for this lesson. I have a habit, as one or two other forum users could testify to, of taking a fee for a first lesson then deciding whether or not I like the dog's owner during that lesson. When someone I like turns up for subsequent lessons I take no fee, if someone I don't like turns up again I take a fee and may even put the fee up if I really don't like 'em ! ...........It works for me and I usually end up with good friends rather than just fee paying pupils.
I've always been a totally crap businessman.

I find some advantages in taking no fee and the main one is I can say and do things that a fee taking trainer probably would not. I'd instructed this couple in the use of the checkcord plus treats and praise last time out so this time out I moved into my usual rather blunt or even sarcastic normal training mode. Some "customers" do better or think faster and harder if instead of polite requests to do things faster or with better timing, they get a trainer who laughs at their efforts or/and slags them off a bit ! It doesn't work with everyone but I know my customers .....usually .

This pair of very novice dog trainers had done as I asked quite well during the last two weeks but they were a bit slow to anticipate their dogs next likely behaviour at times and they berated or argued with each other as "man and wife" instead of keeping their minds on the dog. They were, in short, interfering with each others dog training attempts.

I had already decided that laughter might be the best cure for that problem so I laughed as they set about each other and then pointed out that their dog was now 30 yards out on a 20 foot long check-cord ! That sort of thing happened several times and the lady eventually turned to me and said ...."You're enjoying this aren't you ?" in rather exasperated tones. I replied that I'd taken no fee because I should have been paying them for the afternoon's entertainment !

The couple looked at each other, then looked at me , then burst out laughing themselves . We got on great after that.
Things progressed to the point where the man, the confident one of the two , decided to let the dog run free . This was in an area where Libby has found, rabbits, pheasants and deer a few times. The dog tore off and was 70 yards out and still going in seconds. The panicking couple blew the whistle exactly as I'd shown them to do and the lady called the dog repeatedly and the dog paid no attention at all. He was having a great free run and he couldn't half shift over the ground.

I calmed the couple down a bit and got them to stop chasing after the dog , they'd never have caught him anyway. Then I moved them to where the dog could not see them and asked them just to wait there , back came the dog and he'd ended up on the wrong side of a woodland fence to us. The dog was now worried he'd lose us and was only too keen to get back over that fence.

I explained my "theory" on dog behaviour to the couple .......dogs that don't really want to come back wont come back if they can see exactly where you are or can hear your panicked whistles and shouts. Why should they ? They can get to you any time they like .....feeding time probably sounds about right to a dog !

Following this I told the couple how to manage a dogs regular feeding in order to achieve a recall by carrying it's meal with you and doling out portions of that meal only a handful at a time and only when the dog is already very hungry. If the dog does not recall it gets nothing to eat until the next time it is called and does recall. It's tough love but it works.

I also gave them the e-collar and it's charger etc. after explaining again how to use it but I hope they don't have to use it. I just don't trust e-collars especially in the hands of total beginners.

The session went better than I'd expected mainly due to the couple having done their homework over the previous two weeks......but I still don't think that dog will ever just meekly trit-trot alongside the couple while they run or cycle in the country. There is just too much "hunt" in him.

Wullie

[Nickheref]

Just about all the rescued gundogs from the Med will be problematic. Hunters over there seem to think that the dogs will train themselves so chuck them in at the deep end without anything in the way of training, treat them roughly with any training that they do do with them then literally chuck them out on the street if they don't make the grade. Apparently many hunters get shut of a dog in this way at the end of the season & might start again with a new dog the following season. The drop-out rate is immense. Seems that there are a few Brits over there on rescue missions & we're seeing more & more of these dogs advertised over here but some of them must be half feral by the time they're rescued.

Naj

Quite right Naj, a friend of mine took on a GSP rescue from the med, they think it was fending for itself for a couple of months before it was rescued. It hunts like hell for itself but I do not honestly think he will ever get any steadiness into it at all. It has a particular liking for taking off into the distance after roe deer!

[h&t]

I just don't trust e-collars especially in the hands of total beginners.

Here "in the land of the e-c", we insist on e-c being properly introduced to the dog. The dog must know how to turn it off, so to speak.

[trekmoor]

I 've been doing very little with the dogs recently. I get out of breath too quickly and easily but I felt a bit sorry for Libby in particular because she has been used to lots of exercise all her life so I took her to the estate this afternoon.
It was a glorious sort of day and I could see for many miles all the way to the Pentland Hills in the south and right over the Firth of Forth to the hills in the north of Fife. The only problem was the almost complete lack of any wind.

I kept out of the woods to begin with as there would be even less wind in there . Libby hunted along a lane bordered by about 10 -20 yards of very rough cover and she did it very slowly. I didn't like that but she was only trying to be careful given there was so little wind to help her. The lane was only about 100 yards long but I had to sit on a boulder at it's far end......I'd ran out of breath already and the next field to be hunted was uphill for most of the way.

After 4-5 minutes I hunted Libby on up that field while I struggled up it in short slow moving bursts interspersed with short breaks leaning on my stick. To begin with Libby still hunted fairly cautiously but near to the crest of the hill where the land flattened out into a football pitch sized area of very tall, very thick gamecrop , she picked up speed and then vanished into the tall grassy looking stalks of the gamecrop.

She remained out of sight for several minutes so it seemed very likely she was pointing on or "working" on a pheasant deep inside the crop. I knew a fairly busy estate road was less than 100 yards away out in front so I blew recall just to be safe. The first thing to return over the hillcrest towards me was not Libby. A woodcock flew towards me then pitched back in to the gamecrop.........it's the first time I've ever seen a woodcock use that sort of cover. Then Libby came back over the hill but I only knew that because of the movement of the tops of the crop which was 3 times her height.

She stopped moving, she'd found or perhaps had refound the woodcock ? I whistle commanded the flush and the bird flew back the way it had just came in a big curve. By now, amidst much huffing and puffing , I'd reached the top of the hill and at once noticed there was some wind up there , that's why Libby's range and speed had increased.
I hunted her on and she had a try at doing a follow on what I think might have been a pheasant along a little boundary wall between the field and the estate road. I called her off the "follow" just in case the bird took her onto the road. She went back into the gamecrop and was out of sight for long enough to make me worry that she was back near that road again so, once more, I blew recall and once more up got a woodcock . This time the bird again flew towards me and then pitched in just 30 yards from me out in the gamecrop.

Libby came back more or less along the woodcocks flight line. I'm fairly sure this was the same bird she'd now found and flushed 3 times but Libby added a 4th time to that by finding it again ! I don't think that bird is wounded, Libby would have gone after it if it had looked or smelled "wounded" to her so perhaps it is thinking about nesting in that area which is surrounded by woods on two sides. Never before today though have I ever seen a woodcock so determined to hide out among a game crop.

By now I'd walked 250 - 300 yards , some of it uphill and I'd had about enough but Libby was enjoying herself so I carried on into a wood before hunting through the wood towards my car. She had a spectacular bump on a cock pheasant halfway down the wooded hillside and I blew stop in a rather angry manner. She looked back up the hill at me and after giving me a good glare I think I heard her say, ...." Well I wiz looking for woodcock wisn't I ?!!!!"

Just 40 yards further along that same wooded hillside she redeemed herself following that bump. She went on point 30-40 yards from me and down the side of that muddy, slippery hill. I at once decided that I was not going down to that point.... I was tired enough already. I whistle flushed her and she had a lovely "off the nose" flush on a hare ......and she didn't even try to chase it.

I'd totally whacked myself out following her for 1/4 of a mile or so but she was still as fresh a daisy. I wanted to hunt her on but just couldn't, I almost fell back into the car then rested for 10-15 minutes before heading home.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

The Triangle - 4.30 p.m. - Cloudy, windy and cold.

Dogs - Libby and Edge

I needed to find another way in to this place as the local council has not only "developed" about 1/3 of the place it has built a big road right through it. I found another way in this afternoon but to get up and into the places I usually hunt meant an uphill walk of at least 400 yards. By the time I'd reached my usual hunting/training ground I was too tired to do anything other than sit down !

To get even that far meant an uphill walk over two rough grass fields. Game is very seldom found on those fields but Libby "did them " end to end and top to bottom long before I'd got even halfway up the first of the two fields.
After a few brave but futile attempts to keep up with her , "Edge" my 13 months old springer pup decided he wasn't a Brittany after all and from then on kept a good bit closer to me without me having to whistle him back in. I'd have thought his considerably greater size would have allowed him to match her pace but it would seem that size isn't everything . It was a bit like watching a "normal" horse trying to match the pace of Grand National gee-gees !

When I still had a field and a bit to walk up to reach the better hunting ground , Libby reached that fields fenceline, ignored the turn whistle for which I blame lack of training plus the approximate distance of 200 yards plus and then vanished over the horizon and into that large field of spike grass, brambles, gorse thickets , marsh and a great many ground hugging thorn bushes.
My chances of finding her in there if she went on point were less than nil so I began to blow recall but still she did not return.

I needed to get some breath back anyway so I did nothing for a few minutes and then blew recall again. This time a cock pheasant and then another one got up in Libby's last known direction but a good bit further out and flew off. 20 seconds later Libby came back through the fence up on the horizon and ran full tilt back to me grinning all over her evil little face.

Nothing that I saw was found by either dog during our return to the car by a slightly different route but Libby was still going hell-for-leather through the stunted, wind blasted trees and bushes along the edge of the fields. I tried taking a different track back to the car after both dogs had ran off through the cover down the other track . They were probably at least 80 yards away when I finally found something to sit on in the form of a fallen tree.

For a moment I thought I'd managed to deliberately "lose" the dogs but as I watched them through the trees and bushes I saw the two of them join forces and then track me down. Libby is already good at this and Edge will have to get good at it too if he is to be a picking-up dog in the woods where I usually stand.

Even after all that fast and furious running Libby looked as fresh as a daisy but Edge was very thirsty and drank from one of the filthiest puddles I have ever seen..........he now has the Scoots !

I'm glad Libby got a better run than she's had for a while but if getting into The Triangle now means climbing that hill I won't be going there very often. I made arrangements yesterday though to meet a lady with a lab there , she already uses the way in I took today and says it is a "very short walk from the car !" She has my admiration. That lady is a year or two older than I am and has had a cancer operation plus ops for a broken collar bone and hip all within the last 8 months. She still turned up on the estate last season to go picking up .........and she was on crutches !!!

Wullie