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Neal

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Everything posted by Neal

  1. Good luck and I hope you get it sorted.
  2. Hi planete, Not sure if this is any help at all, and could be completely different, but I had a strange 'bleeding' incident with a previous kelpie, Amber. This is going back about fifteen years so I may have some details wrong. She was on, what turned out to be, the final day of her season when blood began dripping from her nose and mouth. She was taken straight to the vet but it was one of those vets who like treating the symptoms rather than getting to the root of the problem. As a result she had various treatments (including being spayed). I must admit that the bleeding did stop
  3. As I've just written a whole post without typing the word 'kelpie'? I'll add that I regularly meet people who claim they also have kelpies but which obviously have a large splash of collie etc in them too. A related question: I've twice seen adverts recently for Australian kelpie x heeler pups but the pups are merle rather than speckled. Does anyone know if that's possible? The only thing I can think of is that they mean British heeler (i.e. a merle border collie which works cattle) as opposed to Australian heeler.?
  4. In almost every case like this I'm told by the owner that the particular gene was always present but not bred from when the pedigree was first written up.? The first time I encountered it was with a merle "deerhound" at a country show in Kent back in the late 90s. The owner said he was told this by someone, though I can't remember if he said it was the breeder or not...the person who told him was Brian Plummer...who used the same "fact" after introducing the merle gene into his beardies.
  5. These are the kind of things I'm getting too. I'm certainly not saying it's rubbish: I think it's an amazing app and (as others have said) I'd probably pay for it if it wasn't free, but I think it could be a case of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" for those with little previous knowledge of birds. Eddie; re your mallard...mine picked up a woodcock in my local wood early one morning. Now I'm not saying there are no woodcock in this wood (it's the kind of habitat you'd expect to find them) but I've got dogs which regularly raise both woodcock locally and snipe (or jack snipe?) on
  6. I met two "pure" bulldogs recently. One was merle and the other was rough coated.?
  7. I'm still taking mine with a pinch of salt. As I said before, it's great for letting me know what MIGHT be there so that I can check it but I certainly wouldn't trust it as a way of recording a definitive list of species in a particular area. Two examples: Last Sunday it repeatedly picked up a redstart. I must admit I didn't have my binoculars with me, but I couldn't see one anywhere. At the time it was also picking up several other species. As I was doing a circular route, and it was the entry point to that particular piece of woodland, I decided to switch the app back on as I
  8. Neal

    Cuckoos

    I was going to type something about cuckoos...but it looks like I've come to the wrong place.?
  9. I tried to get my wife interested in it too but she simply didn't believe that I can differentiate between different species by sound alone. She said, "Don't they all go 'tweet'?"?
  10. Yeah, I've found that a few times too i.e. I can hear something but it must be too distant for the app to pick it up. It's made me realise how much I talk to myself when I'm out walking as when I play some of them back I can hear myself. On one I was saying, "Chiffchaff, come on, can't you hear that, it's a chiffchaff...are there it is." But the funniest was when I could hear a tit but wasn't sure which species and I was saying, "pick up the tits" over and over again.?
  11. Definitely unlikely, bordering on the impossible.? I'm slightly dubious about the bullfinch too as I discovered yesterday that my low "pay attention dogs" whistle sometimes triggers the bullfinch response on the app too. Ironically, when I realised and tried to reproduce the same note it then kept telling me it was a golden oriole. I must be a bit Percy Edwards.? However, despite these few examples, I'd say it's definitely more positive than negative. I'm fairly good at recognizing the commoner bird calls but I've learnt a few more since using it and it's also opened my eyes to how c
  12. What I'm finding is helping me to identify them is to use the app to record and identify then, when it comes up with one I don't know the call of, I stop the recording, scroll down from that species and listen to their recorded call. I then listen out again for that specific call. I've also found it's good for when you can see an lbj but it's not staying still enough for an identification. One example from this morning was either a coal, marsh or willow tit which was in too thick cover so I simply opened the app and waited for it to call. My two best from my second morning walk were
  13. I've downloaded it and my first impressions were positive. All the birds it was recording in my garden were the ones I'd visibly seen during the morning. It also picked out several species I've seen in my local wood but don't get to physically see very often and I've been unable to recognise their calls e.g. fire and goldcrest, coal tit, blackcap, marsh tit etc. However, there have been several occasions when I'm fairly certain it's misidentified species. The first time (yesterday morning) was when it detected the carrion crows I could hear but claimed that at least one of them was a hood
  14. I don't believe it! First day after her season had finished, I took her out to the local wood and she caught another. That's five in six weeks...and four of those weeks she was either on the lead following the injury or in the garden because of her season. I'm beginning to think I may have something a bit special here.
  15. They look very similar to the one I saw in my local forest.
  16. My little kelpie bitch is coming on well with the squirrels. She had four in a fortnight, but then had lead walk only for a while after a barbed wire tear. Unfortunately, a few days before she'd have been able to be off lead again, she came in season so she's currently stuck on her tod in the garden room watching the pigeons.
  17. Neal

    Robins .

    I was reading a book on robins earlier this year and it said that the sexes are identical. So much so that even experts have often thought they were observing either a male or female until a particular interaction with another robin (e.g. mating or territory defence) proved them wrong.
  18. It'll be over before you know it.?
  19. I've seen two Ibizan hounds in my local forest. One is very aloof. The other (I think it was an Ibizan but my memory could be at fault) was being walked by the owner's wife. She said she tried to talk him out of getting it after hearing about their poor recall. Needless to say, it ran wild and never comes back so she walks it instead.? Also, more recently, met a lovely friendly sighthound which looked like a sloughi from a distance until I noticed the fully erect ears. It had a whale of a time playing with my kelpie bitch and was pretty agile and well behaved. He said it was a rescue dog
  20. Why are they so bad? Genuine question, simply because I've only recently started using their products but, as I mentioned, not directly from them and only the 500g blocks. Thanks in advance.
  21. Don't worry Terry, I'm sure it'll click for her soon. Maudy was the same for ages. She caught one last year but, as it was the first thing she'd caught, she wasn't expecting it to wriggle and fight back so she dropped it. She then realised what she'd done and ploughed back into the hedgerow but it was too late. I think that initial catch and loss possibly affected her more than an easy catch as she's been obsessed with them ever since. She's since learnt to shake them like mad and then crunch while they're nonplussed. One very odd thing though: she's a compulsive retriever (plastic b
  22. I've always got mine from the local Jollyes pet store as I didn't have enough freezer space for a bulk buy. Previously used Natures Menu but my local store has now started stocking a lot more BARF foods and I've swapped over to Durham. I don't know how it compares price-wise to others, but it's cheaper than the stuff I was using and my two seem to be doing well on it. Only stocks the 500g blocks though, so I may go direct to them instead to get the other stuff too.
  23. Everything was going so well. After catching her first squirrel during the Easter break she's followed it up with three more during the following fortnight. However, less than two hours after her most recent catch she decided to pop into a field that she's never bothered to go in before (there's nothing of interest in it, whereas the wood on the other side has pheasant and squirrel so she's always more interested in that side). Anyway, the field is surrounded by three barbed wire fences at this point. The first has collapsed and is mere inches from the ground, the second she cleared
  24. Another thumbs up for the Scout from me too. I've also got their slightly smaller version (simply because it fits in a pocket better) but I usually prefer to use the original one.
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