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skycat

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Everything posted by skycat

  1. skycat
    So I guess Trevor is a real sensitive sort of dog: bless him. Maybe mine aren't bothered about any sort of water: lakes, rivers, hose pipes, cups in their faces cos they're always around water. If they want to find game where I am then they have to be prepared to get wet!
  2. skycat
    It's the problem when you need to prove that the game is vermin, then your hunt appear like a useful activity. You hunt because the animals are unwanted, with hate. The game is often insulted. But when badger is a legal game, you can hunt it without hate, for the fun and with respect. You don't insulte the game. I hope it will be possible here for a long time. And how true! the very word 'hunt' often seems these days to be associated with feelings such as loathing, hatred and scorn. Blaise: for someone who says that their English is not very good, you have explained in only a very
  3. skycat
    If you compare a pup to kids as they were before most became couch potatoes with techno gadgets: we were out most of the day in the holidays, walking, running, building dams in streams, climbing etc etc. Kids lucky enough to live in places where roads etc weren't a danger would be out non stop: come home to eat and sleep. At 10 years old I had to walk 3 miles to school and back every day ... unless it was tipping down. Today things have got so complicated with dogs: like you say satan, so much conflicting advice on here. My mutts have a huge garden to play in: the young ones are usually me
  4. skycat
    mushroom: unless the dog genuinely had a phobia about water, I'd hardly call this making it fearful. There is a big difference between a bit of non painful negative reinforcement and really frightening a dog. I'd sooner try the water treatment than bung a shock collar on the dog and really cause it pain, or storm up to it screaming and kicking it. It is the surprise of getting the water in its face, combined with the 'be quiet' command which lets the dog know that you don't like it making a noise. All mine have had the 'water treatment' at some stage in their lives, and they certainly don't ac
  5. skycat
    Horrible thing to happen. So sorry for your loss.
  6. skycat
    I'll swap you a Running Dog Maintenance for a good book that I haven't already got What books do you have on offer?
  7. skycat
    Plus you need time and more time, and the desire and energy to give your attention completely to two pups. One may respond better to a different approach. One may be pushy, dominating the other one all the time. Two pups of this age should be fed together, or at least in sight of each other: I train mine to respect the other dog's food bowl: they all eat together as adults, and no one steals anyone else's food, but as pups, all they want to do is get their heads stuck in a bowl ...any bowl. Do you know enough to assess whether each pup is getting the right amount of food? Plus, it is huma
  8. skycat
    2 pups reared together do better ..fact I agree. Pups together have always got someone to play with and learn to gallop. Greyhound rearers rear whole litters together.The competition toughens them up. ... and some get badly damaged and can never do any good. There's always two sides to every argument.
  9. skycat
    Whaddya mean sun? Cold, cloudy, east wind here Blinding hot and sunny all week, now that I have some time to relax it's like winter again: almost
  10. skycat
    I've seen a programme on TV on how they do this: fascinating.
  11. skycat
    Can't you move them? Or don't bumbles like being moved? I never did get to try that. I can't understand anyone wanting rid of bumble bees. When I was doing pest control I spent ages, like you, trying to convince people to leave them alone.
  12. skycat
    Wow! What a beautiful place: and a great photo too.
  13. skycat
    Hardly seen any bumble bees around this year. Normally we have loads of nests in our garden, various types of bumble bees, solitary bees, masonry bees: all sorts. This year, haven't seen one yet. Bodes ill for their long term survival. Reckon its partly to do with last summer's endless rain so their nest holes got flooded out, then the long cold winter and long cold spring so not enough grub about for them if they had managed to survive hibernation. Sad times for our bees. How about everyone else: got any bumbles round your way?
  14. skycat
    Thanks guys: BH and Malt: I thought the same as you: but obviously not everyone is agreed on this. Normally I write this sort of thing as a Memory Lane tale: shame I had to alter it to put a gun in it, when it was the dog that did ALL the work.
  15. skycat
    Poor little thing looks starved and wormy as feck.
  16. skycat
    Now here's a question for knowledgeable gun dog owners and those who use a dog to flush a wounded fox. Let's say that a fox has been shot, but not killed, and disappears into thick cover. Is it legal to use a dog to find and stop the wounded fox? Or does it have to be under such close control that it only finds the fox, doesn't touch it, but remains with it until a human with a gun can get there and shoot it dead? In which case: how do gun dogs get away with finding and retrieving shot and wounded hares? Surely they are breaking the law if they aren't supposed to touch them? I'm asking thi
  17. skycat
    I used to keep a trio, and one hen never sat or laid: but she was fine in a big aviary with the other hen and her chicks. Don't know if that is the norm or not. Good luck with them: lovely birds, I'd love some more: will you be selling any of the young? Maybe shouldn't ask just yet, nowt like counting chickens before they hatch, or in this case, pheasants!
  18. skycat
    Nice little show. Remember seeing my first pure Picardy there, and one year, when I still showed my dogs I won the supreme trophy: that beautiful statue of two running dogs: can't remember what it's called now ...wait a minute ... getting there... it's the Sue Sowerby trophy if I'm not mistaken. May go along to bump into a few old faces if the weather's nice.
  19. skycat
    I felt the same about my bitch after she'd had meningitis. She was never 100% afterwards: had an odd roll to her gait, couldn't turn tight, and her spine was as stiff as a lump of wood, but I went on to lamp her and she had a great strike, and she had a few runs on hares: she was never in pain and enjoyed her long life hugely. I let her do what she wanted to when we were out mooching, and she caught a fair few rabbits during her life. I figured if I never let her do anything then what was the point of spending a fortune on her at the vet's only to spend her life on the lead.
  20. skycat
    Bloody superb photos My favourites are the very first one of the leaves (beautiful contrasts of light and shade) and the first buttercup one: how did you get that abstract looking background in that photo? Not to mention the deer! How close were you to it?
  21. skycat
    Meant to say that in that video his 'yes' command to the dog to allow it to grab the ball is so quiet it is only a hiss. He also uses the French words 'debout' for 'stand' and 'couche' for down.
  22. skycat
    Bosun: imagine holding a coiled spring. It is full of energy waiting to be released. When the coil is released the spring flies off, moves or whatever. Now, if I understand correctly, (and this is just a leap at something too tenuous to be fully understood by an undisciplined and unscientific mind like mine), you can let that spring fly out of your hand with no aim, no purpose and it could do some damage. If you harness the spring to something: like holding a battery in a torch for example, then that energy is grounded ..... oh dear, I think I'm mixing my bad science with even worse metaphors
  23. skycat
    I have never established any of those forms of dominance or pack leadership you post about , the only rule I live by is that when the dog is highly energised I have the ability to channel him towards me , I have never found a way of doing this through dominance or threats , in most cases dominance works only when you are actually present which makes you a threat to the dog and not a sign of respect , When energised the dogs energy needs somewhere to go, we can shout him down slam slap fire something at him whatever it is but all we're doing is making him come down through the gears without us
  24. skycat
    One of my other half's lurchers killed one of my chickens and I battered her with the dead chicken. She never looked at another one ... problem was she never took any feather again either! This is the truth, so I know that battering the dog with the dead thing works, whether tying it to the dog's collar works I don't know. Though my dad beat his Lab with the dead shot rabbit after it tried to eat it: the dog never ate another one, but still retrieved them happily: that's Labs for you
  25. skycat
    Made me go all goose bumpy: feckin awesome. What courage! Not a death wish, just super brave: pushing the boundaries.
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