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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    Give her some green willow branches to chew on: good for their teeth and gums, non toxic, easily replaceable. Kennel dogs are often bored out of their minds: do her regular walks involve a decent amount of galloping/free running, chasing things: not necessarily game, but balls etc? Satisfying their prey drive on a regular basis means the dog will be far more relaxed and calm at home. Lead walking is one of the most frustrating things for a dog, so they do need free running every day.
  2. skycat
    How nice to see positive comments from everyone. Quite agree, a dog's quality of life is far more important than how much it catches, and let's face it, if every lurcher in the country was worked to its potential, there'd be no game left at all! I can't honestly say that all mine are worked to their potential, but they enjoy their lives bushing about for bits and pieces, and the old ones still manage to show the young ones how to do it from time to time. They live like kings and eat the best, and we usually end up sitting on the floor when all the sofas are full of dogs Beautiful dogs BTW
  3. skycat
    A bulk head window would be OK if you placed a fan up against it to direct air into the back: I've seen a few done like that. Don't know quite how effective they are, but people with vans and lots of dogs seem to use them when going to shows etc in the summer.
  4. skycat
    Are you 100% in control of yourself at all times? Do you ever lose your temper with a dog? Do you understand why the dog isn't OK with sheep? If the answer is 'NO' to any of these questions then don't get a shock collar: they should only be used by someone who is in complete control of their emotions when training a dog, who can read the dog correctly, and who will not shock the dog out of temper when things go pear shaped. Also, you have to condition the dog to the collar: it's not just a matter of putting it on and zapping the dog when it chases a sheep. There is a training programme which
  5. skycat
    Quite the opposite: dog doesn't mark, you don't even net up. Good dog can anticipate a bolt, catch rabbits from holes you've missed etc etc. Why on earth would you be doing extra digging with a dog there? Oh, I know, if the dog is rushing around the holes, whining, pawing and convincing the rabbits that it's safer to stay below rather than bolt: but that sort of dog is no ferreting dog, and yes, it is worse than having no dog!
  6. skycat
    Must admit I like the classic freeze pose over a hole: or like this: Hate dogs that can't wait quietly, keeping an ear and eye out for anything moving or getting ready to bolt anywhere in their vicinity. Dogs that whine make my blood boil!
  7. skycat
    Both my dogs can take me to a kill if it is out of sight ...very handy in wooded areas ........ Did you train them specifically to do it, or do they do it naturally?
  8. skycat
    I reckon most dogs, if trained to do so, would take their owners back to a kill. How hard would it be to teach the dog 'show me' commands? Starting when a pup, and rewarding it when it gets to where you have previously stashed something. No different to teaching drug dogs to search and mark? Or sniffer dogs finding people buried in avalanches etc. The only difference would be teaching the dog to take you to where it had killed. I must admit, I've never tried to do that: maybe a task for the future.
  9. skycat
    Some hens are so obsessive about sitting that they won't get off to eat. I always used to take the hen off once a day to make sure she ate, crapped and drank, and made sure she was getting plenty of grit and a high protein diet. Oyster shell and grit very important: hens that have laid a lot of eggs can be deficient in calcium, and maybe that is one reason she ate the eggs.
  10. skycat
    I had a pup from a rescue at 6 weeks old, through a vet nurse that got me the pup out of the place. All I knew was that the dam was a greyhound (saw her with the pups), and the pup was a merle, so a fairly safe bet that there was Collie in there somewhere. She did turn out somewhat like a typical Collie lurcher, but heavily built, with a head like a bucket, built like a tank. Lovely temperament, keen as mustard, biddable. Not bad on rabbits, decent on fox but due to her bulk no good on hares, and if the ground was very soft she sank like a lead weight With any rescue pup you take more of a
  11. skycat
    One of my best was a little Beardie/Grey. She'd hunt for miles, but on a couple of occasions she came back and fetched me to show me where she'd found an occupied earth, in true 'Lassie' style. She'd come back to me, look very hard at me, then turn and trot away, looking back over her shoulder to make sure I was following. She once found a fox on a small cliff face deep in brambles and did that: luckily it was still there when we got there, and the terriers pushed it out. That dog was the most intelligent critter I've ever owned, bar one.
  12. skycat
    That has got to be one of the best made dogs I've seen. I'd have loved to have seen him run.
  13. skycat
    Er, it's a house dog. I guess that means it lives in the house: hardly the place for a hose pipe solution
  14. skycat
    Rather than punishing the dog for reacting to a noise that is obviously startling him, why not attack the problem at cause? People as well as animals can become over-sensitised to noises and things for reasons we either can't see or can't understand. The fact is that the dog is now sensitised to the train track noise, and he either feels it is his duty, as a pack member to warn of possible danger, or he's simply reacting to something that has upset his sleep. The fact that he only does it at night when there is not much outside noise means that you could try leaving a radio on quietly whi
  15. skycat
    Wow! That's fast: must have had them like shelling peas
  16. skycat
    That's very good value.
  17. skycat
    Metacam can be and is used long term in the palliative care of older dogs: in other words, it will eventually f*ck the liver, but in an old dog with limited life left, it's a good option.
  18. skycat
    Nothing to worry about: stings as has already been said. Just dab a bit of antiseptic on them if you want: TCP to dry them up.
  19. skycat
    I hadn't realised that photobucket had changed so much: it wouldn't allow me to use the copied url on this site: what has happened. I just went on there so I could explain how to do photos, but it has all changed! Used to be dead easy.
  20. skycat
    I once watched one of my coursing dogs clear an almost 6 foot high wooden post and rails out of a boggy ploughed field after a hare: she was at full gallop, jumping out of mud: she could have gone under or through the fence but she would have had to slow down a lot. As it was, she came down to ground not far behind the hare, turned it a few times in a grass field before the hare went back under the fence, and she jumped it again and went on to catch the hare on the plough. At the time it didn't seem anything special to me as she was always jumping five bar gates, but never had to jump at a gal
  21. skycat
    Someone on here bred such a litter a few years ago: or maybe it was someone who knew someone on here: can't remember: always liked the idea though.
  22. skycat
    The only point of going back to Border would be to get a (maybe) finer built Border, which, if you wanted another terrier type for bushing would be fine, just as I've done by putting Cricket over my terrier Midge. Cricket's breeder was, as far as I know, breeding a bushing dog, which is what he achieved very well.
  23. skycat
    Did he walk it for miles on lead or off? Either way, if the dog isn't fit then that's not good. If the dog was running around loose after having no exercise for ages it could damage tendons, ligaments and muscles, as well as having sore pads.
  24. skycat
    Love that: getting higher for air scent?
  25. skycat
    Does it matter witch way you cross? I thought you put speed on top. Also I don't have whippet bitch but I do have a lot of border bitches.Just thought it would be easier for a whippet bitch to have the pups size wise. That's a good point, but Cricket was sired by a Whippet out of a Border bitch: I know Borders come in varying sizes, so obviously using a Whippet over a tiny Border bitch wouldn't be a good idea. Though I did read somewhere that the pups will only grow to a size inside the bitch that she can accommodate. Midge needed a Caesar because of the breech presentation, and would no do
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