Ghillie's Report Card

[trekmoor]

Thanks folks. I got a clicker about 10 years ago and trained the 9 -10 months old GSP pup I had then to deliver dummies into my mouth ! Dummies taste 'orrible so I gave in on clicker training before I asked the poor pup to do something really vulgar with the dummy !

Clicker training does work very well and it is not difficult to learn to do. That GSP pup and I were both total newbies to clicker training and yet I got a perfect sitting present from him in less than one week. Then I decided to see how far I could take the present and ended up with him standing on his hind legs with his front paws on my chest while he put the dummy into my mouth. It's a pity that I just don't like clicker training , it always seems a bit "mechanical" to me.... I don't feel much mental contact with the dog.

I have had a couple of phone calls from the pickers-up at the shoot I usually go to asking how I was doing. I've been told just to turn up to watch and then let my dogs loose at the end of the drives .....which according to one of the cheeky buggers is all I ever do anyway !

They cheered me up a bit and so I hope to go to tomorrows shoot. I can't ask the other lads to do any more though, they already do far too much to help me.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

yesterday - 22/11/2018

Forth Estates - 9.30 a.m. - Cold, some sunshine and some heavy rain.


Dogs - Ghillie and Edge.

I very reluctantly left my old, reliable pal "Charlie" at home. I was worried that his deafness would cause me problems and therefor get me stressed and breathless. He is, at 12 years old, still very active and very healthy but his hearing is kaput.

Edge and Ghillie did very well without his help however and although I only did two drives before going home again , they collected 7 birds , one dead bird and six runners. For once I could actually see one of those birds , the dead bird, lying on the woodland floor. Ghillie found it and her reaction was a little bit amusing. Last season , Ghillies first shooting season, she only encountered one dead bird because of me being a "back marker." She is only used to finding and retrieving runners and yesterdays dead bird caused her to look a bit puzzled for a couple of seconds before she picked it up and retrieved it. I don't think she is very impressed with dead birds !

Edge somehow managed to "eyewipe" the dogs belonging to two of the other pickers up. They'd been searching for a cock pheasant runner both during and after the drive. When the end of drive horn sounded I released my dogs . Edge had either seen or heard the noise being made by the two pickers up so he went off to take a look for himself and found the bird somewhere deep in the rhodie thicket. I have no idea if the other searching dogs were ever into whatever part of the thicket Edge searched but whatever happened in there it was Edge that came out with the bird. I do know he hadn't taken the bird from one of the other dogs, he never steals another dog's bird.....which is more than can be said for Ghillie who will unhesitatingly try to take birds from other dogs !

I did have one bit of bother yesterday. For once I ended up in a picking up position very near to the guns. A deep and long bramble and thorn bush gulley was about 60 yards behind the guns and the keeper likes a man with , "Real rakin' dugs" posted there .....that's me apparently ! From where I was posted my dogs could, for once, actually see the birds being fired at and see the birds falling.

Edge has always been a very steady dog but it has been two years since he last saw birds falling . He tried to run-in ! Very luckily I had kept my dogs on leads during that drive or both of them would have been in among the guns in seconds flat !

It was on that drive that my dogs picked the six birds and carrying them to the gamecart and then walking back uphill to my car caused my breathing to go all to pot so I informed the other lads I was going home ....and did exactly that.
It was a good day out though , those two mutts of mine sure can find runners.

Wullie

[ips]

Pleased to hear that you got out wullie

[trekmoor]

24 - 11 - 2018.

Forth Estates - 9.30 a.m. (supposedly !) - Rain and moderate east winds.

Dogs - Ghillie and Edge.

I had to really rush to get to the shoot on time yesterday …. I'd slept in ! The keeper likes all his beaters and pickers-up to be there by 9 a.m. at the latest so he knows just how many he has to work with. I got there about 9.15 and was ready to apologise but I didn't need to for the keeper was still trying to get the guns there on time. The guns turned up about an hour late and the first drive did not begin until 10.20 A.M.

Although I saw plenty of birds in the air and even saw a few get shot they did not fall near me . My dogs could see those birds falling too and Ghillie got fed up with just sitting there after 10 minutes and ran-in for a bird that fell about 120 yards away from me. She would not recall so I just waited ....and quietly fumed ! As luck would have it a wee broon and white springer appeared out there just as Ghillie began her run-in and it got to the bird before she did. I then managed, with two toots and an angry shout , to recall her ! I discovered after the drive that the wee broon and white thing belonged to a beater and that he hadn't seen her for most of the drive ! Sounds like my kind o' dug !

I saw a hen flying over a gun way off in the distance, I saw the bird twitch and a second or so later, I heard the bang from the gun so I kept my eye on that bird and it was coming straight for me. About 30 yards in front of me the bird suddenly stopped flying and plummeted into some nearby trees ....it had died in mid-glide. I thought , "Well at least I'll get one bird ." and I very nearly got it much quicker than I expected ! Edge had been watching it too and he tried to run-in ! He was on a lead so he didn't get very far !

Because his attempted run-in had been a few minutes later than Ghillies full distance one I decided to send Ghillie for the bird and she easily found it and retrieved it.


From then on everything went to pot. I had a 50 yard walk to do back up a hill to my car and my breathing went all to hell. Then the keeper told me he was changing the order of the drives and that I should sit the next one out because it is a long walk from the vehicles and because it is at the base of a high, steep hill. I decided to just go home .


Wullie

[trekmoor]

I was supposed to be picking-up today but my legs were like jelly and my breathing was bad even inside the house so I chickened out.
I felt really sorry for my dogs because I'd come downstairs dressed to go to the shoot, the dogs were ecstatic ….and then I didn't go.

My daughters GSP is, we think, getting better. His legs are working well again and he is eating well again. His pain killing and his anti-inflammatory pills will very soon be finished and I hope he does not go back to being very sore and lame again.

Wullie

[t jack]

Glad to see your still at it Wullie, great read as usual, not on here much now but do come on now and again to read your “report card” as good a read as ever, top job keep at it Will.

[trekmoor]

Hi Will, it's good to hear from you. I was beginning to wonder if you'd popped your clogs before I managed to !
I've done next to nothing in the way of training with my dogs for about 2 years now . I just can't do the walking any more. My lab "Ghillie" is now about 22 months old and she had very little training in the first place and almost none at all since about the end of April ! It's a good job she has plenty of natural ability cos I'm not much help to her.
I have actually been thinking about finding a good working home for her because a dog like her should be matched with someone who can still take her to shoots. In short I am seriously considering just never going to shoots again . I don't like feeling I am not pulling my weight.

I haven't been doing much fishing either for the same reason, I can't do the walking that is often needed. I have done a few coarse fishing trips and a few sea-shore fishing trips but only to places where I can almost fish from my car !

My grandchildren have been keeping me amused. My grand daughter is doing very well at school and has won a bursary to go to a bloody expensive fee paying school. She reminds me of me ....her favourite sport seems to be fighting and , if I understood it all correctly, she is now the Scottish karate champion for her age group. She is a bit of a live wire and made my son almost crash his car when she recently asked him if he'd had wet dreams when he was a boy ! What the hell do they teach 10 year olds at school nowadays !!! ???

My grandson is more like my wife, sort of calmer and steadier ....but with a hidden temper ! Grandkids are great fun , wish my daughter and daughter in law had popped out a few more of 'em !

Are you still doing the spaniel trials Will or are you now trying something else ? Do you still have the big rabbit pen you built ? Not that I want to use it , I'd just have to stand there like a numptie while my dogs chased the rabbits round and round the pen !

Do guys still fish the beach up there for flatties and for bass ? I have been thinking about having a week's summer holiday up there again. Does the local tackle shop sell worm bait ? I can't dig my own nowadays.

Anyway Will, thanks for posting in. It was good to hear from you.

Wullie

[trekmoor]

I missed another day of picking up yesterday due to poor health ….this time my guts ! I'd went shore fishing for cod on Thursday night in strong easty winds and it was ball numbingly cold doon on the sea shore. I started to shiver and shake and only stuck it out for a bit over 3 hours before the cold forced me to drive 55 miles home again. That was the first time I've ever felt cold when sea fishing in the winter. My hands and fingers have always worked well in past winter cod fishing conditions . I had no problems using multiplyer reels or putting on bait or casting or reeling in but on Thursday night no part of my body felt like it belonged to me any more !


During my 3 hours there I only saw one other brave soul out there. He was a Canadian and he remarked that if I liked ice fishing I should emigrate to Canada ! He gave in 2 hours before I did …. I thought the Canuck's were tough ! Maybe he had more sense than me though for I got so badly chilled …. I think I was near hypothermic.... that I got a terrible dose of the "skitters" that only stopped last night. It was the scoots that made me not go picking up yesterday. I'd have been "running for cover" all day long !

My wife thinks it was probably my fishing bait …. black lugworm, crab, razor fish and mackerel that gave me the scoots because I put it onto hooks and then eat a pie or sumfin….. she could be right . Some of that bait was more than a year old.


I don't think I will be doing much more winter's night cod fishing . I've been forced to admit I'm getting too auld for it. With my two favourite sports, cod fishing and gundog work, now having become a bit too much for me, I'm not sure what else I could do ….play blow football maybe ? I certainly do lots of huffing and puffing !

Wullie

[ips]

There has been a virus going around wullie , i had it last week with same symptoms that you describe.

[trekmoor]

I think nearly two months has gone by during which I haven't done any work at all with my dogs. That includes my daughters GSP "Kurt." He is now nearly 11 months old and is quite a character ….and quite a handful.

He has taught himself how to open, from inside or from outside , the back and front doors of my house.....so he lets himself out and in whenever he feels like it ! I wish he'd learn to close the doors behind him though ! He also taught himself how to open the latches of our front and back garden gates and used this ability to take himself on laps of honour in, out, through and around our house !

He was going out by one house door, then opening the garden gate, then running around my house and my neighbours, then opening the other garden gate and then finally opening the other house main door to let himself back inside again ! He is a bloomin' nightmare when he does this for unless my own dogs are shut in the run they get out for a "self-walkies" too .

I have now put a stop to this by taking the shop bought latches off our garden gates and replacing them with big sliding bolts of my own devising. One of those new bolts is about 5 feet up on the gate ….but he can quite easily reach up to that height on his hind legs. So far he hasn't managed to slide the new bolt along but I will not be encouraging him to jump gates or fences just in case he tries to get out by jumping the fences. He could fairly easily go over our 6 feet high fences ….if he knew how well he could jump !


For all his considerable size and strength he is a gentle sort of a dog and is right down at the bottom of the pecking order in my little pack. My cocker "Charlie" is less than half of Kurts size but wee Charlie only has to look at him sideways for Kurt's tail to go right down and for him to assume a submissive posture.


Kurt has struck up a really good friendship with my lab bitch "Ghillie." They play together almost incessantly which pleases me a lot because it gives her a lot more exercise than I possibly can now. I wonder how much Kurt's retrieving has slipped back in the last month or two of him having done no retrieving at all ? I am almost certain he will still be very keen on retrieving but I strongly suspect that the steadiness to dummies I'd begun to teach him will no longer be present and his deliveries will be bloody awful ...again !


I'd fully intended to have him at shoots by now and well on his way to being a useful picking-up dog but not even my own dogs have been out at the shoots much this season. It's a waste of good dogs.


Wullie