Happy Fathers Day

To Black Banana & Victoria this afternoon - a litter of squiggly pigglies.... Victoria was absolutely spot on time and the family couldn't be more appropriate than to be born on Father's Day.
What a clever girl...... there was no nesting, no fuss - she was out for the afternoon, ate up her tea and then went back for a doze. Three hours later when I went to look, there they were...... just like that!......

Team Gunner Go Group Training

Serious subject requires serious face!

"Changes are a-paw. They need some serious thinkin' about. My whole life I has been a one-Person dog and that Person, in all matters to do with my workin' life, has been a one-Dog person.
"Now we have two gonna-be-gundog Understudies. Stands to reason they may shape up into workin' dogs too. Otherwise why She (who must be etc etc) spendin' so much energy on 'em? And She been takin' them for lessons every week to Rory-the-trainer. Bein' flibbetyjibs with the attention span of a gnat (in the case of Understudy #1 aka Jaunty aka Gaberlunzie Master at Arms -  half a gnat - don't larf 'cos that's his full moniker ... in fact, his name's a load bigger than he is - and a dog's life more serious....) She takes them for a 'shared hour' which, they both assure me, is more than strenuous enough. (From what I seen, gettin' them to concentrate for 5 minutes is a Major achievement!). She's also been takin' them along to somethin' called Group Trainin' Sessions when she has market-free Saturdays. She said the idea was just to 'socialise' them (pardon me, but I'm a pretty sociable dog and I never attended a single Group Trainin' Session in all my life..... actually, I tell a porkie..... last summer She had the idea it would "do Gunner good" to go to Group Trainin.... It was not an idea I welcomed. But I had a plan.... I'm not the fastest dog in the pack at the best of times but I really excelled at bein' totally pedantic in my attitude to group stuff. Rory-the-trainer even had the cheek to refer to me as Lightening whenever I was asked to do somethin'. The plan worked a treat: after two sessions She decided it was makin' me blunt & bored instead of sharp and keen. We did not return!!!!! *Grins*).

"Now; it seems that this group stuff has been making my boy Bugler, normally a quite sensible (if more bouncy than a bucket of frogs) young dog, a bundle of excitement & nerves. She says he can't sit still for more than 5 seconds at a time and really gets wound up when any other chap gets asked to do anythin'. Jaunty on the other hand, at home unable to sit on the same spot for any measure of time, excels in the group - patiently waitin' his turn and then chargin' off like a bat outa hell to do whatever's asked of him. Not always correctly 'cos he does tend to forget what he supposed to be doin' and need quite a lot of remindin' but he, on the whole, do behave a lot better than when he at home.

"So, she said to me the other day, that we were now goin' to do Group Trainin' Sessions at home! That way, maybe the norty Jaunty behave better and the bouncy Bugler calm down a bit!
(Note from Ed. .. "It pays to be optimistic when training spaniels")
"I must own up to bein' a bit shocked, if not betrayed.Worse than that - these GTS's have replaced my usual mornin' runs 'cos, She say, I don't have enough energy to do both. Well, if She had consulted on the matter, I'd have had a few words about priorities, but, typical human, She just went ahead & decided what was to be!
So here we are, at home, doin' Group Trainin Sessions every mornin.....

I was resistant to start with; specially when she did the 'quiet call' lesson. If I been told to sit, I sit. And sit. Callin' my name is ignored. I has been taught to sit still till whistled. Now, however, in Group Trainin, if I hear my name I am to move up to Her; if one of the others is called I sit still; they move up to her when their name is mentioned; immediately; and turn in turn. When 'trievin we only go if our name mentioned; that difficult cos when I hear "fetch" that my cue to go without any names....After all, that's what I been doin' these past 7 years. We been spendin all week gettin it sometimes right  & sometimes wrong... it difficult to learn new ways and the pups are quick to bounce up at me when I get it wrong......
It's a difficult lesson. Personally, I don't see the point cos there's no way the Understudies are gonna be ready to go to work for ages yet. She has ambitions though. That's a Human thing. I'm happy as I am but Her? Nope. She got plans for what a twitter pal of mine (@disneyspaniel) calls Team Gunner. She say I gonna be No.1 dog in the bestest spaniel pickin' up team. I suppose if that means extra bickies then I might consider it but I not havin' anyone on my team who ain't absolutely best - and from what I seen in our GTS's so far, that could take a lot more thought and work than She might be realisin..... As I said before, needs more paws for thought....

Our latest custodians

"You just need to line yourself up and go through that gateway over there" said Alan, our latest custodian, to The Big Boss.
Just one small example of the hazards we face when delivering our young gilts (and occasionally hogs) to new custodians. We question closely the conditions the pigs are going to be living in but rarely give too much thought to access - except to be assured by the custodians that it is 'accessible'. And we have come across some pretty tricky situations. Backs of gardens are where the pigs tend to go. Reasonable enough. When they are small! The real problems usually come when they are full grown and we have to fetch them back..... However, we cross that bridge later. Today's delivery was quite typical. Up the drive to the house, veer right, through the gate, across the field, turn left through that narrow gateway and immediate right down to the bottom of the next paddock. Lovely in spring. We'll find out what it's like in winter when we go to collect the pigs. We've collected full grown gilts from the back of very ornamental gardens (Where we literally took them back up the garden path); from the centre of dog breeding and showing premises;  a thriving holiday home business; a stately home 'open to the public'...... all present their own challenges.

Today's challenges were easily overcome and the three girls - Cider, Rosie and Laurie - were soon esconced in their palatial premises and happily trotting around visiting each corner in turn. They are very fortunate in having a very large grassy pen, a very commodious cosey ark and a footpath running alongside to ensure a steady supply of admirers. I can't help thinking they will have a very contented life with their new custodians --- they even have two springer spaniels - Pongo and Doodle - to make them feel really at home. What more could a young pig wish for?
What?
Yes of course they will get food too.

Moving home

Black Banana, our youngest boar, has lived up in the 'woods' ever since.... but  it's become very boggy up there and he was up to his hocks in mud. He never complained; why would he; it was his home. But last week we moved him, together with Andromeda, to his new 'home' alongside the bridleway gate.
They are both very happy, not least because they can see everything that is going on and get lots more attention. And we are happy because we can see all of him, not just the bit above his hocks!

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Delila's little band get going

This is Delila's 12th litter but even so she was taking no chances. She kept them home for the best part of a week but after that they were off. Firstly following her round the pen and getting their bearings while she kept a watchful ear on them.....

..Then they were off out of the ark without her around to tell them what to do...... they were cleverly  camouflaged in the uneven muddy ground......

After that it was just a matter of  hours before they discovered the grass was greener on the other side of the gate and off they went. Soon they were visiting the rest of the herd and wandering off down the field at will.... Gunner's been keeping a watchful eye on them and they have proved invaluable in teaching his son to "leave" the rabbits (well? there's not much difference in size at this age.... nor colour come to that.....!). It won't be long, I'm sure, before they are running up the drive and following people along the bridleway...... Oh Drat! And digging up the bedding plants in the garden - which I haven't yet put in --- which I may now not put in!!!!

The Gate that Ritz bent

     "By their deeds shall ye
       know them".
One day, I cannot now remember exactly why, The Big Boss decided to harness Ritz & Max up to the carriage separately as "singles". It might have had something to do with the idea that we could drive Ritz as an individual in dressage competitions since he had by far the better paces.  Our experiment with Max went according to plan and proved, if nothing else, that Max was sane enough to work alone. Holding that thought in our heads we then harnessed Ritz up to the carriage. He was fine. Then The B.Boss started him out of the yard and made to turn right for the track to the field - at which point Ritz showed a hitherto unknown turn of foot and, moving from 0-60 faster than a Eurofighter, galloped off down the track. His momentum round the bend from the yard tipped the carriage sufficiently to deposit said B.Boss firmly in the hedge leaving Ritz on his own to decide what next. Without a driver he was unaware he should have turned right into the Church Field before reaching the gate. Even had he known, his speed precluded any change of direction. He hurtled downhill - straight into the gate. We left it bent to remind us just how quickly things can go wrong! (An even more sobering thought - had the gate not been closed Ritz, with carriage, might well have ended up in he pond at the bottom of the field).  Ritz, sandwiched between the heavy carriage and the 5 bar gate, showed another side of his nature: he was totally unfazed; it must have been frightening, surely it hurt? But he stood still, waited for us to get to him and then put all his trust in us as we maneuouvred him out of a very tight spot.

It wasn't long after he and Max arrived to live with us that he showed us his total disregard for fences. It was a beautiful sunny evening and we were enjoying a drink on the terrace when, unexpectedly, we heard the sound of hooves on the track leading up from the fields. Ritz had decided to jump up the HaHa and walk through a tiny gap in the hedge to come up to join us! We gave up connecting electric to the fences - it made no difference, if he wanted to get to the other side, he simply walked through them. Just a fortnight ago we had a phone call late on a sunny afternoon from someone in the village. "I think your horse is up on the roadside!" Sure enough it was Ritz. He'd decided the grass was greener on the other side of the fence - through it he went - up the drive and on to the other side of the road.

I'd like to think it was his natural inquisitiveness but I'm more inclined to believe he just couldn't see the point of fences. It was the same when the pigs arrived. I'd always thought horses & pigs didn't get on. No point telling Ritz that. We eventually had to move the horses away because they were poaching up the field on their side which encouraged the pigs to rootle under the fence thereby considerably weakening the structure. Maybe Ritz was just trying to encourage them to get out?
He always was a cheeky chap. When he first arrived with us he suffered a couple of bouts of colic. The attending vet was warned to keep an eye on him because he loved nothing more than to put in a mischievous nip when nobody expected it. The vet ignored the warning, commenting that the horse was too poorly to misbehave. He was wrong. Ritz nipped him emphatically in the nether regions. It was all we could do to suppress the urge to double up like the vet, only with laughter not with pain. I swear Ritz gave a cheeky wink. It was the same when a young lady came to us in response to an advert. for someone to help with the horses. She claimed to have ridden every sort of equine. The plan was to go for a short hack and half way round we would switch horses so she got the chance to ride both. She chose to start with Ritz because he looked "so placid". I told her not to underestimate him.  After a bit of a walk and a trot the track turned to grass between some fields. I asked her if she was fine to canter and warned her again, as she said "yes", not to underestimate Ritz. We'd only gone half a dozen strides when I heard a squeal (from Ritz) followed by a scream (from her) followed by the sight of Ritz haring off - riderless - across a ploughed field. Luckily only her pride was hurt and she set off after him. He let her get close a couple of times, moving off  just before she got to him. Then he looked at her, got down to the ground and rolled - several times. "If you want to get back on" he seemed to say "you can jolly well sit on a muddy saddle".  Needless to say, she didn't want the job after that.
Another time I was showing a student, here on work experience, how to tie up a hay net, explaining to her the need to keep it off the ground so that the horse would not get his hooves tangled up in it - at which point Ritz promptly lifted up his near fore hoof and stuck it purposefully in the net. I'd never seen him do that before but clearly he'd read the script! Another script he knew verbatim was "the Art of Training Your Human".  When we put his harness on incorrectly he'd turn round and nip us or lift him bum in the air and squeal. When we bought a trailer to transport Him & Max to competitions, he spent the whole journey bouncing his back end up and down and lashing out at the ramp with both back hooves. I used to follow in a car towing the box with the carriage and it was frightening seeing a chestnut bum bouncing up and down while the trailer veered ominously to left and right. It was not long before we bought a Horsebox. He travelled like a lamb in that! I thought it would be fun to get the horses fit for the driving season by hacking them round the local countryside. Ritz thought otherwise. Hacking was not his thing. Every tractor or lorry was a dragon that sent him at double speed backwards into the hedge: every potato irrigator was a demon he would not, under any circumstance, approach. This was a horse who, harnessed to a carriage, wouldn't blink at anything on the road and gave scant regard to the most complex and, to us, scary obstacle. I gave up riding Ritz. I'm sure he chuckled.

 And so it went on - if there was mischief to be had, it would be Ritz at the bottom of it. But we forgave him everything because he was a great character and an amazingly talented and intelligent horse between the shafts.

      "By their deeds shall you know them"
  - I don't know who said that and it doesn't matter. For all his deeds and the person he was we shall certainly never forget him.

          R.I.P. Mr Ritz 6.83 - 28.4.14

                                                                    

The Brass Band - update

Delila's little ones were outside their ark enoying the spring sunshine yesterday but soon as I appeared with the means to show you all how tiny they are (4 days old only) ma shepherded them all inside again. And today there was no sunshine so not outside piglets. So watch this space - you wll seem them one day soon....