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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    Ears will bleed for days if you don't keep the ear completely still: wrap it in cotton wool and tape it on top of the dog's head; use Elastoplast fabric strapping: sticks well to fur and go right round the dog's head: don't make it too tight under the throat: the dog needs to be comfortable to eat and drink. Leave it taped up for 3 days by which time the cotton wool will have formed part of the scab. Trim excess cotton wool away and leave the bit which is attached to the wound> it will come away once the scab comes away once healing is complete.
  2. skycat
    It's a hard decision to make, especially when the old ones still want to get out but their bodies simply aren't up to the work. Here's hoping she enjoys the retirement: do you think that she will? I know that prey drive is supposed to lessen with age, but I've got a 9 1/2 year old who still wants it all: she's semi retired but gets really fed up if she doesn't catch something from time to time.
  3. skycat
    Got mine today. NO words can describe this book well enough: there are NO superlatives strong enough. I sat and turned the pages with an open mouth, literally! And some tears in my eyes. How often can anyone say that a photograph converys a message so strong that you'd have to be dead, blind or minus a brain not to be affected by it. ANYONE with love for the hare and/or the running dog will absolutely feel the author's intensity of emotion for these two very different and remarkable animals. It simply comes off the pages in waves. These photos are not only technically damn near per
  4. skycat
    Without seeing a photo of the wound it is impossible to say whether or not it should be stitched. Most skin only tears will heal by themselves eventually but first ask yourself the following questions: Do you know enough to know what to look for if the wound gets infected? Do you know what to do if the wound gets infected? I have seen large skin tears heal very well indeed, but the owners knew what they were doing and the wounds were in places were scar tissue wouldn't cause a problem with the dog's mobility. Follow Socks' advice anyway and keep the wound very clean. Any sign of pus
  5. skycat
    I think that it is important to remember that the Airedale in the UK has not been bred as a working dog for well over half a century, so the only dogs/bitches which would have been bred from in more recent years will have been show only stock. My Airedale came from imported Canadian/US working lines, which are a whole different kettle of fish to what is currently being bred from in the UK. In fact, although I've only seen a few 'pet' English Airedales, both mentally and physically they are light years away from my Redline bitch (Redline is a term which was coined for a certain strain of w
  6. skycat
    Now that's what I call a post! Thank you so much for putting up such a detailed account of your trip: I'm always fascinated to hear more about different quarry in foreign lands. Tif and Kye are lucky to live in such an incredible place, and sound like great people as well.
  7. skycat
    Quite superb, and amazing: and yes, that fox looks really fat! Only time I've been so close to a fox was on a farm and it had wandered in one day as a cub with a broken leg. The farm men fed it along with the 23 farm cats and it stayed, leg healed but always walked with a limp: it literally lived alongside the cats and ate with them. Amazing.
  8. skycat
    Sorry, I was just trying to eplain: for those that maybe didn't know.
  9. skycat
    Only if the dog is trotting hard or is heavily built, and even then, only if its claws grow at the correct angle to be worn down: I've seen plenty of road walked dogs whose claws are as long as hell, but they grow out of the end of the toes at too shallow an angle to put enough pressure on the ends to wear them down.
  10. skycat
    The most important thing with any young dog, no matter what its breeding, is not to let it get discouraged. So if it sees load of rabbits which it has learned, are not catchable because they are too close to the hedge, try taking the dog on to land with which it is unfamiliar. My own dogs are reluctant to dive into hedges on the lamp if I'm running them on ground they also work by day: a dog knows where it is, night or day. If I take the same dog out at night on to strange land, it will bust cover no problem at all and take rabbits out of the hedge very well. DeerGreys aren't at all stu
  11. skycat
    the word is jab: slang for injection!
  12. skycat
    Ruuning whilst on heat isn't too bad, its afterwards when her body thinks it might be pregnant and lays down fat round internal organs, mammary glands etc. I've found that most bitches, if fit and lean at the start of their season, run OK for about a month after the season has finished. After that I stop any fast work until 6 weeks later. Bearing in mind that a real pregnancy lasts 9 weeks, if you work from the middle of the bitch's season to between 10 and 12 weeks after that date, then start getting them fit again. I don't lay mine off completely, just no hard night's lamping or coursing:
  13. skycat
    Big problem with old dogs is that they don't do enough to wear down their claws. The quick will only retract if you nick the end of it, which of course makes it bleed. It will then shrink back a bit. But this is NOT a reccomended thing to do if you want the dog to trust you to handle its feet! With my old dogs I just keep the claws as short as possible and trim the ends every single week, just short of the quick.
  14. skycat
    I've heard that those 'hamsters' can back fill pretty fast: reckon she did well for a first time out. Thanks for posting that account: love to hear of dogs working different sorts of quarry in other countries.
  15. skycat
    See you there denned and boyo: daft bugger that I am I volunteered to steward! No peace for the wicked LOL At least the sun should be shining. I think that this show must now be in its 23rd or 24th year: I wonder if that is a record for a lurcher show run by the same club>
  16. skycat
    Is it an earth dog or a cover worker? Earth dogs can get sand, dirt, earth etc wedged under their eyelids so far back that you can only see it if you pull the eyelids up and down, depending on whether it is the upper or lower eyelid. Make sure to flush under the eyelids when the dog has been to ground even if you can't see any dirt to begin with: use a plastic syringe, without a needleand GENTLY flush the eye, dropping warm, not hot, water into the corner of the eye nearest the ear, letting it run out of the lower corner. Do both eyes every time just in case. Then use eye ointment as the ot
  17. skycat
    Feed your older dog in the same place as you have always done, but make sure to shut the pup away, right out of sight and sound until the old dog has finished. ALSO make sure to make a fuss of your old dog without paying any attention to the pup. Always make sure that the old dog comes first: greet him first, stroke him etc, and don't let him lose out on exercise/work because of the pup. Comments like: "lurchers get face on really easily" don't help at all! Whislt many older dogs tolerate pups quite well, the depressed and miserable state of a dog may just, one day, become agression at
  18. skycat
    Wash with something like Hibiscrub: as above, minor bacterial infection. Keep clean and dry until healed: I've never had a problem with this sort of thing getting worse, but keep an eye on it: the spots should dry up within a few days: only see vet if problem gets worse.
  19. skycat
    Food allergy? Dust mite allergy? There are so many things which can cause skin irritation, but if you've ruled out fleas/mites then look at the diet. Quite a lot of food allergies don't start until the dog has been fed a certain way for several years, but we just see that the dog has started scratching on day, and its usually because the effects of the intolerance to a certain type of food have built up over time and finally show themselves. I know this becaue it has happened to one of my dogs who can no longer tolerate wheat/soya etc which is found in a lot of complete foods.
  20. skycat
    Brilliant pics of the roe.
  21. skycat
    And that's another problem: I've done no end of training pup articles, how to introduce dogs to ferreting, lamping etc. I know that there are new people buying the mag now who weren't buying it a few years ago, but how long do you leave it before doing yet another training article? I can only imagine the slagging off I'd get if I kept repeating myself to that extent! There's only so many times you can tell people how to teach a pup to retrieve, sit, stay etc. It would be better if someone actually sat down and wrote a good instructional book on how to train and enter a lurcher: any take
  22. skycat
    Matty: I've only ever sent in photos of my own dogs with articles, terriers and lurchers (apart from if I'm talking about someone else's dog or breed of dog) The dogs I write about in the Memory Lane articles are also usually the right dogs for the article, even if the photo has been scanned into my computer from old photos. Not many of them I'll admit as I never had a camera in the old days and its almost impossible to take good pics if your'e actually handling a dog or ferret in the field, besides which it doesn't do a camera much good to be out in the pouring rain, muddy dykes or whatever.
  23. skycat
    I was being sarcastic about Penny taylor.I want to read about hard run match dogs, grafting terreirs, and storys from fellas who lamp heaps of rabbits a good few nights a week. not someone who " Dont like to hear that" when a terreir and a fox are mixing it below. as i was told by a fella who went out with her once. So you like to hear your dog getting smashed to bits do you? I don't need to come on like some big machiso hard dog man: after all I'm just a woman. LOL I don't have to big it up and be hard and act like I don't care about my dogs: but I have worked my dogs on all game for
  24. skycat
    I've recently been reccomended homeopathic Calc. Phos. for all pups under 12 months of age. Apparently it provides very useful support for growing bones: rubbish alternative stuff if you want to, but the person who reccomended it to me has a lot of experience in these things. Of course you still need an adequate diet.
  25. skycat
    A whistle can be made to sound like a seagull type noise, or something not identifiable with the human voice: essential for many lurcher owners if you don't want to advertise your presence! I found that even adult dogs previously unused to whistles learn very quickly what it means. I use two different blasts on the whistle : a series of shorts pips for the terriers, and short pip followed by a longer note for the lurchers: they all know the difference. And the Airedale has a different whistle call all for herself: one which carries a long way LOL And she comes much better to that than my be
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