message for skycat reg border whippet

[border man 2]

hi skycat . heard you keep and work a border whippet cross. would love a bit more info and poss a picture. have always kept borders myself and love thier temprement and work ethic . doing more ferreting than digging now and thought this cross would suit me as my next dog when it comes time. thanks for any feedback in advance

[border man 2]

this is a bump

[just jack 998]

have you tried a PM

[123456 146]

So skycat has a borderxwhippet and a airdalexlurcher? How do these strange dogs work in comparison to more "normal" crosses

[skycat 6,174]

Why is a Border/Whippet any stranger than a JR/Whippet? Its just a small terrier lurcher after all. Mine works like a terrier in cover, getting right into brambles, but only if the pure terriers aren't there. If they are already in cover then he behaves like a lurcher: stays on the outside of cover. He's very steady, intelligent, fanatical. Never stops working, hard driving, tough as old boots and would tackle quarry much bigger than himself given half a chance. Good ferreting dog too, really works a warren and loves it. Only downside is that he is a bit of a dwarf: hideous really LOL Short legs, not enough pace to catch a running rabbit in the open: I've seen bitches of similar breeding a couple of inches taller and leggier than he is. He's only just 17 inches. Great in hedge bottoms though.

I noticed that someone on here was selling a Border/Whippet bitch the other day: he said that she is 19 inches, and looks, from the photos to be a lot more lightly built and and more leggy too.

[123456 146]

Was he slow to start like a pure border is to ground ? A jrt russel would also be classed as strange in this part of the country.

[skycat 6,174]

No, he was wired from the start: a tiny nose on little legs LOL Was busting cover from 5 months onwards, though he did have my terriers to follow initially. But he does come from working parents that do quite a bit.

[123456 146]

Do you think terrierxwhippets will bush naturally. Say you didn't have the terriers?

[skycat 6,174]

I've got big lurchers that go into cover, without any terrier blood in them, so something that is half terrier should do it naturally. And don't forget the drive of the Whippet: they may be small and nesh looking, but anyone who owns a decent working Whippet will tell you that they are not half hearted at anything and some will fly through cover given half the chance.

 

Of course the availability of rabbits plays a part: if the only rabbits a dog sees are hidden in brambles, it has to go in there to get the rabbit. I don't get rabbits sitting out in the open much, so the dogs have to do the cover to get catches.

[123456 146]

Is there a way of teaching a dog to enter cover, on command so to speak?

[Jamie m 668]

Any pics skycat be nice to see cheers j

[skycat 6,174]

Of course. The same as training for anything else. But there has to be a good incentive: there's no point taking a pup out and geeing it up on the outside of a bramble if there's nothing in there. But if the dog has enough drive and has the desire to find game, it shouldn't need much training. The most important thing to do is to give it exposure in the field from a young age. Most pups are more nose orientated than sight orientated at a young age: that goes for all breeds and types. Getting them out from 4-5 months onwards, on a daily basis, is the best thing and pups learn more quickly from watching other dogs work than anything you can teach them yourself: its a pack thing instinct thing.

 

If you haven't got anyone with experienced dogs to go out with, then you'll have to use field craft and common sense.

 

Take the pup to where there are rabbits in cover, and if you have already exposed the pup to dead rabbits, which you should have done, the its nose should recognise the scent. If you haven't got adult dogs then you can put a fresh rabbit skin dummy just inside the edge of a bramble, for example, and tell the pup to 'find it'. This is just the next stage on from basic retrieve training, which of course comes first at home, and then in the field. Hiding the dummy makes things more interesting for a pup, than just throwing a dummy, which some pups get bored with after a while.

 

If a pup has the instinct to use its nose, then it will follow on naturally to searching for real rabbits in cover. Any terrier blooded pup worthy of the name terrier, should have a natural inclination to follow its nose to where game is hiding. But I do teach the 'find it' command at home and then in the field for finding a hidden dummy: with the lurchers that is. To be honest, I don't teach the terriers anything much at all, apart from recall and walking to heel. Their instincts do it all, and Cricket, the Border/Whippet, already had all the right instincts: it wouldn't have mattered if I had taken him out alone all the time: working bred genes count for a lot. He was ferreting solo at 5-6 months old, and catching bolters in hedge bottoms, even though the rabbits were bigger than he was LOL

[skycat 6,174]

[Country Joe 1,411]

Although the Border, JRT and Patterdale have been crossed with a Whippet and do produce good Rabbiting dogs,

I personally think you cant beat the bedlington cross, a good Beddy X whippet should work cover as good, or better than the above crosses, the Bedlington also has an exceptional nose.

and the conformation, lends it better to the Whippet, producing a faster cross than other Terriers, therfore being able to take more Rabbits on the run, and also you can lamp them.

Just my opinion.

[markja 51]

very interesting cross. nice dog