Charlies Chatter - Mk.2

[trekmoor]

Indy Estate - 7.20 a.m. - Raining and a moderate to strong wind.

Dogs - Charlie and Dixie

I haven't been to this place for several months and I wanted to see if ,in my absence, there had been a rabbit explosion. I had been going to take Dax but Charlie gave me an accusing look . Dax does seem to get all the fun .He mated a bitch a few days ago and he's on a promise for another bitch next week. I decided to take Charlie rabbit hunting instead of Dax.

The wind was from in front but coming in at angle from the left as I began to hunt Dixie with Charlie at heel. Dixie pushed a rabbit out of a large, low bramble clump within 40 yards of beginning her hunt but the rabbit left well before she reached it and she didn't see it. Charlie did however and he brightened up immediately ! The angle of this wind was causing Dixie to quarter at an oblique angle to me in order to work to it. It was hard to know at times if she'd turn herself or if I'd have to turn her. This resulted in her hunting out a bit too far several times when I had given her the benefit of the doubt.

She was going very hard and fast among the reedy clumps of dead grass, bramble bushes and fallen branches from some nearby trees.I noticed her tongue was bleeding so I called her in and hunted Charlie . There isn't a snowball in hell's chance of "doing the swank" when Charlie is hunting rabbits ! If I'd had superglue with me I'd have glued the whistle into my gob ! Charlie went like the clappers through everything that got in his way but he's a "cunning" rabbit hunter ...... every so often he'd stop dead in his tracks to take a good look up ahead for any rabbits he'd scared off !!!
This little habit of his irritates the hell out of me but it works for Charlie so he keeps right on doing it ! Charlie thinks as he hunts. He knows he's got eyes as well as a nose so he uses them too.

After about 80 yards of hunting Charlie we came to an area of fallen tree limbs all festooned in long dead grass and Charlie went into overdrive . Out ran a rabbit , very few other spaniels would have seen that rabbit but Charlie did and he'd gone 10 feet after it before I could blow the stop whistle. He stopped at once but gave me an over the shoulder look which meant, " What the F was wrong with that one ? I could have caught it for sure !" I called him back in and hunted Dixie again.

She found another rabbit in that same area and again she didn't see it leave but Charlie did and gave a little bounce with his front paws at my heel. We entered a small field about half the size of a football pitch which is almost end to end bramble bushes. Dixie hunts brambles but isn't as good in them as Charlie is. In no time at all I could see her tongue bleeding again and also her nose , a shoulder and even her half length docked tail. I called her back into heel and let Charlie have a go.

About a minute later Charlie showed signs of having fresh rabbit scent up his nose and I got ready with the whistle. He went only partway into this spread of low brambles that covered about 30 feet x 30 feet of ground and then came back out and took a look at the situation. He then ran around to it's far side and plunged in there. Out ran a rabbit from my side of the brambles and since Charlie was still in the middle of the clump and underneath it I could relax, he couldn't possibly have seen it.

I looked down to see if Dixie at my heel was sitting to the running rabbit but she hadn't even seen it from just 15 feet from it . A little black streak flashed past me, Charlie had seen it after all ! He'd probably chased it nearly 20 yards before I got the whistle back into my mouth to blow stop. Charlie stopped with his usual fast speed but bad grace ! Dogs that think as they hunt can be a pain in the ass at times.

I tried hunting some nearby grasslands which was fine by Dixie but not by Charlie. He at once decided there were no rabbits on it so he did the next best thing and hunted mice instead ! He caught one with a well timed pounce into a tuffet and swallowed it in one happy gulp. I stopped at that , there is no point in trying to hunt gameless areas with a dog like Charlie that knows the game better than I do and who hunts accordingly.
We headed home with Charlie's tail going like the clappers and an evil grin all over his little fizzog !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

Seeing as how I'd had the dogs out early this morning The Soup Dragon dragged me off shopping . She bought a satnav thingy despite me suggesting a new fishing rod would get more use.
Then we went "eating out" in a Sainsbury's restaurant (she wiz paying !) Halfway through my grub a woman walked past 20 -30 feet away carrying an obviously very young baby wrapped in a sort of shawl, the baby was tiny.
This woman walked to a parked pram and very nearly threw the baby into it ! The Soup Dragon saw red and was up off her seat and straight into attack mode heading right for the woman. The Soup Dragon in a rage is a sight to behold but I usually run for the hills when she goes kinda funny like that. This time I thought I'd better move quick to prevent serious injury to the other wummin. When we got there we looked into the pram to see if the baby was O.K. ..... and it was a doll !

Somewhat deflated The Soup Dragon returned to her seat and I couldn't stop the slight snigger that sneaked out of me . That earned me a kick on the shin which no doubt relieved her tensions but which didn't do me a lot of good.
I once took her with me to scatter a dogs ashes up on a lovely hillside. There was no wind so the ashes landed in a heap at my feet. Without thinking much about it I gave them a bit kick to scatter them a bit and got walloped a hell of a scud ! .... " Don't you dare kick my dog !" she said . She was quite serious about it too !
Would it be legal to put a sign up on my garden gate saying , " The dogs are all friendly but beware of the wummin ?"

Wullie

[Hepe]

She sounds like a remarkable woman with a lot of courage!

[Judy]

Oh she has to be to put up wiv 'im.

[Ghilliegumdrop]

You can say that again Judy

[trekmoor]

The Tussocks - 8.10 a.m. - Mainly bright but cold with a moderate wind.

Dogs - Dax and Dixie

I left Dixie in the car and hunted Dax through the rashy ground. Dax has now done just about too much of this. He was turning and waiting for a dummy to be thrown by me instead of getting on with his hunting. I'm hoping that the excitement of the other dog hunting at the same time as him tomorrow at the Open test counteracts this enough to have Dax hunt well. There is nothing I can do without a helper to have him sit to shot and then mark the dummies thrown by the helper. If a shot is fired Dax sits no problem but then he looks towards me for any dummy throw ....... so I didn't give him one this morning. No shot fired and no dummy thrown.

His only retrieve was a seek back I'd dropped unseen by him as he hunted. I sent him through all the rashes for this from about 80 yards and he went out well but did need 2 whistle stops and 2 arm signals once he'd reached the dummy's approximate area.Considering I could hardly see him nor him me due to the thickness of the rashes it wasn't too bad a retrieve.

With Dax back in the car I took Dixie out and hunted her but for her I'd left behind 4 tennis balls among the rashes of the 80 yards long hunt strip. She hunted in her usual whirlygig fashion and at the end of the hunt I fired off a party popper but did not throw a dummy for her. As she'd hunted she'd found 3 of the tennis balls and I settled for that.
Having kept her sitting after the shot for about 20 seconds I sent her back for a dummy I'd dropped unseen by her about 40 yards back along the hunted strip. She went out about 30 yards and found the missing tennis ball. I sent her back out again to look for the dummy and this time she reached it and found it.

I had intended to do some water work just in case there is water at tomorrows test but by now my hands were just about unusable due to the cold. I missed out on the water training so I hope there is none tomorrow ! Dax and Dixie are just about polar opposites where water is concerned. Dixie swims but not from choice and she can be hesitant before entering water especially at a strange place to her. Dax's problem .... and mine .... is that he likes water too damned much ! If a blind retrieve was placed anywhere within 50 feet of water of any kind Dax would try to deviate to the water every time.

Last year I placed blind retrieves out over on the far side of a small pond. I had Charlie and Billy swim over to collect them without any problems but they both returned to me by running around the bank. The situation allowed the dogs to easily see this much easier and not very much longer route. When Dax was given this same blind retrieve he swam over, found it, then with no kind of command whatsoever from me he chose to swim back over the pond to me. Dax would rather swim than run !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

L+B Spaniel Tests - Slipperfield
Bright and fairly breezy.

Dogs - Dax and Dixie.

We wuz rubbish !

In Dixie's case (novice) I blame a lack of certain kinds of training for our "failure." Namely that I haven't done nearly enough practice on fence jumping. Also ,and this was to prove pretty disastrous , only I have thrown dummies for Dixie since about last May ! Dixie "short marked" one of her retrieves by a good 15 -20 yards and I was in trouble ..... but I would have been in trouble anyway.
This was a marked retrieve through some thick rashes ,then over a fairly bare bit of ground and then there was a high fence , maybe 4 feet high , behind which the dummy had landed. The fence was one side of a totally enclosed area of about 30 feet by 30 feet. More or less a "square" wired pen. The distance to the fence was maybe 40 -45 yards but Dixie had began to hunt at 20 yards from the dummy. She had reached my maximum dummy throwing distance.

I used an extra command to get Dixie to the fence but she was clueless when she got there and did not jump it. I "scrubbed" that retrieve and went forward to help her. She then jumped the fence and completed the retrieve. All her marks for that retrieve were scrubbed.

The test had began with a tail wind or almost tail wind hunt. Dixie did that very well, the rashy ground suited her to a T. A shot was fired and two dummies were thrown back along the line we had hunted ....one for each dog. We were told to hunt on away from these dummies and again Dixie hunted very well. Another shot was then fired and a dummy was thrown over the fence that caused all the problems ! Dixie and I failed that over the fence retrieve but were then required to get the dummy lying maybe 45 or more yards back , the memory retrieve. Dixie hardly has a brain cell never mind a memory but she took my directional command very well, went back through all the rashes and found the dummy.

We were hunted on again and again she hunted well . A shot was fired and a relatively easy shortish mark was thrown to land no more than 25 yards from us. She got that dummy easily.

During all this I worried that Dixie might break her sits to shot and to the dummy throws during the time the other competing dog was doing it's retrieves . Dixie stayed put so that was O.K. That was the Novice test ended.
Dixie won 2nd place after losing every mark on that retrieve over the fence. Her hunting marks must have been really good to have recovered from that one disastrous retrieve. The winning dog beat her by 3 points.

The judge I was under got hold of me later and told me she should really be trialed , he wished she was his. He also persuaded me to enter her in today's Open ...... I wish I hadn't !!! The Open was a step too far , too soon for Dixie. I knew before I entered she would be losing all her marks again on the retrieve into the fenced in area because in the Open it was done from even further away ! She failed that retrieve but she also failed on a blind retrieve of about 50 -55 yards where she had a distraction dummy to contend with too. I handled her out to about 40 yards through all the rashes but I could get her to go no further ...... I scrubbed that retrieve too !
I fared no better when I sent her for the distraction retrieve, she went "hunt daft" among all the rashes and I called her up .
Throughout all this her hunting had again been very good ..... I saw no dog that hunted better to my eyes. Again the judge was very complimentary about her. She just needs experience he said. I agree with that . Dixie was badly confused several times during her retrieves by the judge, dummy thrower and other handler standing 20 yards away. When I stopped her on the whistle during retrieves she always stopped and sat but as often as not she thought one of the other group was me and fixed her eyes on them , it was hard for me to attract her gaze away from them before handling her. Never in my life has any dog of mine failed 3 retrieves in a row in a test ! My fault , it was beyond her present standard of retrieving.

Ifs and buts ...... If that fenced in area had not been there or if I'd done some fence jumping practice or if a helper had thrown some marked retrieves for me then Dixie wouldn't have lost all those marks on the jump retrieve in the Novice. Just 4 more points and she'd have won that test...... but those things did happen so I ended up first among the losers !

The Open with Dax ...... I'd like to draw a veil over that ! He hunted well and worked well in general until he'd seen about 4 dummies thrown and heard 4 shots fired. He didn't hunt well at all after that , it was like watching Charlie in a test, Dax had sussed it all out and just waited and watched for any retrieves ! Dax also failed the retrieve over the wire into the pen. That did surprise me a bit but to try to be fair to him I think that although this was supposed to be a marked retrieve, I don't think he saw it. The thrown dummy barely cleared the top of the wire thus turning this into a blind retrieve for him ...... but he should still have got it ! Again I have not done enough , or even any, retrieve training over jumps.

My one bright spot in the day with Dax was his water retrieve from the pond. I saw the little buggers ears prick forward as soon as he saw the pond. If that retrieve had been a scurry I think he'd have won it, that dog is half otter !

Dixie's water retrieve in the Open was the only one she succeeded in getting but things went a wee bit wrong for her there too. She saw the dummy fall but just as it fell she swivelled her head onto something else. I saw a pheasant dodging off through the reeds on the right hand side of the pond. I sent Dixie on the judges command for the dummy but she immediately veered off towards the pheasant. We'd been kept about 30 yards back from the pond for this retrieve and we were standing on a slope looking down on it. By now, she had failed all 3 of her previous Open retrieves so I thought, " What the hell ! We've already lost 30 points minimum, I might as well let her enjoy herself." .... I let her head towards the fezzie !

She got onto it's line and went after it along the side of the pond. I suddenly pictured her pegging it so I blew stop .... Hard.... and she stopped. By now the distance to the dummy had nearly doubled but without much hope I indicated towards the water and she went straight in, straight out to the island the dummy had landed on , quickly found it and returned. That greatly surprised me !

Dixie was last in the Open but I wasn't displeased with her, she did her best. Dax wasn't more than 3 or 4 places from the bottom of the score sheet ..... I wasn't so pleased with him ! The little git now knows just a bit too much for tests. His retrieving or failure to retrieve is my fault but he now "knows" too much to be a good hunting dog in tests. Dax is usually a good hunter but by halfway through this hunt he'd have been as well walking to heel.

No doubt Dixie's owner will be pleased with her getting 2nd place but I'm gonna rip him a new ass for failing to turn up to throw dummies for her........

I was not the only forum member who had some fun with the phezzies today. A certain little black muppet had a wee bit find and chase ...... but she came back after only 100 yards or so !

P.S. For the first time ever in my life I heard my raffle number called out first from the bag today. Trouble was I was 30 yards away up a very steep, muddy, slippery slope from my First Prize ..... A 2 litre bottle of whisky ! They wuz gonna draw again for it but I beat the land speed record coming down that hill , yelling ,"It's me ! It's me !" as I slid downwards !...... I got it though !

Wullie

[johnny p]

I bet the whisky went down quicker than you did down that hill

[Muirdubh]

I was not the only forum member who had some fun with the phezzies today. A certain little black muppet had a wee bit find and chase ...... but she came back after only 100 yards or so !

ha ha... the judge said to me that everyone there had that happen at sometime and not to worry about it... I thought it best to get it out of the way on my first try ...

Molly did a bit better finishing only 8 points behind you and the 3rd place (you both had 79 points but you won the run off coz he didn't turn up ). That made her 5th overall...

Was good to see you again...

[Polmaise]

Hmmm!????
So..to summarise>> Wullies wee dug failed on two of the elements and came second,
and one of the judges said it should trial?
The other dog which was in the run-off for 2nd was a no show, so thats how the results went.
And Wullie got pissed on whisky,that he won in the raffle!
(who bought the tickets?)
Glad you all had a good day! weather was good I hear.
Anne Massie is good at organising these days for the club
Wish I was there, unfortunately I had a retriever training day.
Funny enough ,one of the elements we were covering was handling at distance over an obstacle