welshboy454

15 TO 17 YEARS OF AGE A person between 15 and 17 years of age may be given or lent a shotgun and cartridges but may not buy them or hire them. After reaching the age of 15 a person may use a shotgun without supervision, providing he/she holds a valid shotgun certificate. Permission is needed from the Landowner or the person with the sporting rights.

It really depends on what you want the dog to do. I currently have two springers because they suit my needs at the moment but I have had terriers and lurchers in the past. Looking back ( maybe misty eyed) a dog I had which was a Whippet x Labrador mother crossed with an Airedale x Greyhound father was a brilliant fun dog. He would enter cover like a spaniel, flush woodcock, catch rabbits in the lamp and hated foxes with a vengeance. He would wait patiently while I dug down to the terrier facing a fox and then need I say more except I had to get out of the way quick! If I could reincarnate hi

How much forward allowance?

Ok - Start by not feeding them in their bowl for the next 3 weeks. Instead put their food out in the fields/hedges in little portions where you know where it is . Take them one at a time for a walk and point with hand signals towards the food when you blow a whistle. After a while they will think you are a genius and go anywhere you point. Best of luck

Well things are looking better. Today saw about 20 shot 8 between us. Although a bit of frost last night the sheltered ground was still soft enough for them to feed.

Jason -Something strange is going on. At a guess I am about 30 miles west of you and we have a similar experience of very few woodcock about. Yesterday I was talking to somebody who is from approxt midway between us who went out with two others and put up 30 and shot 17 on the same day. I trust him to be telling the truth but I just do not understand it.

Put up 8 by myself training a young bitch after the November Moon but very few seen or shot since then. Over the season our syndicate usually get about 50 in total. This year we will be lucky to get into the teens...

The lines to look for that I know of are Royston and Maesydderwen both in West Wales but not to say that others may be similiar. A friend has a Maesydderwen which is a dead ringer for a Boykin spaniel -you find a pic on wikipedia

I struggled with a similar problem with a young bitch I was given. She was ok when focussed with a starting pistol but somebody had terrified her with a 12g by firing over her so she was gunshy. What I did was to approach it in stages. 1 Throw a visible dummy/bird for the dog while in her kennel . On letting her out tell her to fetch. 2 Progress to a blind retrieve immediately on being let out. 3 Fire a starting pistol some distance away then let her out for the retrieve. 4 Fire it outside the Kennel then let her out. 5 Fire a 12g well away then let her out 6 Slowly bring the distance c

Badgercourt Druid finished trialling at 3 1/2 . Not because of stamina but because the handler could not hold him back ! So there will be a variety of reasons for finishing trialling.

I am no expert but have a read of this http://dobbsdogs.com/library/retrievers/rj39.html Once they understand the hup/sit command you can get them to associate whatever whistle command (eg long loud blast) means hup and the dog sits. Then get the dog to sit for you to walk away say 20 yards turn and face the dog . Call it to you and give hand up hup whistle blast command when the dog is halfway back.You can vary the distance. That way you have eye and body language contact with the dog at all times. When this is firmly learned you can progress to stopping the dog while on a blind dumm

Sounds as if she is a natural- hunting well despite being new to the game. At some stage you will need to get her to stop on the whistle when you can see she is on something- What that does is enable you to keep up with the dog and stay within range of the flush - Best of luck

Depends what caused it. If the dog had fasted before hunting it may not be hereditary. I know of a dog and his daughter that suffer from it badly and despite being good workers I would never buy a pup from that strain. Try Google Addisons disease

Yes brilliant training. What are the chances that from the population of relevant dogs Openshaw had the best raw state dogs to train. I would say pretty small. All it proves is he is an exceptional trainer not that his dogs are the best of breed.

So thats a EXTRA 24 pellets so 24 more chances to hit the target it only takes a single headshot pellet to kill a bird cleanly. If you exclude the beak a pigeons head is under 1 square inch so the chances of that extra kill are about 1 in 30. Please bear in mind that is only at the limit after all an already dead pigeon is not more dead by an extra pellet. I used to use 32g no 6 for pigeons. One day I was short of 32g 6s and took with me some 7.5 clay 28g . I had 7.5 28g in the first barrel and was rationing the 32g no 6 in the second barrel. I continued like this for a while. I missed