Ticking Time Bombs With Stock

[pointer 543]

I had a few issues with my Gwp bred lurcher when she was young, she never touched a sheep or cow but would sometimes run alongside them. Until then I thought any stock problems were simply down to the owner not stock breaking correctly. I watch my German pointers when they are young because that breed has been known to go for sheep. Guy Wallace mentions it in his Hpr book " the versatile gundog". I'm always on edge the first few times I take a dog on to the moors or cover filled dales no matter how many thousand sheep they have seen in simple fields near home. Sheep can jump up out of bracken or rushes or run through cover and I feel a dog can look twice until it learns. I've seen the same happen out with young hounds.

[pernod 466]

I've mentioned it before but breaking them to sheep is easy enough when walking a pup through a flock of Un alarmed sheep. But it can sometimes go a bit pear shaped when a single ewe bursts out of a clump of bushes when up in the hill. That's a real test of steadiness, which I'm afraid a few sound dogs fail.

 

Pernod