The new Shooting season begins

Skipper at the end of his first day

Where do the months go? Those 8 long ones since February? The hours and weeks we've spent training, steadying, calming the dogs.... and here we are at the start of yet another season. It's Bugler's 4th and Skipper's first; my 10th or is it 11th? I'll have to check back....  I can't help thinking back fondly to my first season with Gunner..... It's all recorded here in this blog.... so many memories... he may not be here in 'person' any more but what could be better than continuing the story with his son and grandson?

Bugler at the start of his 4th season

Bugler was out with me on Saturday for the first day of this season and I could not have wished for a better companion; the hours invested in helping him become calmer and more focused have paid off.... It was an unseasonably warm and sunny 18 degrees - tiring for us humans but more so for the dogs. He worked tirelessly and attentively - my phone recorded that I did 23,000 steps so goodness knows how far he travelled. It's a hard life being a beating dog! Unfortunately he jarred his front leg on the hard ground and developed a limp in the afternoon. He has been on 'box' rest since and will hopefully be OK soon enough to take up his engagement next weekend.

So - Bugler's limp worked to Skipper's advantage. Ten days earlier than planned he had his first real working day - he did bits last season but mostly under very close supervision and control. Today he had to step up and really work. I think it surprised him! The first drive was a stretch of dyke he's become familiar with over the past couple of months through dogging-in.. so he probably did think it was just an ordinary day - with a bit of extra distraction. He worked really well and close, focused on me and what I asked of him.. a real joy to watch. He didn't particularly like the noise of the guns but only noticed it when he was standing still.... and by the end of the day he had learned to almost ignore it. It was interesting to watch him grow in confidence through the day, doing more difficult bits of work in heavier cover or closer to the guns. The task now is to switch him off for the next 10 days and begin his second day as if it is his first.... with the same degree of focus and attentiveness ... so that we can move forward through the rest of the season in a calm manner laying the foundation for many happy seasons ahead..... 

Or we could lose the plot completely and end up with an out-of-control nutcase! Let's hope it's the former.......

Happy Birthday Bugler

 It is hard to believe that 5 years have passed since the morning I learned that Gunner's offspring had sprung. Meg, the mother, had a phantom pregnancy the first time round and, with time marching on I thought things might never work out as planned so went in search of another pup elsewhere. The Understudy, as I called him then, joined our family a few short months before I heard that Meg was indeed pregnant. Jaunty was just 8 months old when Bugler was born so they grew up as pups together with Gunner calmly keeping the peace between them. Bugler inherited a lot from his dad - identical colouring and markings being the most obvious - but also his biddable and gentle nature coupled with an overwhelming desire to please. He's not as "steady" as his dad but that's no bad thing since obedience is his forte..... which is not to say that he's perfectly behaved all the time. Since the training of Skipper I realise though that the faults he does have are undoubtedly the result of ignorant handling on my part. We're remedying that and he is becoming better - more focused and calm - as the weeks go by. I look forward to the next (his 4th) Season working with him - he is going to be a joy. Happy Birthday Bugler xxx

The Beast retreats

The Beast from the east has gone on  its way. Very soon all that's left will be water and mud...... although the roads were passable yesterday there was still quite a lot of snow - mainly on our drive....  Bugler enjoyed pretending to hunt for rabbits and mice in the long grass on the field edges. These are just a few shots of him being an out and out springer.... It'll be a shame - for the dogs- when the snow has all gone but I shall be pleased to be able to get out of our drive again..... If it were not for the remaining drifts, fallen branches and general debris all over the place it would be easy to forget just how very strong the wind was. 

 

.. and He thinks he has a sense of humour?

Bugler turning his head away from the fierce wind

So I thought I'd take Bugler and Jaunty up the drive first thing this morning to see what the road to the village looked like.....
We did not get far.
Thanks to the #BeastfromtheEast we stumbled into 5' drifts just round the bend...
We did try to walk through the first one.... not funny.


Jaunty scaling the wall of a drift at the third attempt

Jaunty tried to jump up the side of one - and succeeded at the third attempt - he didn't try again! Nor was he amused when he tried to jump the fence between the top of the drift & the bridleway that runs parallel to our drive - as he prepared to take off  he sank down into the snow and nearly garrotted himself on the top wire of the fence. Lucky it's only a plain strand ....



The road up to the village

The cause of the drifting?  The 'Beastly' wind blew fiercely throughout the night so we inherited the snow which should be on the neighbouring fields .... not in the least amusing..... there is no way we can expect to get up - or anyone else get down - our drive until it thaws. The last time drifts like this appeared was in the winter of 2010; a neighbour delivered the papers one day on his tractor..... very kind of him you'd think? Nope: the weight of the tractor compacted the snow with the result that long after the roads were clear everywhere else we had about one foot deep of lethal packed ice all up our drive! Not to be repeated....
Sadly the wind continues to blow tonight. Luckily no fresh snow has fallen during the day. What are the chances of neither snow nor wind tomorrow......? Wouldn't it be funny if the Beast just wrapped up his horns and withdrew back from whence he came........

Ahhhhh - the Beast has teeth

So they had the last laugh - the meterologists. Yesterday may have been pussycat stuff but today was the full-blown beast. The day dawned to extra snow and went on from there..... we were surprised by a friend coming down the drive to join us for breakfast at 0930..... and enormously relieved when he rang us after arriving back home - admitting he'd probably be the last person driving on our roads today.
Occasional bright spells have been completely overshadowed by blizzarding white-outs; impossible to walk or see through, they descend within moments, completely enveloping and closing off the rest of the world.
The dogs all had fun hunting for dummies and mice under the snow.... although none of them were too pleased to find themselves clad in masses of 'balls' when it was time to go home..... Spaniels' feathering works like a magnet on snow and the hard lumps turn to ice making them impossible to shake or rub off; there is no solution but to wait till they melt or pull them off with the teeth one by one..... Have to wonder if it's worth running through the snow.....
The poultry have spent most of the day indoors and tonight I discovered a robin shacking up in Rocco's stable for the night.... I think the birds will all be pleased when the beast moves on. Wonder when that will be; the forecasters say the weekend..... hope so... the novelty of snow - like fish - goes off after three days.
Tonight is without doubt the coldest we have had in a long long time; no moon just the wind continuing to blizzard and blow.... what will the morning bring... ???

 
 

We've had snow

Heralded as "The Beast from the East" the snow finally arrived today. !0-20 cm they said we'd get so we stocked up yesterday on animal/poultry feed and cancelled SkipperSkool this morning - fearing we might get stuck in blizzards on isolated country lanes. That amount did not fall.
It's been a beautiful day; sharp cold blustery snow and hail showers interspersed with bursts of bright sunshine and aquamarine skies. Rocco says it's nicer out than in, even though finding grass under the snow is a bit of a lottery - perhaps that's the fun of it. Free to wander in and out of his stable at will, he chooses mostly to stay out - even after dark.


Jaunty snow-woogling

Bugler enjoying the snow

The dogs approach it quite differently - Jaunty makes a spectacle of himself woogling in it; Bugler just loves the fun of running through it and Skipper really doesn't remark that it's anything particularly noteworthy at all - as far as he's concerned, the important thing is just to get on with doing whatever he's supposed to do.
By nightfall quite a lot more snow had fallen. In the bright moonlight, the countryside looks hauntingly beautiful. The wind got up; it is very cold but still does not feel like any sort of eastern beasty. The forecasters say we are in for heavier falls tomorrow, Friday and Saturday. If that's true, we could well be snowed in by Sunday and perhaps by then the soubriquet will seem fitting.....

Skipper oblivious to snow

Maybe......... we'll just watch this space.



Reflections on Seasons past

Before Gunner arrived in my world on 19th June 2007 the life of a working gundog was a total mystery. We'd had spaniels for a number of years: I can remember proudly telling the vet when I took Captain, our first, for his annual injection that he was a "Working Spaniel" - although he had never worked a day in his life!! If it had occurred to me that I might one day "work" a gundog, I could not have imagined what that entailed. When we lived 'down South' I was aware that the lady who occasionally gave me horse-riding lessons "picked up" locally with her three chocolate labs. If I gave a thought to what she did it was only insofar as I was in awe of her and rather impressed that a lady did 'that sort of thing' (all things 'shooting' being to my mind, at that time, strictly masculine!!).
The transformation of Gunner from much admired (by me) young pup to much admired (by many) young gundog is documented in detail earlier on this blog.
The contemporaneous and lasting transformation in my own habits and hobbies, though far more radical and unexpected, happened surreptitiously, slowly and totally unscripted - and over a much longer period of time.
In those distant days I was not aware that I was changing.......  In all the training sessions Gunner & I had with him-the-trainer It didn't occur to me that I was actually training the dog. "Yes" I was managing to teach him things but I was constantly in awe of the fact that he was learning to become a gundog! When he did things that I had taught him I was totally amazed...  even more so when he did things that I hadn't taught him! It never occurred to me to tell him to do something and when he did what I asked I was truly proud of him! I felt privileged that he wanted to be with me.
When we turned up for our first ever experience of 'beating on a shoot' on 8 October 2008 I was greener than grass-  and ignorant of the workings of a 'Shoot'. Yet, there I was with my very own, very handsome and obedient, coming-to-work gundog. I had no idea what we were going to have to do but I knew he was trained to do it! Nobody said it at the time; perhaps it never occurred to anyone; maybe they were just bemused by a not-so-young lady wanting to dress up in weird weather-and-bramble-proof garb and spend her days with a bunch of mostly rough and ready chaps - but they sussed that I knew nothing about the world I was throwing myself into!! Now I know their friendly banter was really teasing!!
The whole language of the shoot day was alien. I turned up with a young spaniel, offering to 'bush-beat' - without a clue. I didn't know what "drives" were, how long and how many there were in a day. When told for the first time to "work that strip of cover" I had no idea what was expected of us. Luckily Gunner didn't let on!

Whilst I knew that The Glorious Twelfth was the beginning of the Grouse (and therefore the Shooting) Season I didn't know that partridge could be shot from September and pheasants from October. I didn't realise that the Season ended on 31st January and had never heard of Cocking Days!
Still I turned up that first day with my young, handsome, well trained Gundog - totally oblivious - yet totally confident that whatever we were asked to do, Gunner would be up to the task!! We learned together 'on the job': Because of the dog he was we had opportunities that might not otherwise have come our way and before long we were hooked. It was all he ever wanted to do and the more I learned, the more I enjoyed it.
Ten Seasons later I realise just how much he changed my life!  Thanks Gunner.........

Update on Wanda

Owing to recent cases of avian flu being declared, DEFRA have requested that all poultry, whether domestic or commercial, be kept shut up and fed inside. This is obviously curtailing Wanda's lifestyle somewhat.
She does still manage to get out somehow to lay her egg in Rocco's stable. She strayed too far one day last week - Jaunty found her however and brought her to me.
We look forward to the time when all the poultry can again roam free.....

Whither does she Wanda

Wanda pecking around in Rocco's hay

We all need routine. My early morning routine is to let the dogs out for the necessaries, let the poultry out and give them their feed, feed the horse, feed the pigs, feed the humans and so on......
Wanda has her routine too; get out of the hen house, eat breakfast, get out of the hen pen, eat whatever she can find in Rocco's stable, lay an egg in the corner, wander off to find bugs and worms outside and so on.....

"What you got in your feed bowl?"

The daily egg

I've not yet discovered where she gets out of the hen pen; she obviously finds it very easy. This afternoon when I was collecting the eggs from her 'flock mates' she hopped back in to the pen behind me as I climbed over the fence - probably afraid she was going to miss out on something! I'm surprised that one or more of the others don't follow her - at this time of year there are more delicacies to be found outside than inside!    When Rocco is grazing down the fields she tends to wander around the yard or the orchard or down alongside the track but when he comes up to his stable she is right there next to him - or behind him - as if she has been waiting. He seems to appreciate the company, letting her peck around his feet and even occasionally snuffling her! He draws the line at her pecking in his feed bowl though (maybe she's checking to see if her egg is in there?), warning her with a quick flick of his tail! She quickly gets the message..... When he wanders out she is quick to follow. Companiable really. I think he is just bemused......as long as he doesn't pat her on the back ....!

A hen named Wanda

The happy wanderer... 6.1.18

Late summer/Autumn is the time of year we usually stock up on hay for the winter. So last August/September I collected some sample bales from our usual supplier - a local farmer:  we've been buying from him for 16 years - even when we've cut our own hay. He's always provided the best quality seed hay but in the past couple of years the Spoiled Pony has not been too keen to chew it - spilling much of it over the floor. The sample bales met with the same distaste.... and at £4 each that's a bit much to recycle in the Poultry Palace.
So I located an alternative supply of organic meadow hay - and when I turned up to collect some bales for the SP "to try" I discovered that the farm also supplied organic chicken on a commercial scale.
All commercial hens are "disposed of" and "replaced" after a fixed period, determined by when their maximum production period ends. Some of the luckier ones are rehomed shortly before the fatal day. We've got lots of poultry: Call ducks who don't lay eggs (except in spring), Runner ducks who don't lay eggs (except in the pond), cockerels who don't lay eggs and some lovely bantams who occasionally lay eggs - very small ones...... I'd been thinking about getting some more laying hens for quite a while. There really is nothing better than eggs freshly laid in your own back yard.
"Do you ever re-home some hens at change-over time" I asked the nice lady as she helped me load up the hay. "Why? Yes we do" she said, continuing "and we are changing over this Friday so if you'd like some you'll need to make up your mind how many in the next couple of days."

What a happy co-incidence!
The next day I returned with my poultry crate. I decided to take 8 hens. More than I needed but in the past when I've re-homed commercial hens I've always lost 2 or 3 in the first month. The change in habitat and habits can prove too much for some birds.
So I brought 8 hens home. And I still have all 8 hens which says a lot for the organic farm they came from. Between them they lay between 0 & 4 eggs a day which is plenty for us and one or two friends......
They're a friendly bunch; always rushing up to peck my feet and chuckle up at me when I go in their pen. They're always last to bed, refusing to tuck themselves in until it's well & truly dark; if I go out whilst there's even a faint hint of light still about they all pile out of their little house and come up for a nightcap - or something! Suddenly 3 or 4 weeks ago one of them started getting out of the pen and wandering around for the odd hour or two, then three or four and finally all day. She wanders everywhere - round the barns, the orchard, the fields, the house..... from minutes after I've opened up their house in the morning till well after dusk. She spends a lot of time in Rocco's stable, pecking away at hayseed on the ground - she even lays an egg most days in the corner or, very occasionally, on top of the fallen hay! We've lost one or two that way! Her wandering ways mean I have to keep an eye on the spaniels; they have all learned not to chase her when I am around.... although they do cast evil glances in her direction. Today Jaunty bumped into her when he ran round a corner ahead of me. He couldn't help himself: within a nanosecond he'd opened his mouth & in she hopped and demanded a quick turn about the yard (his story, not mine). Needless to say he couldn't wait to find me and give her over to my safe keeping (my story not his) and I'm happy to say she survived to tell her tale to the other hens......
Well, a hen with attitude needs a name. We  asked our #TeamGunner twitter followers for their suggestions. They came up with many and various but in the end I thought the most suitable was Wanda.... so Wanda she is. Technically, Wanda II because I did have a hen called Wanda a few years ago.......
So, let's see what Wanda gets up to over the coming months  - if she can keep herself out of trouble - and passing spaniels' jaws!!!!

The First flower of 2018

Jaunty pulled a claw out of his left back paw the week before Christmas.... as is his habit, he'd slipped out of sight when I was bringing the dogs in from their kennels in the evening and had gone hoolying across the fields. But they were frozen solid. He came home looking OK - but then I was not expecting anything to be wrong. He lay down by my side in the snug that evening - as usual. When he got up later on I noticed he was limping - "Jaunty's leg's gone to sleep" I said to The Big Boss.
It was still asleep when I put them all out in their kennels for the night.
And the next morning. So I had a closer look and thought I saw a missing claw. "Well" I thought "That explains it". So I bathed his paw in salted water - twice a day for three days. Then I had another good look and realised the claw I thought was missing was actually still there. I know. Old age and all that. On closer inspection it was actually the claw alongside the one I thought was missing which was the problem. I rang the vet. We went that afternoon. The claw was not 'loose' enough to pull off and not 'tight' enough to stay on. "No wonder he can't put it on the ground" said the vet, giving him anti-inflammatory and antibiotic jabs and prescribing 10 days of antibiotics...... It came off two days later - well, he pulled it off when we were going across the field.... After that he could put his weight on the paw.
Good then.
But Not.
He chewed it over night and made it all yukky and bloody.
A good Twitterpal sourced a single boot for him. That helps on wet walks. The rest of the time when on his own he is wearing the dreaded 'lampshade'. He does not like it. Who would? We go for long walks on lead - he does not like it. What spaniel would?  In the afternoon I let him run round on the extending lead..... he doesn't much like that either. What spaniel would?
It was whilst twirling round on the end of the long lead this afternoon that he almost squished the first flower of the year. On the other paw, if he had not been twirling round on the end of the long lead I would not have seen it.
Well done Jaunty. Thank you for showing me the first flower of the year.