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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    Bitches do lose fitness during the second month after the end of a season. You can keep them as fit as possible with general exercise and bike work, and some don't seem to lose much fitness at all: they are all different. I just lay off fast work during weeks 5-12 after the season has ended, but your eyes and hands should tell you when the muscles go soft: this coincides with maximum increase in mammary size, whether or not the bitch actually milks up or not. It's not always as bad as that: I've one bitch which never shows any sign of having been in season, and she doesn't lose muscle po
  2. skycat
    I wonder if the term 'breaking down' comes from the fact that the muscles actually seem to collapse: particularly in Greyhounds: some bitches seem to turn almost to jelly, which in a Greyhound would be very obvious, a far cry from the tight, strong muscles we are used to seeing on fit racing Greys.
  3. skycat
    If she were a stride faster then she'd also need an excellent strike. Not saying that she hasn't got a good strike, but a very fast dog needs correspondingly lightening reactions and strike, and do it all at speed: in other words, it has to be the whole package. No point just adding speed if the dog to be used isn't top notch in other departments.
  4. skycat
    http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/topic/264756-false-pregnancy/
  5. skycat
    Great photos: in the last one, is it a follow on from the first one? Had the ferret just fallen off?
  6. skycat
    How much are the receivers? I looked and couldn't find one specifically linked to the dog collar, and the falconry receivers are very expensive!
  7. skycat
    http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=garmin+astro+220&rlz=1C1FDUM_enGB481GB481&sugexp=chrome,mod%3D0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=787809879853713794&sa=X&ei=B6yCUMryLMK2hQfdwYGIBQ&ved=0CDAQ8wIwAw Not that dear at all. I think I shall save up for a couple. Once the Airedale things hit a hot scent in deep cover I have no way of knowing where they are, and it can take them a while to either lose or catch their game. Worth that peace of mind knowing where they are. There's another one which also doubles as a shock collar and even tells you if the dog is standing
  8. skycat
    Safe to run in season and for up to a month after she's finished. Then lay her off hard running anything up to 12-16 weeks following the end of the season. I put something on Millet's thread about false pregnancies. http://www.thehuntinglife.com/forums/topic/264756-false-pregnancy/
  9. skycat
    Lovely! :clapper:
  10. skycat
    It's difficult to say anything without seeing the bitch, getting hands on her. Like I said, softening of muscles and increased mammary size is normal after a season: I wouldn't call that a true false pregnancy. Real false pregnancy is when the bitch's abdomen swells up and she nests, digs holes, mopes around like a dying duck in a thunderstorm etc etc It's like a real pregnancy but there's no puppies. From around 2-4 weeks after the imaginary pups have been born, she snaps out of it again as her hormones go back to a 'resting' stage. The actual changes in hormones are a lot more complex than
  11. skycat
    Most don't do the nesting thing: mine never do. A true false pregnancy is when the bitch truly thinks she is in whelp: in my experience, more likely if she has been mated but hasn't taken. It is completely normal for bitches to go soft, mammary glands swell up after a season. It's a hangover from the wild pack animal where bitches all cycle together, but only the dominant female usually gets mated. The subordinate females have a phantom, and it has been known for these females to suckle the young of the dominant female if she has no milk or dies for some reason. That's the general consensus of
  12. skycat
    Millet: they don't all turn into bags of flab, but most of mine do. With some its a matter of degrees, but I can see that their performance ain't what it should be when they're soft, so I don't run them on the lamp at all when they're like that. Daily mooching, bit of bike work, but nothing over strenuous: the fitter you keep a bitch when she's like this, the more quickly she'll bounce back once she's over the hormonal softness: lamping is full of hard twists and turns when the dog can't see where it is putting its feet like it can in the day time.
  13. skycat
    So this guy was obviously very fit, probably didn't drink or smoke, and there's old geezers of plus who have drunk, smoked all their lives and never done anything to keep themselves fit: life IS a bitch.
  14. skycat
    Galastop is a diuretic: it can dehydrate a bitch. It is an outmoded method of drying up milk, and can really take it out of a bitch, and IMO has no place in sensible animal welfare. Working a bitch hard when she is already dehydrated is a recipe for potential disaster. If a bitch is milked up it is much better to use something safe such as Urtica Urens 3c available from: http://www.dorwest.c...E--100-pillules But it's not only the milk that causes a problem: ligaments slacken, muscles, soften and fat builds up round the heart and other internal organs> bitches shouldn't be run hard in t
  15. skycat
    I should have said that Anne would never have sold a pup to the 'wrong' hands: she was very careful about who had her pups, and many people stuck with her line generation after generation. I did virtually no retrieve training with a couple of pups from that line but each and every dog from that line have all retrieved and continued to retrieve throughout their lives. It's hard to explain what a proper old fashioned lurcher can do naturally, through inherited instinct, but they do it: hunt, catch and carry, with virtually no input from the owner. You'd have to be a really nasty sod to destr
  16. skycat
    Young? You are too kind, sir
  17. skycat
    Those who quit at the first hurdle are unlikely to ever see the best from their dogs.
  18. skycat
    A well bred coursing dog with plenty of pace should do it all. That is to say, not Saluki saturated, but with enough to give day time stamina. I've had one or two, and they performed just as well on the lamp and on charlie and other stuff as they did on fen hares, and I'm not kennel blind.
  19. skycat
    The problem of very uneven litters occurs when you have, say four very different types of breeds in a lurcher. Say you have Bull, Whippet, Beddy and Grey: as you suggested: you could end up with 4 pups all throwing to those different breeds. Myself, I prefer lurcher to lurcher from a long line of lurchers: they may contain more than a dozen different breeds, but they've been bred like that for so many generations that they even out into what we think of as a traditional sort of lurcher: the old fashioned sort, rough coated, medium build. Not only does the shape, size and type even out, bu
  20. skycat
    http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/english/data/d0081702.html I know that carcase is the old fashioned English spelling. The American English 'carcass' seems to have taken over in modern UK spelling, but as I'm an old fart I'll stick with the old fashioned spelling
  21. skycat
    6-7 months from the date of production. I can live with that.
  22. skycat
    Keep her away from the child; keep the dog away from any situation where you would need to tell it off. Any form of negativity at this stage will set the dog back to the place in her head where fear rules. She has obviously had too many bad experiences of humans to ever forget what has happened to her, and the only way you can win her back is to only let her see you as a good place to be. Hand feed her, encourage physical contact with you, avoid sudden movements or loud voice, and NEVER let your own behaviour slip again. The dog jumping up is not a bad thing in her eyes: she was feeling happy
  23. skycat
    Some of you guys are feeding a high protein complete food, and adding further protein. Not necessary, or always a good idea as dry and raw take different lengths of time to digest and process. Having said that, most dogs seem to cope reasonably well: canines are the ultimate adaptable animal, capable of assimilating and processing most types of food. Just look at all the scavenging dogs in the third world: you can bet their diet isn't 'appropriate to species' but they survive, though interesting to note that most bitches who survive by scavenging from village dumps seldom whelp more than
  24. skycat
    Love that! :laugh:
  25. skycat
    Great to see some vids of the action
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