Bang! Drop! Fetch!

I keep wondering how we convert the would-be Bestest Gundog in all the World from 'fetching' dummies to fetching the real thing. I think one of his little escapades this week proves that I needn't have wasted my time worrying about it!

But first, the theory.

Our lesson this week involved Gunner's introduction to THE GUN! Not a shotgun at this stage but a sort of starter pistol firing blanks.

"Just let him hunt over there" said our Trainer "and at some stage I'll fire the gun and, when he looks, I'll throw the dummy".

So off we went hunting some very interesting scents through the extremely long, rough grass. I heard the pistol fire; Gunner carried on hunting regardless. I heard the pistol fire again; Gunner sort of half lifted his head but then decided the ground was more interesting.... I heard the pistol fire again; Gunner looked up as if to see what it was that was disturbing his Important Business..... And then he saw the dummy drop. So I sent him off to fetch it. Zoomed there and back with it. No problem, despite the fact that it was one of Rory-the-trainer's dummies.

So he successfully passed two tests: (1) he doesn't worry about gunfire and (2) he's happy to collect a strange dummy.

"We're really flying now" I thought to myself.

Big Mistake.

"Right" said our Trainer "Back there in the direction of the car I dropped a dummy behind that distant clump of dock leaves. Send him to fetch it. I expect it back in double quick time!"

About 10 minutes later................ I won't even bore you with the detail but Rory said it was "well handled at the end".

It knocked Gunner's confidence a bit. Given the instruction to 'fetch' again, he just sat and looked at me as if to say - "What? Go through all that palaver again?!" Can't blame him really. But he realised I meant it and, having seen where I dropped it, at the 3rd time of asking, off he went and brought it back no problem.

Then we did some hedgework. Sit the dog. Throw the dummy over hedge. Send dog through to fetch.

First time, no problem. Well, we've been practising at home!

Second one was a different ball-game altogether. Another 10 minutes went by. Didn't help that the handler couldn't see the dog, and vice versa, because the hedge was too dense and a good 12 foot high! All I could do was call the dog in then send him back to try again. Several times. In the end we chucked a second dummy over. Which he fetched back easily!

"I reckon that other one's gone down a rabbit hole" I said to the Trainer! Nothing for it but to walk round through the gate down the track and find it! When we were in the right area, we set Gunner to searching and he found it easily! "Stupid humans" he probably thought.....

So we did a bit more hunting and tried the gun thing again.

Only at the third firing did Gunner immediately look up at the Bang, watch the dummy Drop and Fetch it instantly when told!

"OK, lesson learned for today" said our Trainer and we returned to the car. Me wondering if the lesson would be remembered two weeks hence!

Then yesterday, whilst I was mucking out, we heard a pheasant clucking. Gunner disappeared. And didn't return when I whistled. Always an ominous sign. Went in search and saw him with a pheasant clutched between his paws and the chicken-pen fence. On whistling him again, he brought the pheasant to me. Struggling somewhat cos it was still alive and struggling..."Good Boy". And gave it to me. "Good Boy" --- spitting feathers out of his mouth.... Pheasant was still alive. But died shortly thereafter - of a heart attack I suppose. Gunner was over the moon. Soooo excited that he'd bagged his first pheasant. Without all that Bang, Drop, Fetch stuff. What do we know. "This is more like it" he seemed to say!

All he wanted to do for the rest of the day was sit and watch his prize - until he almost fell asleep! Is that, or is that not, a GUNDOG in the making.....???

Say 'good bye' to the summer

Looking back, I note that on precisely this date last year the blog carried this same heading!

So, some things don't change!

Throughout the long wet days of June, July and August we have consoled ourselves with the knowledge that an Indian Summer was just round the corner! It hasn't arrived yet - and it's probably hopeless to pretend that it will now.

Although last November did surprise with wonderful sunny days so perhaps we are too hasty in consigning the never-arrived summer to the scrapheap!!

The last fledgeling swallows left the barn last week, (a few days earlier than last year) using the few sunny spells between showers to accumulate and refine their flying skills! We counted 6 broods again this year - we wonder if the same families return year after year? It's nice to think so; that they while away the winter in Africa planning their return to the Lincolnshire barn where they were hatched! For now though it's all quiet again, the guano removed and the stables 'clean' for the next 8 months! Ahhhh, shame......!

August was the wettest for 100 years; despite that and the lack of sun (we read in the paper that S.A.D. sufferers are advised to take Vit. D suplements!), the farmers have used every opportunity to gather in the harvest. This time last year it was about done. Not so this year. It's well behind and wheat still stands in some fields - black and sodden. Is it worth gathering or will it just be ploughed in???
Our own harvest is much depleted. Jam making has been confined to a few pounds of loganberry; the orchard being all but devoid of damsons, gages and plums. Apples are way down in quantity and a while off picking yet. Even the hedgerows don't look to be carrying their usual abundance of elder and currant. A meagre harvest for the pantry then. And what to decorate the church window with this Harvest Festival? Sodden turfs may not be appropriate.....
Even the autumn hunting 'season' reckons to be starting two or three weeks later than usual....
"So much for global warming" we all mutter.. except the ducks who are thriving .....

Ah well; it'll soon be time to batten down the hatches, light the fires and dream of sun-soaked desert isles......

Visitors

It's been a week of comings and goings!

Visitors to RectoryReserve from the European branch of the family staying, so we thought to take them to visit our outlying family. First to Woodlands Farm to say "Hello" to Gavin and Stacey (their visitors chose the names!?) who roused themselves from their slumbers and came trotting over to see us. We remarked how very well they looked, despite (or maybe because of) their little escapade a few weeks back.

Interestingly, we noticed that their coats seemed to have developed a slightly chestnut tinge. "Odd" we thought, since Gavin and Stacey come from 100% Blonde stock.

Too much sunshine? This year? Couldn't be. Perhaps something in the soil - or maybe the organic vegetables they find in their dish?

Anyway, we stayed a while and chewed over the fat with them. Handsome pair. Just as well as they are to be the foundation of the Woodlands Herd of curly coats. Can't be too much longer before the patter of tiny trotters is heard in that neck of the woods.

Another day; another adventure. This time up to the north of the county to visit our chaps up at Pink Pig Adventure.

They too were slumbering in their ark when we arrived but, seeming to recognise familiar voices, stirred themselves and came ambling over to the fence to check the visitors out.

They told tales of the spitting Alpacas in a nearby field, the very smelly goats and the noisy geese across the way - not to mention the Gloucester Old Spot X Berkshire piglets just up the track. Sometimes, they said, their sleep was disturbed by the sounds of children playing (loudly) on the nearby climbing frames. On the whole, though, they said there was always plenty of entertainment - never a dull moment.

We'd been told they were named Rhubarb and Custard when first they arrived but a competition was held to select more appropriate names for them. "Now we're known as Curly and Worley" they said, rather lugubriously.......

We couldn't help noticing that they too had developed rather distinctive colouring. The hair round the edges of their ears was decidedly dark - almost black. Similarly on the top of their necks the hair was black tipped. Quite different from Precious and Butch who have remained here at the RectoryReserve. It could be that Mangal's colouring is coming through in the hogs (although, in that case, Butch too should be going darker) or maybe it is something to do with their diet? Or something coming through from the minerals in the ground?

Very interesting.

Anyway, we bade our fond farewells and left them chewing the undergrowth.

And then the following day at RectoryReserve we had unexpected and unknown visitors whilst we were entertaining family and friends at home.

"What was that red umbrella that just went past the window?" said the boss

"I'll go see" said I

"Would this be the home of the curly coat pigs?" said the stranger in the doorway.

"It certainly would" said I.

"Terribly rude of us to just drop in unannounced but I don't suppose we could possibly see them could we?"

"Well, of course, let me just grab a coat and some wellies" said I.

And off we all - Red Brolly man and wife, brother and sister in law - traipsed to visit the piggies. Turns out the chap with the Red Umbrella had come all the way from L.A., USA .(To visit the pigs!!!!?)

Well... actually, he'd heard about them whilst visiting family not too far from RectoryReserve who'd taken them to visit Elsham Hall, where they'd picked up a leaflet about curly coat pigs and had come in search of same. "Couldn't possibly come all the way to UK and not see these unusual creatures" said Red Umbrella man.

Well, quite right too. His family were 'into' pigs for many a year - been butchers too. He'd "escaped" to The States 45 years ago!

Red Umbrella man's wife took lots of photos.

They all departed smiling. Content that they had seen "the strange woolly pigs...."

The brother and wife will be back - they said - for the Open Day and sausages at the end of this month or the next piglet Open Day ....or both......

The chicken now known as Wanda

Chickens are such silly birds!

They do nothing for years and then suddenly surprise by doing something totally unexpected!

Like this black hen. She's a homebred Leghorn Cross; didn't get on with many of the hens in the Poultry Palace so was 'given' to Merlin as one of his flock. Since when she's been remarkably unremarkable.

Then all of a sudden a couple of weeks ago she's off. Through the fence and down the Church field. Right to the bottom. And back again. Every morning when we're about the yard feeding and opening up etc she wanders off. Returns to Merlin by the time the serious work of the day begins - that's when the dogs are running around so I guess she's not so daft that she hasn't worked out that that is not a good time to be wandering around. So back she goes to her pen, where invariably she is greeted with some consternation - or relief - by Merlin and shooed off to join the rest of his flock. After a few weeks of this behaviour she has earned the distinction of her own name - Wanda, of course.

Not infrequently she can be found strutting around at other times of the day when, presumably, she thinks the coast is clear. Unfortunately, that is not always the case and she did inadvertantly find herself being closely - very closely - guarded by Gunner one day last week. During which event she got a little panicky - not that he was doing anything except watching her very, very closely (he was under "Leave!" orders at the time) - and tried to scrabble under some wire in the hedgerow, and consequently lost a few feathers. Hence the bare patch on the front of her neck!

Scratchy and Delila keep a close eye on her too - not that they'd do anything (except maybe gloat) if she were to get into serious difficulty.

Let's just hope she doesn't get too "cocky" in her wanderings otherwise young Charlie or Mrs Fox may just take advantage of Madam Wanda.........

Getting tougher all the time!

"That was a pretty tough lesson you gave us to learn last time" I said, pitching up for our latest 'training-the-bestest-gundog' session.

"Oh? What was that?"

"The one where he has to learn to go for the pheasant he hasn't seen rather than the one he has seen" I replied.

"What was the difficulty?" asked our trainer.

"He was alright going off for the dummy he'd seen but got confused when I stopped him halfway and sent him out for something he hadn't seen drop" I said.

"No Wonder!" exclaimed our trainer "You were meant to let him see the 'dropped' dummy but then send him first in the direction where you'd hidden the other dummy which he hadn't seen and when he'd got that, then send him off to fetch the one he had seen."

"Ohhh" said I

"No wonder the poor chap was confused - you were teaching him the difficult way round, which you would have moved on to once he'd mastered the easier way."

"Ohhhh" said I

"Full credit to him that he actually did finally get the hang of it"

"Ummm" said I

And then it was off to the lakes for serious water-retrieving. Seriously deep water but the dog didn't know that...... We cured his new-found tendency to drop the dummy and shake all over us.. well, mainly the trainer.... "Not a good idea" said that person... (the deep water was a lot wetter?): my instruction was that as soon as he picked the dummy up in the water I was to whistle him home and then stride quickly away from the lake. This had the desired effect: seeing me leaving, Gunner (a) swam a lot harder to the bank and (b) forgot all about shaking dry in his haste to catch up with me. A couple of times doing that and he was cured of shaking first! Quick to learn, that dog....

So we moved on to the next lesson. I'd taken along a baby rabbit which we'd found dead in our orchard in the early morning.

"Ah" said the trainer "in that case we'll also take this dead feral pigeon I found this morning and do some 'live' retrieving".

I knew Gunner would have no problem picking up the bird: hasn't he ben practising with chickens and ducks all his life???? But I was a little anxious about the rabbit. Mind you a dog that picks up a hedgehog (as he did the other evening) will pick up anything..... Sent off to 'fetch' it he found it, sniffed it briefly, thought about it a bit... and, encouraged by a few "good boy"s decided it was OK to bring back.... not without thinking a couple of times on the way that maybe he should explore it a little further..... but he didn't disgrace .. brought it back and gave it to me - almost as cleanly as the pigeon. "Think that rabbit was just a bit too small for him" said the man.

"Ummm" said I.

"Again, he surprises" continued the trainer-man "Most dogs either pick new things up without hesitation or flatly refuse. This one? He stops, sniffs, thinks... then picks things up"

"Clever, then?" said I

"Maybe" said he. "Let's try doing what you have been teaching him the past 2 weeks, but the right way round.....!"

The first two or three retrieves were easy. So the man then lobbed a couple into some really dense, highly overgrown wasteground on the other side of an overgrown ditch. And the 'going-to-be-bestest-gundog' found those after some directing and searching.

So the stakes were upped again. This time, two dummies lobbed, one after the other, in different directions and further away in the densely overgrown wasteground.

When sent off, he sprang across the now familiar ditch and disappeared in the wasteground. Found one of the dummies very quickly and brought it home.

Sent him off for the second. He sprang across the ditch and disappeared in the densely overgrown wasteground. And searched. And searched. And most of the time I couldn't see him - only the waving grasses and weeds. And still he searched. And I continued to give him directions. Some of them were wrong - me forgetting to look at it from his perspective. Sometimes I was 'told off' in no uncertain terms for either not being firm enough with my instructions or being just plain confusing. In the end we called the - by now thoroughly tired and confused - going-to-be-gundog back. Lobbed another dummy into the middle of the densely overgrown wasteground and sent him off.

Bless his cotton socks. He found it almost immediately.

So, whilst on a roll, decide to send him off for the long-lost dummy.

"This time" said our patient trainer "as soon as he stop looking, you're to 'sit' him, climb across the ditch to him and then re-direct him from where he is. And sit him again if he doesn't find it. And do the same thing. Until he finds it."

Make no mistake. I was not looking forward to climbing over the ditch and wading through waist-high thistles, nettles and goodness knows what else.

So, metaphorically crossing my fingers, I told young dog to 'go, fetch' and he went chasing off, straight through all the undergrowth and we lost sight of him. And then he turned and came back.

"Don't know if he's found it or not so you'll have to wait till you can see him" said our trainer.....

Well, within seconds he came bursting through the thistles, thorns, nettles etc with the dummy firmly held between his lips.

I jumped for joy and could hadly contain my enthusiasm.

"What a clever, clever boy" I, almost, cried - continuing to jump up and down in glee.

Gunner caught the mood and charged up to me, tail wagging and little eyes smiling. I hugged him with relief --- that he'd been so clever and that he'd saved me from the alternative fate...... He too was jumping up and down with glee at this point! The trainer was quite taken aback by this unusual show of enthusiasm......

"Now that" said Rory "is what I call a good dog. A lesser character would have used tiredness as an excuse. But this one does everything you ask him..... and just keeps on trying."

"That's a good note to end on for today".

And when we got home, Gunner told his mate Lancer all about it. And Lancer just got bored and looked the other way.

So the young dog sighed and fell asleep ----- no doubt to dream........................

Just 4 weeks till 'the season' starts. A lot more to learn before then.....

Performing piglets!

Things are getting back to normal again after a hectic 10 days.

As if it was not enough rounding up the ducks who had decided to give Jemima a little more space, we had another bout of 'preparing piglets for the show' and my 3-day equestrian activity jamboree plus, of course, saying farewell again to Jemima at the end of the week.

She was in no mood to leave us this time. Despite her initial scepticism about sleeping in the Poultry Palace, the next evening I was amazed to see her waddling purposefully behind all the others when they went to bed. Straight in the PP, quacking loudly as ever, and there she stayed. Never again to return to her splendid, but solitary, Boudoir. Unlike last time, when she kept herself quite aloof, she palled up with our own White Duck and they were often to be seen daydreaming together in the shade.

So perhaps it was not surprising that she was in no hurry to go home when the Morris family came to collect her. Unusually deaf to their calls, she also turned surprisingly blind - refusing to recognise them for quite a while. Eventually, though, she capitulated and - I'm told - after a night in her own garden-pen, she was back to her old self: loudly demanding her own pond I've no doubt!

Delila and Scratchy performed for the crowds at Walcott Country Day throughout most of Sunday - alternately playing football (Scratchy quickly got the hang of heading and kicking the ball - Delila was less interested - "Not a gilt thing" she said!), rootling and chasing each other around. And inbetween, when the crowds thinned out, they collapsed into a heap and slept the sleep of the just....... fagged out! Delila is turning into quite the Madam; she almost didn't want to leave her paddock for the stalls before the show; took her time ambling into the limousine on the appointed morning and was contrary about who could and could not stroke or scratch her throughout the day ! But when it came to going home time and she saw the limousine draw up she was as loud as Scratchy in her eagerness to get in. Might have had something to do with the fact that their tea was in there I suppose...........

As is his wont now, Gunner escorted the piglets to, and guarded them at, the show. He proved to be quite a hit too and our honorary pighand for the day - young Andrew, who was accompanying his grand-dad (who had a fascinating collection of antique farmyard tools on display) was particularly taken with him. Which was a good thing really because by the end of the day Gunner, previously wary, was quite used to 'children'! I think Andrew would have liked

to take him home, although his first question was: "Are we going to take one of these pigs home tonight Grand-dad?"

(Now that's the sort of customer we need!)

As for the equestrian jamboree - well that's a tale for another day.

Jemima's back in town!

There we are then!

At the duly appointed time, Jemima returned - complete with her bespoke bedroom, buckets, spade, bowls and food for the week.

Did she rush off to greet her old friends? Waddle around saying 'Hi' to everyone?

No. Without so much as a 'by your leave' she was straight in the pond, nudging everyone out of her way so she could have a much-waited-for swim and dive around.

Well. Can't blame her really. Dying for a ducking obviously.....

We're told she's been behaving strangely at home these past weeks.... continuing to hide her eggs and 'sit' on them for hours on end. Even went "Missing" for three whole days - in the garden if you please. Which would suggest that the Morris's plot is rather overgrown and neglected - well, how else could a full grown white duck go missing. But that is seriously not the case, so Jemima was clearly making an almighty effort to stay out of sight. It's all given rise to some very anxious moments in the Morris household and some equally determined efforts to shut her up in her boudoir in good time of an evening........

Anyway. It's nice, if somewhat noisy, to have her back for the week. In putting her to bed last night she had the cheek to 'squit' down my trouser leg! So this evening I gave her the option: Poultry Palace or Jemima's Boudoir? She went to the steps of the PP and looked in and round for quite some minutes.... then, perhaps considering it all a little cluttered, waddled out and allowed me to put her to bed!

Meanwhile, it would seem as though maybe the rest of the poultry party are not entirely overjoyed to have her back again. Gunner, Lancer and I have been spending many a happy half hour rounding up a gang of the other young ducks who have suddenly, for no apparent reason (???) taken to flying out of their pen and wandering round the Church Field --- and having great difficulty then finding the way back to their pen again without considerable direction and prompting......

Nothing to do with Jemima I'm sure........