Hare? What Hare?

The strongest earthquake to hit Great Britain in 24 years occurred just before 0100 am this morning - 5.2 on the, Richter scale. Its epicentre was just outside outside Market Rasen, which is about 15-20 miles from the RectoryReserve. We woke just beforehand - just in time to witness the terrifying shuddering and rumbling which continued for just long enough (10 secs) for us to realise that it had to be a quake. "In Lincolnshire????" we muttered in our befuddled middle-of-the-night voices. Must be dreaming. And promptly fell asleep again. None of the animals - house or yard - appeared to notice anything. Certainly everything was as normal this morning. No fallen masonry, tiles or chimney pots; no terrified ponies, pigs or poultry; just business as usual. We were luckier than many.

One chap who had a particularly sound night's sleep was our would-be gundog. He had his 'lesson' yesterday. Our progress report to Rory was - on the plus side, his 'left', 'right' and 'back' retrieve training was going very well but, on the minus side, I was not convinced that I had managed to cure his tendency to hooley off in pursuit of a scent or, indeed, a hare (or rabbit).

On the strength of that, therefore, off we went to a distant farm to 'hunt' him around the ditches and hedgerows surrounding some of the fields. On the way there, I mentioned to our Trainer that I might not be keeping Gunner close enough to me when hunting him so guidance would be appreciated. Being a novice, I'm anxious not to over-control in case I dampen his enthusiasm but I suspect that's, why we've developed the current 'chasing' problem.

Anway; decanted dog and people at said farm and set off along the field edges. I'm instructed to keep would-be gundog within about 4-5 yards either side or ahead of me; he shows remarkable aptitude to listen to my commands and signals each time he's beyond that limit. Our illustrious trainer remarks after a while that "He's developing quite a style"; big compliment! Continuing in the same vein I send Gunner in towards the ditch where he promptly flushes a pheasant --- and instantly sits when we whistle and holler 'sit' at him. So no chase there. Turn him and send him to hunt the other side. A little while later, we again come across a pheasant which he speedily marks and flushes; another holler and whistle and again he promptly sits. When he flushes for the third time, he sits promptly just to the whistle and looks at me as if to say "OK, got that; where's the next one?" "This is really very good" remarks Rory. By this time we're almost back at the car. I spot a hare crouching to my right; I tell Gunner to sit and stay. Which he does. He hasn't seen the hare. "OK" says Rory (admitting later that he was over confident because of Gunner's good behavious thus far) "We'll send him across to the scent and as soon as he picks it up and starts to follow you do whatever's necessary to stop him." "Right" says I, crossing my fingers and sending Gunner out.

He was on the scent within seconds and crikey did he pick it up and bolt with all the speed in his little legs - before either of us could blow our whistles he was across the ditch, oblivious to our hollering and cursing - not in the direction the hare had gone (ie where we were expecting him to go) but doubtless the one it had come from - and off across the fields like the wind. He can't half move when he wants!

Over the ensuing 10 minutes Rory got a very good picture of Gunner at his absolute worst: telling me to jump in the car and head him off at the road, Rory went off in pursuit, never letting him out of his sight, turning and following in whichever direction the errant dog ran. Eventually, worn out and worried out of his skin (the chase over he suddenly realised that he was in a strange land and the car had gone), he ran around for a while with his tail between his legs until he found the car. And Rory. And me. Telling me to give him the 'come back' whistle command, very firmly and to 'be angry' at the dog, Rory then told that same dog off in no uncertain terms. Gunner shook and cowered. I think he got the message.

We put him in the car and took him promptly back to the rabbit pens. Where the 'sit everytime you spot a rabbit' message was reinforced. After a few minutes I was told to let him off his lead and 'sit' him each time a rabbit ran. Well, Gunner had got the message so well by then he was afraid to move anywhere. "Rabbit? Was that a rabbit?" No way was he going after it.

In fact, I had to put him back on his lead before he would relax and walk alongside me!

So, our homework? We're to concentrate on finding rabbits and hares and ensuring that the dog never again chases either. I'm to encourage that by putting the fear of God into him each time he sees 'fur' until his reaction is "Fur? No way"

On this could depend his future as a gundog. Watch this space.

sundry spring things

The duckometer indicates that spring is definitely on the way. The drakes have teamed up with their chosen ducks and, each morning when the Poultry Palace is opened up, off they go in search of the 'best place to build a nest'. OK for them but a bit disconcerting for us 'cos we keep bumping into ducks all over the Reserve. Not a bad thing, except it does rather excite some of the canines: Pilot actually couldn't give a damn about ducks (moles more his thing) but Lancer considers it his duty to retrieve and return them - either to us or to their pen. And very gentle he is too. Which doesn't mean that it doesn't excite him. In all the years here, however, he has never harmed a single feather. All are collected promptly and carefully with only, perhaps, their pride ruffled. But Gunner? Well he's learning: he gets enormously excited by ducks in areas other than their official pen. But he too is gentle, if a little confused still about what to do when he actually catches one. Personally I'm torn between teaching him to not retrieve them at all (the preferred 'training to be a gundog' stance) and teaching him to retrieve them very gently (preferred for dogs about the Reserve). Just now, the latter is winning.

Meanwhile, Ginger, Mangel, Wurzel and Pepper are all staying up later into the evening and, in all but the coldest weather, sleeping al fresco. All this seems to sharpen their appetites - each evening at dusk when I go to shut up the poultry I am greeted by a great cacophany of snorts and grunts which I interpret to mean - "We need more food to see us through the night". But, I suppose, could equally be "How nice of you to come out and see us before we turn in for the night!". (Why is it we humans think all animals want, when they give us attention,

is food).

The piglets in the wood are continuing to have fits of running around madly, eating all the tree roots and collapsing fast asleep for hours in their ark. Whenever we go to visit, they come bounding over from wherever they are just to say 'hello'. Clearly, life outside is much more to their liking!

And there in the wood......

"They sailed away for a year and a day

to the land where the bong tree grows

and there in the wood a piggy wig stood

with a ring through the end of his nose.."

(from The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Edward Lear)

What an exciting day it's been for Precious piglet and her brothers! The cold snap finally abated and 'Operation Pigs to the Woods' was able to swing into action.

They've been in the Old Stalls since weaning from Ginger. That's all well and good and jolly warm through the cold stuff; handy too for dealing with necessary visits from the vet and bidding farewell to siblings. But palatial and interesting for pigs? No way. (And it gets pretty smelly

However, before they could move out a new pen had to be secured and another ark delivered. What really taxed our brains for a while was where to locate them. We've got plenty of acres but most of it is either open pasture with no shelter from the sun (except hedges) or relatively tended gardens.... neither suitable for pigs. And we needed somewhere away from Mangel to give Precious time to mature without his amorous attentions. She might not mind but at c.90Kg (possibly more) .... he could be rather overwhelming for a young lady.

Eventually the ideal place came to mind - an area of old and well grown woodland alongside our drive, completely 'private' and sheltered from all weathers by a dense screen of yew and holly hedging. Probably planted to shelter the house from the fierce Easterly winds, it's of no use for anything else --- but a potential piggie paradise? Seemed just the thing..... and with the ark and fencing in place we just had to wait for more clement weather: even though the wood is dry and sheltered it would have been beyond unkind to move the piglets during the coldest spell this year!

With Thursday dawning mild and clear, therefore, Operation Ps to the W swung into action -after our breakfast and before theirs (pigs always more obliging when expecting food). The usual (when moving pigs) tactical considerations were employed: number of people, location of trailer/hurdles/unforeseen temptations (like open spaces). Step 1: load them from the stalls into the limousine ... well they thought it was - all lovely clean sawdust with a few bits of food thrown in to make it more appealing. Step 2: move piglets and limousine adjacent to woods. Step 3: reverse limousine in direction of pen in woods (not as easy as it sounds!). Step 4: secure 'run' to pen with hurdles. Step 5: drop ramp and entice piglets to woodland pen.

Actually, it all went very smoothly: the most difficult bit was enticing them all into the trailer - two went in quite quickly but the other two made a meal of it - breaking through the hurdle back into their familiar stall several times before human intervention saw them half lifted and half dragged (squealing blue murder) in the direction of the ramp. "Oh that's what you wanted" they then said, meekly wandering up and into the trailer! "Why didn't you say?"

When they got to the other end and saw the woodland they could hardly believe their eyes. Run? They didn't stop - for about an hour. Up and down, side to side, to and fro, back and forth. Running into trees, pretending they were scary and darting away. Sampling bits of greenery - more scary and running away. Gosh - all those bits of dead tree trunk just waiting to be nibbled. Talk about piggie paradise. We put some food down for them but they were, like "Food? How boring" and just kept on running. So eventually we left them to it.

An hour or so later when we went back they were all fast asleep in the ark. Four hours later when we went out to feed them tea they were still in the ark fast asleep..... they probably thought they'd died and gone to heaven.

(and, no, none of them have rings in their noses....!)

Mr 95%

After what could only be called 'a long vacation' from his formal education, the would-be gundog, Gunner, returned this week for his first session with Rory-the-trainer.
Rory was complimentary about his appearance: "He's grown into a very handsome young dog". (With hindsight, I should have been alerted at that; in dressage, if the judge comments 'Nice horse' it's often because s/he cannot comment very favourably on its performance!)
When asked about progress during our absence, I was naturally keen to start on a positive note. I duly listed all his good points, which are many - and which are offset by only two noticeable 'minus points' with which I ended.
"In summary" said I "He's absolutely perfect 95% of the time!!"
"Right" said The Trainer, giving me what I now recognise as a wry look. "Let's go down to the (training) paddock and have a look at him".
We started the session with some basic 'sit' and 'stay'. Perfect. Moved on to 'sit on command at a distance'. Almost always - at home! Here - "Can only sit if I come to you first"=failed. "You need to help him learn to 'sit' wherever he is, whenever you tell him". "Right" I say.
Next: "How is he with birds?" asks The Trainer. "Excitable" I reply (thinking: "Chases them whenever he gets the chance")
So we move to the pigeon pen. Imagine a 'fruit cage' type of construction. About 40 x 15 ft. With maybe 20-30 pigeons inside and a perch at one end (by the way, this cage also holds some semi-feral rabbits --- doesn't get much more exciting than that for a hunting dog!).
The task is to 'sit' the dog whenever the pigeons fly - which they do, from one end to the other, over the dog's head, because He the Trainer is making them do so.
I thought Gunner did very well. He sat each time I told him, sometimes quite promptly; sometimes only eventually after several instructions. But he sat in the midst of this great excitement. About 5 minutes later I hear "That was pretty terrible" from The Trainer. "Oh" I exclaimed. "I thought he was quite good under the circumstances." "Quite good" replied he "is No good. His bum should hit the ground and stay there as if glued, no matter what the birds do." "Oh" said I, slightly despondently. "Something to practice then?" I added.
"Let's move on to the rabbits" said he moving to the small paddock alongside the 'cage'.
Same thing: each time a rabbit springs up from the ground, tell the dog to sit - which he must do instantly and until told he can move.
Well that was better. But in fairness there were only two rabbits who obliged and after the pigeons they were not so exciting. Even so, Gunner sat neither promptly nor firmly enough to satisfy our Trainer.
"Must work on making him 'sit' as if he were a lump of lead dropped from the sky" --- "Right" said I.
Next: (don't know about dog but owner is getting pretty tired by now) We move on to some retrieving - cos he's good at that. And, since I've not yet taught him left from right, "We'll start some directional training".
Well - after the 'sitting' and 'birding' this really was a lot easier. Fetched each retrieve, whether sent 'back', 'left' or 'right' and even went for them in the order directed. Not overly enthusiastically, but steadily and correctly. "Full marks but increase the difficulty each time to raise his enthusiasm" says Rory.
We finish with a few 'sit' at heel instructions to get the hang of 'sit IMMEDIATELY I say it' and, much to my relief, the hour (and a half) ends.
Back in a fortnight. Meanwhile we have more than enough to work on.
He is such a lovely dog.........................

But he was certainly very tired when he got home and he told Lancer all about it before collapsing beside him and falling asleep on the kitchen sofa whilst waiting for dinner........

2008 Safari Season kicks off with Canadian patrol

Everyone's saying that spring is coming early this year and that certainly seems to apply here on RectoryReserve. The ground is carpeted in snowdrops, crocii are appearing in increasing numbers and the daffodils, lillies and other spring flowers are well advanced out of the ground. To cap it all, one of the ducks laid the first egg of the season yesterday. So that confirms it. Spring is here.
So perhaps we should not be surprised that this week saw the arrival of our first RectoryReserve Safari experience visitor. Elizabeth had travelled all the way over from Oshawa in Canada to live the country idyll for a few days. Here she is introducing herself to Precious and her siblings (I have to add that Precious later got a little too friendly and nipped her on the knee .. in a nice way!). By the end of her stay, just a few short days later, Elizabeth had added many new skills to her repertoire - mucking out pigs and ponies being just the most basic of those. Certainly she continued on her journey to Belgium with a far deper appreciation and understanding of the quirks of animals and life in the country.
She was well pleased.

Off on an Adventure

It was another Big Day in the life of Ginger's little family. It's been a couple of weeks since Polly left for her new home. And today was the turn of the next two boys. They're off to Pink Pig Adventure Park in the North of Lincolnshire. There they will be prized and petted by scores of schoolchildren and their parents. Pink Pig have a large variety of 'normal' farm and 'rare breed' animals and these two will be an integral part of the nature trail .. where they will probably cause quite a few stunned looks when they appear out of the undergrowth.

This is one of the little tubbies with his New Boss, Andrew. He looks pretty quiet (piglet not Boss) but it wasn't the case when we tried to catch him. He and his mates had every intention of disappearing into any corner that a human being could not get into --- and it's amazing just how springy and squiggley half a dozen little piggies can be. But we won. And now there are just four little piglets left ..... and the two are off on a big adventure........ starting with their first journey in the back of a truck. Wow! Now that IS exciting!!!

A little rhyme - part 2

Six little piggies queueing for their meal..
something's in the air....
someone's going to squeal!