On Edge

[trekmoor]

Libby the Brittany has been with her new owner for a couple of months now. He phones me every week or two with tales of what she has been up to. He says he is delighted with her and that she has found and pointed quite a lot of game for him, pheasants, partridge, woodcock and snipe. He also says she is still steady to flush and to fall of game. I don't think that will last for long as his 9-10 months old Brittany pup has been stealing the retrieves !

Apparently she now rules in his house just as she did in mine but at least I never let her jump onto the beds to sleep once I'd brought her home ! She seems to be having a great time and is out hunting almost every day, I'm really pleased I found her a home where she fits in so well.

Wullie

[Judy]

There's nuffin wrong with brittanies ......if they get owners who can train them !

Wullie

Is this the much sought after commonality? If you can train a Brittany you can train any dog?

[trekmoor]

There is probably a grain of truth in that Judy. I have trained many of the gundog breeds but only the Brittany has really stretched me as a trainer. No other breed I've trained has insisted that they do not work for me, they work "with" me ......or they go on strike or they become self employed hunters.
I enjoyed that experience but many good trainers or even very good trainers do not. The Brittany is not a breed that will jump onto the shovel on command and ask what colour you want ! They are great fun.........if you have the sort of sense of humour that allows you to have a laugh at your own shortcomings !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

I am ashamed to say that I haven't had Edge out doing anything more than a pee in the little wood right beside my house since last Tuesday. I have got a plethora of excuses for this---- I run out breath quickly, the weather has been crap etc..

One of the etcetera's is the garden seat or bench or plant pot stand or dog kennel bench I have been making out of some timber I rescued from a skip. It is one of my typical efforts at carpentry.....it fits where it touches ! I still do not know what it's final function will be but I'm fairly sure it will not fall apart very easily since I used 4 inch long and 3/8 inch thick carriage bolts to construct it !

I am, at present, considering adding a back to it and also arm rests but to do that I'd have to buy the carriage bolts, the ones already used I liberated from a building site a few years ago. I hadn't wanted to spend any money on my "Hodgit and Bodgit Cabinet Makers to the Queen" creation so I may just have a hunt among the old screws and fings out in the shed in order to finish this undoubted work of art.

The noise and the sawdust I make during the creation of this masterpiece is driving my wife nuts . Most of the noise comes from me swearing when I bash a finger or when something doesn't fit as I think it should. She doesn't like my bench at all but then she has only shown good taste once in her life and that was when she married me.

Wullie

[h&t]

let's see photos of the bench, I am sure it's fine, just remember - a well hammered screw holds better, than a screwed nail

[Judy]

And there's nowt worse than a screwed nail...

[trekmoor]

Tues .
Livvy Pond woods - 2.30 p.m. - cloudy and cold, light to moderate wind.

Dogs - Edge and Charlie

I at last got Edge out but Charlie wanted to come too so I let him do as he wanted while I hunted Edge through the wood in proper ,pukka spaniel manner. Charlie somehow managed to herd two rabbits right past me but Edge never even saw them ! Charlie was right on their tails but he stopped when I blew stop so I can't moan about the chase much since I haven't trained him for years !

Edge hunted well but he has two faults each opposing the other. If I leave him alone as he hunts, he hunts too wide but if I whistle turn him he always obeys and then does a bit too much looking to me for instructions ....I can't win ! I wish he had seen the two rabbits . They would have resulted in an almost certain chase ....and in a more independent manner of hunting !

I had a few dummies with me for Edge and he did fine with the three retrieves he was given . I gave Charlie the same retrieves, one blind , one mark and one memory, and Charlie did them all even more easily than Edge. I think Charlie must have been peeking when I lobbed out the blind as the two dogs hunted, he made the blind look just a bit too easy !

I only walked about 4-500 yards but that short distance saw me have to sit on fallen trees to get my breath back four times. I went home pleased to have managed even that short walk.
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Wed.
The Soup Dragon fancied a run in the car .......my car. She said she'd pay half the fuel costs since my car does, at best, about 25 miles to the gallon and that only happens going downhill with the wind blowing hard from behind. I thought the run would cost about £20 so she declared her share to be £5 ..........She is better at maths than I am so I settled for that.

We went to North Berwick taking all the dogs with us for a walk on the sands. It was a lovely day even if it was very cold and the dogs were soon playing along the tideline as some pretty big waves rolled in. Charlie chased the shoreline birds and then went surfing just for something to do......he seems to like the experience of the waves carrying him along with them.

Edge did not go surfing or even for a swim but when he noticed a tennis ball sized rounded stone being rolled by the waves up and down the fairly steeply sloping sand he stopped to investigate it and a muckle big wave came in and went right over him. He didn't seem to mind that at all but still did not go swimming.

Billy loves the sea-side , he cavorted about in the waves but never went swimming either . He seems to be a bit more wave savvy than Edge is and always managed to get back onto higher sands as the bigger rollers came in.

Charlie now felt he'd exhausted the fun to be derived on the tideline so he bogged off to hunt among what I think is marram grass further up the beach . His hunt was successful .......does anyone want a Charlie cross beagle pup ? A woman with an in-season bitch had been among the grass up near the road to free-run her bitch in a "safe" place... Her bitch had ran off and had been a welcome "find" for my little Romeo !

I advised the woman to take her bitch to the vet and have her inoculated to cancel out any pups but the lady said she rather fancied a puppy ! I don't think she believed me when I told her that a Charlie pup was likely to be one hell of a handful. Charlie has my mates forming the sign of the cross when he comes near them. He is a cocker and a half ! I like dogs of that sort but few other people seem to !

...............................................................................................

My wife decided that my lovely bench/seat should go into dogs kennel run so in it went and Edge promptly decided it could stand some improvement ......so he chewed a 4inch by 1 1/2 inch leg right off it in less than two hours ! I took that leg off and replaced it but within 10 minutes he'd chewed a bit off one of the corners. It will now be a garden bench/seat after all.

He never chews furniture inside the house but it seems the kennel is another story !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

Thurs. 2-3-2017

The Triangle - 1.30 p.m. [ish] - Sunny and a strong, cold wind.

Dogs - Edge

It has been a several months since I last took a dog to The Triangle. I think of it as being a place to hunt HPR's ,not a place to hunt spaniels and I'm sorry to say I no longer have an HPR. There is plenty of good cover for spaniel work but hardly any game at all or at least no game that is stupid enough to stick around as a dog and man moves towards it.

Edge found nothing at all even after I let him open up his pattern to about 20 -25 yards. He became more "alive" in only one place and that was among the many gorse bushes that studded one end of the rough field we were in. He didn't find any rabbits or birds there but he did quite a nice flush on three roe deer. They broke cover about 20 yards in front of him and 30 yards in front of me. The gorse bushes hid the deer from Edge but he tracked them for 40 yards or so before turning back at the fence the deer had jumped as they made off.

I tried a few retrieves , all of them memory retrieves but while I had hunted him away from the dummies , the gorse clumps were causing me to meander many yards off course. The dummy was only 70 yards back as the crow flies but it was at least 100 yards back along the route I'd taken.

Edge got a bit lost when I sent him for the dummy, he went off on a left hand tangent guided that way by the gorse bushes. I watched as he hunted that area back towards me for nearly 40 yards before casting himself back out again and this time he hunted back towards the dummy and found it.

I hunted him on again after throwing the dummy into a cricket pitch sized area of spike grass. Again I had to weave and wind my way through the gorse bushes as Edge hunted them and I walked away from the dummy for nearly 100 yards this time.
When I sent Edge back he got lost again within the gorse and next time I saw him he was hunting the place where the first dummy had been. He'd gone back nearly 200 yards through spike grass and through gorse and he would not be handled at that distance.

Eventually he came back to me and I whistle stopped him 40 yards away then directed him towards the dummy. He would stop at that distance but when I tried to send him right he repeatedly went left. He is a very willing sort of dog and would have done as I wished ......if he had understood what I wished. We have got our wires crossed somewhere !

He eventually did find that memory retrieve but only after I'd sent him back towards the search area many times and then just let him hunt ....because I couldn't remember exactly where the dummy was either !

Wullie

[Alice]

What is it with your dogs and beagles- didn't Dax do the same?!

[trekmoor]

Yep, Dax did the same about 8 years ago. I occasionally see two of that litter , they are very attractive to look at, have lovely natures and according to their owners are a doddle to control. Dax was pretty easy to control too but Charlie x Beagle might be a very different story !

The little I know about beagles makes me think they are "pack dogs" ruled by their noses enough to make training them problematic. Add a dog with Charlie's incredible "prey drive" to a beagle pup and I think the pup might be a bit over the top for most people.
You now have me thinking of trying one of those pups out as a picking-up dog......... I bet it would be good at "sweeping !" I could claim a pup as Charlie's stud fee ! Lol !!!

Wonder if the woman will be charging about £1000 per puppy ?

Wullie