Three hours walking and one rabbit

[stroller 341]

went up the north pennines today just on me tod with little maggie to have a walk around some high country permission, there arent a lot of rabbits on this bit but a lot of sets on slag heaps from the old lead mines.

 

now maggies experience has been mainly on the low ground with nice fields lovely warrens and very little cover.She tried my patience today as there was hundreds of acres of rushy, heather bog with more ups and downs than a tarts drawers.

problem number 1 was the amount of grouse and wild pheasant hidden in these places, she hunts head down constantly and she covers a lot of ground quickly and even though she didnt go deaf on me she took a fair bit of controlling, ive never stopped her catching game birds and i wont she is a lurcher and i want her to be able to take birds. but i want her to stop once the bird is flushed not carry on running for 500m for nothing. she was working for birds and not marking sets which pissed me off.

 

problem number 2 was the amount of dis used quarrys and lead mine shafts you cant have an out of control young dog in these places or it will end up dead.

 

problem number 3 was the amount of sheep. we have sheep behind were i live so she is steady with them but i have seen her looking sideways at them a couple of times and to be honest a sheep worrying dog is the worst animal in the world

and today there were a couple of hundred flighty black faced wooly jumpers springing out of every nook and cranny.

 

It took a good half an hour before i felt i had her under control enough to move out and start ferreting properly, so for 30 mins we walked around a big high walled field which had no sheep in it and was well away from the quarrys. she soon had it hunted up and there were no birds left in it either. i called her in and did a few bits of obedience with her before moving out onto the high country.

 

she cleared a five bar gate without touching the top which for a little dog 22" takes a bit of doing and landed almost on top of a sheep which ran off bleating and maggie didnt even look at it thank god!!and so it was all day she just ignored the sheep and kept on head down working the cover.

 

our first and only rabbit was bolted out of cover by mags who caught it by the back leg on the flush but let go to get a better hold and the rabbit flipped into a set.the little silver jill went in and caught it and i pulled it out of the hole, not text book ferreting but it works.

 

maggie did mark a couple of times and there was a rabbit each time she marked but i didnt bother netting she had covered so much ground hunting up i decided to let her have the chase she did ok but didnt connect she was unlucky on one occasion as she stumbled off a ridge in mid flight and missed by the narrowest of margins.

 

i let her hunt up the quarrys and she chased a couple out of them the very last of the day was a steep climb up a quarry side and then a run through rushes she was outmatched and lost her rabbit. she had covered too much ground and i could tell she was flagging and that it was quitting time, even though she is fully grown people forget that an 18 month old dog is still a puppy in mentality and in some ways physically.

 

so not a perfect day but i learned a lot about my little dog, my young ferrets worked well and when the sun got through the fog it was beautiful up there.

[stealthy1 3,964]

Dogs, they'll drive you mad if you let them

[cúagusgiorraí 57]

Good report there Stroller, thanks for sharing mate

Maggie just needs some more experience that's all. She sounds like a good one