Libby's Diary

[cuda]

make the most of the sympathy - knowing you, you'll soon be back in the bad books

[Merlin]

Look after yourself and do as the docs tell yer...

If you're struggling with the pc could you not dictate for the good lady to post for you?


Take care...

[h&t]

Take care of the back, I am no stranger to back pain myself, this is tough.

[trekmoor]

Forth Estates - 9.15 a.m. - Wind and heavy rain
Dogs - Libby and Charlie
I had been a good boy all week and sat around the house. I was utterly bored so I went picking-up ignoring both the doctor and my wife. I told the keeper that I wouldn't need paid today because I was going to pick-up from the very edges of the drives and a long way back from the guns. I had a few places in mind that are never covered by pickers up but where I have thought in the past pricked birds that had flown on a long way might have landed.

I used my car to take me as near as possible to those places in order not to have to walk too far. During the first drive it became obvious I had chosen the wrong place to be ..... I didn't even see a bird fly past. The second drive I hoped would be more productive and it was , my dogs collected 4 birds from there. Libby found 3 runners and Charlie found one dead bird.

I saw two of those birds land and not far in front of me either. Both dogs saw them but when I sent Libby to collect one of them she did an immediate right angled turn from heel and went galloping off down a little estate road and then into a very large thick wood about 80 yards away. I was very annoyed by this and since there was no one else around to hear me I roared out , after she had ignored the stop whistle, " Are you deaf as well as blind you little bugger !" ..... Libby kept right on truckin' and vanished into the distant wood.

I sent Charlie for the hard running bird I had seen out in front but he found a dead bird en-route to the runner and brought that back instead. If I still had hair I'd have torn it out ! As I took the dead bird from Charlie back came Libby from the wood with a cock pheasant runner. I hadn't seen that bird go down ...but Libby had. I now felt a bit better about her giving me the finger when I blew stop !

The two runners I had seen were still out there so I sent Libby off again and I think she must have marked them down too for she didn't need to be handled out the 40 yards through the cover to where one of those birds had landed. She came back with that bird too after a moment or two out of my sight down by the little river. As she'd returned with that bird I saw her check hard half way back to me, she then left whatever had interested her and completed the retrieve.
The last bird had fallen out in front and a bit to the left near a rhodie bush. I sent Libby towards the bush but this time she broke off to the right and found the last bird about 30 yards away hiding among the roots of a tree. It had been tucked in there very hard and Libby had a hard time extricating it.... she managed it but that bird was no longer capable of running anywhere ! I think she had hit into it's scent trail as she returned with the previous bird ? However she did it she certainly went straight to it.

I had seen a bird land about 80 yards away on the far side of the river and I thought it might have been injured. I began to walk toward the river but both Libby and Charlie beat me to it. Next time I saw them they had swam over and were tearing off into the cover up the hill. They failed to find the bird so I walked on , Libby came back, jumped down the 2 feet high steep bank into the fast flowing river , swam back over to me just to be friendly then jumped back into the river again to hunt this new section of the far bank.
Charlie returned birdless and I thought I'd better catch up with the rest of the shoot so I recalled Libby. She hadn't found the bird either, unless it was one of the two, I'd seen fly off up on the far bank. She arrived back at the river through some fairly heavy cover and right in front of her a fallen tree was lying slantwise in the water. I thought she'd find an easier way back to me but she jumped onto the tree trunk, walked partway along it then jumped from 4 feet up back into the river and then back to me. She is nearly as crazy as Charlie !

I got no birds at all during the next two drives but during the last drive which took place with the wind howling and bending the trees over hard plus heavy rain sluicing down slantwise at me, Libby saw Charlie ....who had been steady all day.... run-in . She at once chased off after him, once more ignoring both my whistle and my voice. Charlie was going after a bird he'd seen plane into a wood. The woods boundary was a high wall with a five barred gate in it for access.

Charlie squeezed through the gates bars but Libby does not like going through fences etc. , she prefers to jump. She tried the gates bar spacings, didn't like them so she jumped right over the gate ! She was very "hot" and very wound up ..... I could have murdered Charlie for inciting her to join his run-in. This time she got no reward for her efforts, Charlie, however, returned to me with 3 runners from that wood. I think he slowed down his legs to better match the atrocious weather conditions . Libby did not !

I saw her jump the wall back into the stubble field I was in nearly 100 yards further on . She then tore off up the stubbles in pursuit of whatever bird she'd flushed along there. The bird didn't seem to know it was supposed to be wounded and Libby went after it even after the bird vanished over the hill crest 3-400 yards away. She returned without that bird , I will never know if she was chasing an unshot bird or not.
So much for me having a nice easy , stress free day .

When this season ends I will need to have serious words in Libby's lugholes about little things like stop and recall whistles !

Wullie

[trekmoor]

For the first time in about 10 days I managed to take my dogs a decent length of a walk today. I did no training other than recalling Libby who considers herself to be a fully qualified ,very long range, cocker spaniel. I managed to catch a glimpse of her twice among the woods and she was the length of a football pitch away and still going ! She is no longer returning at once when I blow the recall whistle , she carries on until she wants to return.

Out of curiousity , I blew stop when she was 40 yards away and she didn't stop to whistle either. Being allowed/encouraged to "sweep" for birds at the end of drives is the main cause of that closely followed by a lack of training from me. Libby is now "bird daft." Prior to taking her picking up it never even occurred to her to chase flying pheasants even if she'd flushed them off the end of her nose ..... she chases them now though hoping they will drop in front of her !

Her sore spot on her foreleg does not seem to trouble her at all . My wife took her to the vet a few days ago and Libby will be back at the vets again this Friday to let him have another look at her leg. I was shocked to discover the vet charges £28 just for the initial consultation fee !

Wullie

[Naj]

Mine charges that just for shaking his hand.

Naj

[LJR]

Well it certainly doesn't sound as though you are looking after yourself!

Do you think we try and over handle our dogs, or is this a product of our evolving environment? - ie with bigger shoots essentially becoming dog free on the beating line.

As a newbie to shooting - though I am working my dogs five days a week - essentially I must trust my dogs instinct, especially when picking-up.

[trekmoor]

Back when I was a beater the dogs were pretty wild. Getting them back in to try for a more controlled ,steady flush at the end of the woods being beaten through was not easy ! My own dogs took part in more than one mass flush. The last mass flush one of my dogs was in was 4-5 years ago and I was working my cocker Charlie in the beating line at my own request.
All went well until the end of the drive when about 10 beaters dogs ran forward to flush the birds at the very end of the wood, my cocker Charlie went with them.

The other dogs came back, Charlie did not ,he went into the field beyond, ran right through the guns, found a pheasant out behind them and retrieved it to me. I gave up on using my picking up dogs in the beating line following that.

Without dogs willing to batter through some very nasty woodland cover that estate would not have seen many birds go over the guns. The dogs were sent into cover that men could not get through, the dogs had to take the initiative and just hunt . The beaters could not see their dogs, the dogs could not see them. A spaniel trained to Open field trial standards was of little use on that estate.

I still pick up on that estate among those same woods with their heavy cover. A retriever trained to Open field trial standards is of little use there as a picking up dog .....unless it is left alone to run a bit wild to rake the woods for the birds that fall unseen by anyone. It must work with no help from the handler ....who very often has no idea where his dog is or what it is doing.

It is no wonder that my dogs are often wild, unruly and undisciplined ! If I feel I want to enter a test nowadays I retrain the dog or dogs. It can be done, Charlie and Dax , my unruly cockers have done well in almost every test they have ever been entered in. Charlie has never been in a test where he finished below 2nd place.

"All" I have to do is to retrain the cockers as normal ranging cockers for the hunt part of tests and tighten up a bit on the stop whistle control. The dogs do all the rest.

I always look for enthusiasm before perfect obedience when it comes to gundog work. Get the enthusiasm and then improve the obedience is my way of doing things. Picking up is not an exercise in steadiness . Steadiness during even the biggest drives can easily be obtained by putting dogs on a lead . It isn't that easy for the beaters dogs so if the guns want birds to shoot and the woods are thick then the guns will have to make some allowances for "mistakes" by the beaters dogs.

Wullie

[Bryn]

Interesting, I've always aimed in the long run for Bryn to be able to work on his own initiative but respond to commands when I need to use them, that's how I worked my collies. On both shoots I've beaten on this year there have been patches of really dense cover that we just have to put the dogs into and let them hunt while beaters had to make their way round as best we could, rest of the time nearly all the dogs have been on leads. I've found a 10m sliplead in the lighter woodland has worked pretty well to let Bryn learn the job and that he needs to stay within range. Given that he's just turned 1 I reckon we've another season and a bit before he's working more or less how I want but I need to find a lot more beating next season.

[trekmoor]

The Triangle - 12.30 p.m. - Bright sun and a good steady wind blowing.

Dogs - Libby.

At about this time of year The Triangle often gets one or two snipe and woodcock as visitors. I set off with Libby this afternoon to look for them and I already knew the most likely places to find them. About 20 minutes of hunting produced nothing at all but I was only now approaching the most likely place for a woodcock. I decided to enter that large, rashy and gorse studded field from it's far end in order to give Libby the wind in her favour. I indicated a large hole in the hedge to her and she went through into the strip of very heavy cover that forms part of the boundary of the field I wanted her to hunt on the way back.

The wind was blowing right up her tail and she at once ran right into a pheasant. After her behaviour out picking up I expected her to chase it but she did not, she did not stop either, she took off to try to find another one. I had seen the area where the pheasant had landed about 200 yards away and just over the boundary fence of the field I wanted to hunt so I continued to hunt Libby on the tail wind along the cover strip to reach the bird , I was hoping she'd get a chance to point it the next time.

She did indicate scent about 200 yards further on so I left her alone to sort it out one way or the other. I walked too fast and I entered ground her nose had not yet covered as she hunted her way back towards me on the tail wind. I walked right into a woodcock and muffed up any chance she ever had of pointing it. The pheasant was never seen again either ! The field I thought might have game on it looked very promising, plenty of water underfoot and plenty of rashes and bushes too but nothing at all was seen in it.

By now I'd walked nearly a mile and felt sore and tired so I had my first sit-down on a grassy knoll and got a very wet backside . At least it kept my wotsits cool was my consolation thought . I had to sit down again 3 times during the return journey to my car and by now I was sodden doon under ! My feet remained dry and warm despite all the water and the marsh underfoot but my knee was sore and so was my back and my hips. Those boots (Harkila's) are good but they are too heavy and a bit cumbersome to walk in I feel. They are O.K. for just tootling about when picking-up but I greatly prefer my Brasher Lightweights for any real walking.

I saw no snipe at all but I was too tired to hunt the best area for snipe. Libby behaved well....maybe because my cockers weren't there to lead her astray ? I tried the turn and recall whistles and had no real problems at any hunting distance. Stop to whistle was never tried at more than 30-40 yards just in case she failed to obey .... I felt that was a very likely response to the stop whistle by her following all the sweeping she has done during shoots so I will have to build up her stop to whistle distances again a little bit at a time.

This walk of no more than 2 miles total took me about 2 hours to complete , I am knackered.

Wullie