Our First Shoot ends

It all started when She was walking the three of us (Lancer, Pilot & and baby me) round the fields one morning. A car pulled up and a man shouted out: "You pick up with your dogs?" As soon as I was old enough I was off to school to learn a few lessons.That man in the car, we learned, was our local Gamekeeper and we saw him from time to time whilst I was at school. "Come and join us at the beginning of the Season if you're interested" he said one day. Being a complete novice, She didn't know what She was letting us in for but when I was 18 months old we turned up to join the Shoot. I'd never seen so many dogs and people, never heard so much shouting and banging. It was all jolly exciting with lots of smells and loads more chances to hunt than I'd ever had before. Neither of us knew anything about this world. People behaving strangely with sticks and guns; birds, rabbits and hares going everywhere. We soon learned though. The people all told her what to do and she told me what to do - it was  system that worked well. Some of the other dogs were bent on trying to get me to do things their way but I didn't pay any attention and quickly learned to keep myself to myself. If they tried to argue with me or pinch something from me I just looked the other way. "Philosophical" some of the people called me. Really it was just that I learned to save all my energy when it wasn't needed for when it was needed. I didn't realise in the beginning that what She called "work" would go on for so long. More than any walks or training or exercise that I'd done till then. At first we always worked with the same people in the same place.  There was always a lot of laughing and shouting and whistling and dogs running everywhere. Then we got to go to lots of other places and do the same thing with lots of other people and dogs. Most of them were far quieter than on the First Shoot. But I enjoyed our First Shoot best: there was always lots to do and often I got really, really tired - so tired when I was younger that often I couldn't sleep nights - but I learned to find all sorts of things in all sorts of ground and most of all I learned to always do what I'd been taught. I even lost my tail because of the thick thorns on that First Shoot but life was a lot easier when it was gone. Four seasons have now passed and, apart from all the good things, I'm afraid I also learned a few bad ones from the other dogs. She says She's going to teach me to forget those this long holiday - don't know if I can though cos once I've learned something  I never forget it. Anyway, I've grown up a lot since that first day. I've learned that we work jolly hard for a long time and then we have an even longer holiday when I don't have to worry or have any aches and pains or thorns in all the wrong places. I've learned that just when I think the holiday will never end we're back to work again. I've grown up I suppose and this season for the first time I told one of the bossy labradors to go away and leave Us alone.... and he did! She was as surprised as I was.

But now, if I understand what She and The Boss and the Keeper man were saying the other day, we're not going to be doing any more work at our First Shoot because it's finished for good. We've still got other work to do but She says we'll have to find some other places to fill our time -  after all we're used to going to work 2 or 3 or 4 days a week not 2 or 3 days a fortnight. It won't be the same though without all the chaps we've got to know over the past 4 years - they were what she calls a loud and boisterous lot but we had a lot of fun together. The end of our First Shoot is what She calls the end of an Era - I don't know what that is but it sounds pretty final to me.

Still, we hunters know that you have to keep going forward .... there's no sense in looking back. Our First Shoot may have ended but it's not our last, not by a long way. She's taking me to summer school to sharpen me up for next season so who knows what that will bring.......... bet it'll be exciting though.... as we spaniels say "There's always another bush to explore!"