Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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It was. My wife had been telling me for about a year that we should consider it, but I kept arrogantly plugging away at it assuming he'd calm down and mellow like all my others. Then, sometime after Christmas, I noticed that he was seeming "not his usual happy self" and decided he might be better off with someone else. Ironically, his new owner, who has previous experience of kelpies from regularly looking after a friend's bitch, thinks Ned is very calm and easy going. Maybe there was just too much going on in my home for him to settle, or maybe I'm too chilled out to accept a "bouncy" dog. Ei
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I'm afraid he's no longer with me. I re-homed him to a gentleman in the middle of the Goodwood Estate. As I said, he was a lovely, happy dog, but he simply drove me up the wall. Never seemed to switch off as much as my other kelpies. It was almost as though, after years of me saying to people, "No, you're wrong; kelpies aren't all like that," I was finally saying, "Oh, so this is what other people's kelpies are like." He was more of a spaniel than a labrador if that makes sense. I miss him, as he had so much character (similar to Rusty in a lot of ways) but my life and the household is a
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Thanks Arry. That ought to do it.
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I think one of the problems is one of perception. Us Brits love the underdog: Robin of Sherwood, Braveheart, Dick Turpin, Jimmy White?. We simply love to stick up for the individual or group that we see as being repressed in some way. This is especially so if it means we can blow a raspberry at officialdom. The problem is, we chop and change who the underdog is. Depending on where they are on the food chain. As an example, if the average Brit is watching a natural history programme they'll cheer on the fox as it evades a mounted pack but in next week's episode they'll cheer on the rabbit
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Quick cookery question. My son made fish and chips at school on Friday and it was delicious. Unfortunately, it was stone cold as he'd had to go to the local hospital in between cooking it and bringing it home as he'd broken his wrist at lunch time. Despite the broken wrist, he wanted to make it for the whole family today. However, while I was out with the dogs this morning, my wife made pancakes for the kids for breakfast but didn't use the whole mix. My question is, can we use this and simply add some beer to it for the batter for the haddock? I've had a brief look on the internet
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Thanks Caravan Monster. All sorted now. As I expected, she gradually grew out of it. I was just a tad worried as she was keeping it up longer than I'd expected.?
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Like a lot of people on this thread, my introduction to lurchers came from reading his books in combination with Walsh and the old Lurcher: the journal of running dogs. Everybody I spoke to criticised him but it wasn't until I regularly bought the Shooting News/Countryman's Weekly and read the obvious lies in there that I realized that people were right. Two of my "favourites" were when he announced he was going to breed a strain of merle beardie collie, then announced about a year later that he'd discovered a strain of merle beardie collie in some remote backwater. Another was when
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I've heard of that strain...weren't they called Plumber lurchers??.............I'll get my coat. Like most of the other posts, I've occasionally used a previous lurcher to retrieve when a friend was shooting with an air rifle. He used to get excited every firework night as he kept expecting to be sent out for a retrieve. Daft sod.
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I regularly used to see a single black rabbit in one particular location on Browndown when I lived in Gosport. When I mentioned it to somebody, they said they'd seen one in the same area for years. I went back once many years later and saw another. Maybe it was a ghost!
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Thanks OldPhil, they've arrived. That's a brilliant early birthday present. I owe you.
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Thanks OldPhil, that'd be brilliant!?
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But we had a female vicar!? Honestly.? The only other time I can think of when you might have taken it (based on how old he looks in the photo) is when I met you at the New Forest Show. Do I get a prize if I get it right?
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It was a genuine observation. My wife is adamant that, not only is that a photo of my first kelpie, but that the photo was taken at our wedding. But neither of us remember the photo being taken. When I looked back at it again, I even realised that's his lead. I recognize it as it was a thin ferret lead as I don't like thick leads. I'm genuinely curious. When did you take it OldPhil?
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Crikey! Who's the red and tan in the photo? I was quickly scrolling down through the topic and had to stop for a moment as I'm sure it's Rusty. I can't imagine two dogs being that good looking!?
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OldPhil, I keep forgetting to mention this to you: do you watch South Today? At the beginning of the programme, when they're playing the introductory music, they show several clips of "life in the south." One of the clips shows a bloke on horseback (looks like it's in the New Forest but could be any of our numerous pieces of heathland) with an Australian cattle dog walking along behind him.?
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Completely agree! As I've said before, when I bought my first kelpie, I simply bought one from the first advert I found in the Farmers Guardian. I was just lucky that he happened to be half Elfinvale and half Boanong and was the best dog I've ever met, let alone owned. He was knocked over by a van at about a year old and had a deformed pelvis as a result. He walked like Old Man Steptoe and had the turning circle of an old Land Rover, but he knew where to place himself and often caught the rabbit that faster dogs where chasing...and even if he didn't, he invariably made the retrieve of the
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Phew! I'm glad I've been lucky to avoid those ones when I've bought my six.
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Is it possible to cut and paste the last few pages and put it on one of the kelpie/cattle dog threads?? My son and I had a "meet and greet" session at Exmoor Zoo last summer with the singing dogs. We had a great chat with the keeper who really knew her stuff and was even quoting recent dingo research that I'd been reading up on just before the holiday re how dingoes and singing dogs are related and how they were "introduced" into Australia much earlier than was previously thought. Fascinating stuff! But, as others have said, I wouldn't want to try rounding up sheep with a dingo!
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I read a couple of years ago that one of the drawbacks of genetic testing is that some tests only pick up elements which are passed on through the female line while others do the opposite. I actually read that in relation to that study which claimed there was no dingo in kelpies. I think the other study put the percentage at about 4% on average after taking samples from some of the top studs in Australia. Hang on...weren't we writing about sheep worrying.?
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Is that one of Plummer's white German Shepherd's? Only joking!?
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I've only met a few pure malinois and all were the kind of dog that their owners didn't like letting off the lead...just in case they couldn't control them. -
His opinion was yes. For a start, even if there was no dingo blood in the early days and the early kelpies were basically a blend of collies from a couple of particular areas of Scotland, other people have added it since. He also feels that there may even be a slight possibility that the original bitch was half dingo. As MagyarAgar says though, it goes into a lot more detail in the book, travelling to Scotland to visit farms which exported original collie stock and talking to descendents of the early kelpie breeders.
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I know this is a sheep based thread but I'll just add...that's a great book. I bought it a few years ago when it first came out as it was the follow up to a dvd the author had made. There's been a similar type book more recently called (I think) "The Dogs That Made Australia" or something like that. That's a good book too but of the two I'd favour yours for historical accuracy. Bill Robertson seems to have done a lot more real detective work which makes his facts unassailable and his theories believable. Conversely, the other book has some accuracy but some theories seem to be based on that pl
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I find it pays to be open minded with the bait. Like you I find peanut butter works in the vast majority of cases but I've had a few of "the little buggers" who turned it down but came in for chocolate spread and one which refused both but was eventually caught with a crushed up fat ball as that's what it was pinching from the bird feeder.
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I think quite a few different herbivores (including rabbits) eat their own poo in order to get "another bite of the cherry" so maybe there's some truth in what you've heard. My bitch pup will occasionally eat dog poo but she seems quite selective about which ones. She'd eat anything when I first got her but now only has a rare momentarily lapse. I was speaking to her breeder about it last week and she said she thinks it might be because pups see their dams clearing it up to keep the nest clean (if we don't get in there to clean it up first of course).
