Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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When I was teaching I got chatting to one of the nurses who came in to do the Sex Ed talks with my year six class. She told me that, when she worked with secondary school children, they did a lot of work on explaining to them that porn isn't real. This was because they were finding a huge number of girls attending hospital with various infections etc as their young boyfriends assumed that all sex had anal sex as a precursor. And a funny incident from the same year group during one of the sex ed talks: when they did the lesson on how to put on a condom, they produced a "phallic" implement
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Aigle wellies if the woods or farms are flooded or very marshy/boggy. Lundhags if the ground's more than a bit damp but not flooded. Altra Lone Peaks for everything else. Merino socks are a must though so that, if my feet get wet from puddles, river crossings etc, my tootsies will stay warm.?
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No, just half bred. Sorry, must not have explained myself properly. ? As I said, my rational brain says that a dog which is half one thing and half something else will be the build of 1/2 one parent and 1/2 the other, carrying the weight of 1/2 one parent and 1/2 the other. Sorry...that still doesn't quite sum up what I mean. Maybe somebody with a nerd brain like mine will get my drift.? You'd think, with me being a retired teacher, that I'd be a tad better at explaining myself.?
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This is a genuine question as I have no experience of breeding whatsoever. I've always wondered why it is that people say that a whippet won't take the extra weight of a first cross which is one reason for favouring greyhound blood instead. My "rational" brain says that surely a half whippet half base blood is taking the weight of a dog which is half whippet half base blood rather than a whippet taking the weight of a dog which is all base blood. Does that make sense? As I said, genuine question.
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I was the first person to leave my junior school without even a width certificate...my brother was the second the following year. I learnt by having lessons when I was twenty five but, as swimming pools are so expensive to visit I've hardly done any more in the intervening twenty eight years. I've always blamed the fact that my stepdad made my watch Jaws at a young age...I was even a bit scared to sit on a toilet for weeks in case my arse was bitten by a great white and I still feel nervous around water.
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Anyway...as much as I love waffling on about kelpies...let's get back to the heelers which were the original theme of this thread.?
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Krypto sired at least two litters at Dingle kelpie stud. One in 2007 out of a bitch called Ziggy (who was the sister of my first kelpie bitch's sire) and one in 2008 out of Patsy (full sister of Amber). It's a small world.
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Sounds like me! Was the grandsire Karana Krypto? He was imported to the UK from Australia and used at stud a lot. I'm fairly certain he was the sire of Dave Coopers male. He was then bought by someone in Ireland. He was the grandsire of my third kelpie Scout. The Karana bloodlines are very worky (from my limited experience).
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Apologies for taking so long to reply but I've had a busy weekend so I've only just seen your question. I have a feeling I did ask Jigsaw about the sire at the time but can't remember now. If Jigsaw can remind me of the sire's name I'll see what I can find out. P.S. I'm not in the least offended...I'm proud to be a boffin/nerd/geek.?
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A few years ago I had a surreptitious meeting with a retired Australian sheep shearer (Akubra hat and everything)...at a bus stop in Waterlooville! He commented on what a useful looking dog Noggin was and his opening comment was, "He looks like he's got a fair bit of Elfinvale in him mate." After we'd chatted about kelpies in general for several minutes, he looked at Scout and added, "She looks like a bit of a mongrel though." That told me.? The funny thing is, although she was a pure kelpie I never really thought of her as one; I mentally thought of her as a little terrier x whippet as that's
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Sorry SheepChaser...I was half way through doing something else while typing that and forgot what I'd intended to say and went off at a tangent...my wife says that talking to me is like one of those monologue gags by Ronnie Corbett in his armchair.? I meant in terms of the work that I do with mine. If I was breeding them for stockwork then, as you point out, I'd favour the larger type. Although I prefer my males to be on the big size, I quite like my bitches small as it helps with the environment they work in which is mainly small dense woodlands full of brambles etc. Maud has currently s
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I've noticed a huge variety in the UK, similar to that found in Australia. I do know they sometimes find it hard to keep the size up though. My first two were a tad shy of 20" and the third was more like a Manchester terrier. However, Noggin and Ned are larger and take after the dogs they're line bred to. I think Noggin's grandsire was around 52 lbs. But it's what's inside that counts. I'd say my best two dogs workwise were the smallest and the largest which just goes to show that size isn't everything...according to my wife.
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Thanks Old Phil...this is, without a doubt, my all time favourite dog photograph.?
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Purdey was definitely sired by a half kelpie half collie. I think it's a bit like how people referred to dogs from Richard Jones breeding back in the 80s etc as "beardie crosses" as that was the trendy part of the breeding so they conveniently neglected to mentioned the Border collie blood. In addition, a lot of those dogs (including my lurcher) were merle...and you don't get merle kelpies.?
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You're pretty much spot on. Basically (in my opinion based on a lot of research) the original "kelpies" were a strain of collie (not Border collie). Actually I suppose it would be true to say they were border collies rather than Border collies as they came from the same kind of area (Jedburgh?) as the collies which went on to become the strain known as Borders. I know some came from further north too (Sutherland I think). In the same way that lots of new breeds develop they were simply a small number of similar dogs mated together with the occasional addition of something else. In the case of
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Dave Sleights first three litters of "kelpie" crosses all had equal amounts of collie and kelpie. The first was from his collie/kelpie bitch (I think called Ruby) mated to a whippet which produced Gem etc. Then he mated (I think) Ruby's brother to his whippet/greyhound which produced Purdey. The third litter (from which I bought my last lurcher Moss) was sired by the same dog to his racing greyhound bitch Tell Nobody. The collie used was (from what I've heard from several different sources) of a particularly good type from Barry Sharpe in Somerset (I think). Obviously I'm, going back several y
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That's similar to what my brother has always said about his whippets. He said they're almost more like cats than dogs in some respects.
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Some interesting looking dogs. The small red and tan with the yellow collar looks a similar stamp to my pup. Difficult to tell yet as she's less than six months, but seems to be looking to end up like my last bitch i.e. small and gracile, more like they're 1/4 whippet. None of the ones in this photo look anything like Noggin though. When he was a pup everybody thought he was a Rottweiler, even one Rottweiler owner asked what lines he was from as he was "the best looking Rotty" he'd seen.?
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From my experience of kelpies and my limited experience of collies and ACDs, I'd say that one difference is that the average collie will do as it's told (which is why people think they're intelligent) whereas the average ACD or kelpie does what it thinks is right. This may or may not correspond with what you think is right.
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If I did that with Maud I think she'd probably need it to be an Italian greyhound.?
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You want to keep well clear of those nutters. My five month old pup is coming along well...apart from that scourge of some herding dogs...an interest in moving cars. Apart from that I'm extremely pleased with her progress. She was the smallest in the litter but had caught up by the time I picked her up at eight weeks but she's currently stalled at 17" for the last three weeks so I'm hoping she'll stay small as this height works better for the small woods and hedgerows where I work them. Not quite as good when they're on Dartmoor though.
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There's often more pleasure to be gained by watching a good dog working hard for one daytime catch than several that you can't see on the lamp. Just my humble opinion. Keep it up Bodger and Nell.
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I'm the same. I know it's not necessarily the done thing on here, but I've always taught mine to leave them alone. Don't get me wrong, I love eating venison, but I simply don't feel confident in tackling one and "sorting it out" afterwards. One of my kelpies will point them if he senses them (and has done since a few months old after less than half a dozen, "NO!" incidents) whereas the other has taken over three years of bollockings and rugby tackles before his brain said, "Oh, no deer then." The pup's only managed to meet two so far and a quick, "Agghhh!" seemed to do the trick...early days y
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I've always frozen any rabbit or squirrel which has subsequently been fed to the dogs. I've usually done this for about three or four weeks as I've been told that this will kill off any worms etc. However, while walking back from a hospital appointment early this morning, I found a roadkill woodcock. I brought it home, cut off the head for the pup's breakfast, cut off the wings for future chews and cut the rest in half. I then bagged it up and put it in the freezer. My questions are a) is this necessary with woodcock and b) how long before I can defrost it for the dogs?
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Thanks Skycat, great advice. I must admit, I did consider your very first point as a possiblity as she was originally the smallest in the litter but, thanks to also being the feistiest in the litter, she'd pretty much caught up with the others when I picked her up at eight weeks. With regards to the psychological aspect, I also feed her beef trachea and chicken wings (the latter take her about five minutes to eat but the former keep her occupied for nearly two hours!) and this morning I've bought a bag of tripe chunks which will hopefully be better for her in that respect than the blocks
