Gundog Training Forum

The first springer I had come from Bob Yeoman, do you remember Kirkford Ryan the John Mckay had Wullie?
I had pups from Willie Davidson and Danny McKenzie, I knew Ian Meldrum and was talking to his 2 sons at last years Retriever Championship.
A great photo.

Sorry Naj, I can't remember where that game fair took place …. I think it was either in the Midlands or in Yorkshire .

I remember John Mc Kay's dog Kirkford Ryan very well ….his pet name was Dax and he was a black and white springer. Just after John had made him up to F.T.Ch. a justifiably proud John gave my ten years old son and I a short little demo of him hunting among some rough grass . When this very short little hunt was over John turned to my son and said … "What did you think of his hunting then Ross ?" My son , in all innocence, replied ….." Oh ! Is that what he was doing ? I thought he was looking for a good place to crap !"

John was lost for words, poor bugger, and I was in tears with laughing !

Danny Mc Kenzie was just about the hardest man with a dog I ever met ….. Naj would have loved him ! Willie Davidson was a friend of mine and a really nice bloke in my opinion ….but apparently , even though he was a Fifer, the Fife mafia didn't like him much …. I never did find out why.

I knew Ian Meldrum but I was friendlier with his brother Bill , the queens gundog trainer and with their father old George Meldrum.


I ran my lab bitch Trekmoor Tessa in that gamefair test , she'd won a two day Open but I never did make her a full champion. I didn't make enough money to do the trials and my boss wouldn't give me time off work to go to trials either. She was the best marking dog I have ever owned and the best handling dog too . She took a while to learn how to follow pricked birds though . That was my fault, I kept on trying to handle her as she was getting her nose down to follow the line. It was old Harry Mc Tier who cured me of that fault when he saw me do it in a trial and asked me rather angrily if I was ...." some kind of feckin idiot !"

Them were the days when the experienced trainers said what they thought very clearly and beginner trainers had to either like it or lump it ! There was no such thing as being diplomatically correct back then . I took my lumps from the older trainers and as I got older and a bit wiser I trained classes in the same way myself .....like it or leave !

Wullie

I think most of the top trainers back then were what we’d consider today as hard on their dogs, Wullie.

I’m wondering if the gamefair might have been at Chatsworth. I’d seen Danny M a few times at spaniel trials but what stuck in my mind was him running in the Gamefair Scottish team sporting a pair of eye busting blue trainers. And that was at a time when trainers weren’t as common as they are today, and certainly not at a Gamefair.

Naj

Most trainers were brought up the Woodhouse Way back then...

Danny spent some time in America after he'd retired from the police force up in Dundee. Maybe he bought those 'orrible trainers there ? I saw them too ! I knew a lot of top trainers who were hard on dogs back then but Danny was in a class of his own ….although many of the rumours about him were spread by his enemies …..he had quite a few of them !

I talked to him once at a gamefair up in Scotland, he'd been roped in as a dummy thrower for a water test for the general public to take part in. He was very drunk ….he liked his whisky..... and he treated me to his opinions on the standard of the dogs he was seeing. He said he'd probably shoot the lot of them for not being worth keeping ! I had heard enough stories about him to believe him !

I preferred his protégé …."Big Dave Booker" who had also been a polis in Dundee. I always felt Dave was "straighter" as a gundog judge.
Dave took a liking to me but this had it's drawbacks, when judging my dogs in tests he told me straight that because I was "an up and coming trailer" he'd judge my dogs work much harder than anyone else's to "teach me to give no command that was not essential."
I was winning a lot of tests back then …..but not when Dave was judging ! He hammered me for marks !


Men like Dave and Danny lived for trialing . Tests were only there for fun and to pass the time during the non-shooting months. It was after being tutored by those "old school" men that I developed my attitude to tests ….. "Real gundogs work real game, the rest only play at it."

I always did do pretty well in tests but I kept a sense of proportion about what a good gundog really was.

I think it is utterly ridiculous nowadays that an out and out scurry dog can win huge prizes ….the boot went onto the wrong foot somewhere along the line and I am inclined to think the K.C. becoming involved in gundog tests did some harm. Tests were just fun events at one time , they are taken a bit too seriously now.

Wullie

Judy wrote: ↑Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:08 pm Most trainers were brought up the Woodhouse Way back then...

So gratifying for a Yank to hear there was humour meted out in gundog training early on! Just one question: Would Claude Cattermole "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright, Bertie Wooster's school chum, been one of Wodehouse's apprentice trainers, then?

MG

Barbara Woodhouse...

Barbara Woodhouse's book was the first dog training book I ever read . I think it's title was , " Training Difficult Dogs."
There was nothing wrong with Barbara, she was "of her day."

I admit I hated when she said "Walkies !" in her later t.v. series though !

I always wondered if she wore knickers under that long tweed dress she always wore . I once competed in a retriever trial and the lady competitor walking nearest to me as we went down a field "in line" was wearing a long , thick tweed dress over her wellies. The line stopped when a dog further down the line was sent for a bird and the lady in tweed , who was probably about 60 years old, crouched down …...and I saw steam rising !

It took me a couple of seconds to realise what she was doing and I must have been gawping at her with my jaw hanging down in disbelief. She called over to me saying the never to be forgotten words, "I never wear knickers dear boy - I never wear knickers !"

Bet she was a bit of a goer in her youth !

A couple of the older men present must have been well aware of this lady's "peculiarities." One of them said to me later …."You should have congratulated her on her dog being so steady to fur !"
Such was my apprenticeship and introduction to the wonderful world of field trialing back then ! You needed a thick skin and a rough and ready sense of humour to survive !

The judges back then liked a bit of a laugh too ...often at the expense of the handlers. One local judge, a keeper called Jack Tait, got me and two other retriever trailers a beauty when we'd all failed to find a bird as 2nd - 3rd and 4th dog "downers." The first dog sent was definitely eliminated but if the judges and the gun who'd shot the bird then failed to find it when they walked out through the heather to look for it then we'd still be in the trial.

They all walked out to the fall area and began to search for the bird ….while me and the other two handlers stood there about 40 -50 yards back hoping fervently that they wouldn't find it ! After a moment Jack Tait suddenly stopped and bent over to put his hand down into the heather and we saw something fluttering still partially obscured by the heather. We were O-U-T …..OOT ! Then Jack stood up and blew his nose with the hankie he'd been making flutter ! He shouted back to us …"You should have seen the look on your faces !"

Another trial judge received a dead rabbit brought back by a dog , he gave it a cursory going over for signs of hard mouth and then checked again far more thoroughly saying , "Feel this ." to the handler. The extremely worried and anxious handler carefully felt over the rabbit then said he could find nothing wrong with it. The judge, a man I knew well and trained with , then said …." Wrong with it ? Naw, there's nothing wrong with it. I just meant it's a fine , fat rabbit isn't it !"

We had great fun at trials 40 years ago !

Wullie

Judy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 7:17 am Barbara Woodhouse...

Who?

Just joshing. Enjoying lots of enlightenment - non-e-collar enlightening - coming from this thread.

MG

trekmoor wrote: ↑Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:21 am "I never wear knickers dear boy - I never wear knickers !"

I bet that was handy for her on a warm at the grouse, it would the flies off her sandwiches at lunch time!