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Neal

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Everything posted by Neal

  1. Neal
    I've never thought about it like that but I suppose it is a bit like having a wellie up to just below the ankle and then leather above. They are very supportive so it's actually more like having a very wide rand or bumper on top of a normal sole.
  2. Neal
    Couldn't agree more. My family and I had hoped to move to Dartmoor (or at least close enough to walk to it as I can't drive). We'd looked at several houses, taken the kids to see the primary and secondary schools in Okey and where hoping to have moved by now. Unfortunately "family matters" intervened and we're unable to move for the foreseeable future. I'm jealous.
  3. Neal
    Sorry W.Katchum but the shop closed down a few years ago. Sad news. I loved going in there whenever we went up to visit my wife's family in Appleby. If you're a size 8 and you don't like them...feel free to throw them at me.? They feel very rigid at first and take a little while to soften up but they're a lot lighter than you'd expect for their appearance. The main thing to remember is that, apart from the curtech rubber base, they're not actually waterproof. That's added using the grease; which smells amazing. I think I put it on mine about three or four times before they
  4. Neal
    I don't think there are any shops in the UK which still stock them. I had to get my most recent pair online. I've still got the previous ones, which I bought from Penrith in 2012, but the soles have gone. I did consider sending them to Sweden for a full refit as they are SO comfortable but decided in the end to just buy a new pair and wait until I can find a quality cobbler who doesn't mind trying to resole the old ones. My original pair were Scouts and the new ones are Forests...but they're basically just the revamped version of the Scout. That's the basic one layer version of their boo
  5. Neal
    Definitely not a lack of them where I live. Which is fortunate because, if it wasn't for them and the pigeons, there'd be nothing for the kelpies to catch what with the lack of rabbits.
  6. Neal
    My brother regularly gets them in his garden in Kent and I've seen them on day trips to London, but I think I've only seen them once in Hampshire. That was on the edge of Gypsy Plain near Rowland's Castle.
  7. Neal
    I think I've probably seen more rabbits in that one video than I've seen down here in a decade.
  8. Neal
    I think that's my problem. It rarely gets cold enough for me to need that much warmth, even in winter, in the south east. I wear a summer jacket most of the year. I heard a report during the week that claimed that there'd be no more snow in winter in the south east within twenty years because of climate change.
  9. Neal
    My last lurcher used to do that too but only when he was lamping. There's a famous photo of a kelpie called Shanahan's Loo literally standing up like a kangaroo.
  10. Neal
    I'm interested in the replies you get to this too. I've been considering getting a buffalo for several years but always end up changing my mind because a) I'm not certain if I'm entirely happy with the wet but warm philosophy (though I do use wool socks and trail running shoes for the majority of the year) and b) I'm a tad hirsute so I'm worried they'd be too warm.
  11. Neal
    I think the problem/benefit of collie crosses (including beardies and kelpies etc too) is... Gnipper and Gilbey are spot on. However, the thing is that the temperament in all pastoral breeds is what makes them what they are. Some people hate it so don't like collie crosses. Some people see the benefits but find them hard to live with so ameliorate it with something else. And then there are those who love it and have half crosses or 3/4 collie 1/4 greyhounds. My favourite story about my first lurcher (she was a first cross sired by Hancock's first beardie Remus) was when we
  12. Neal
    One of the best working dogs (and nicest, calmest dogs) I ever met was from the same breeding. In his case it was Taffy x Sally so son to dam. His owner said he'd "knock over rabbits left right and centre while waiting for other stuff." Coincidentally, at the same time, I had one bred the complate opposite i.e. Richard x Linnet so his was 3/4 Sally 1/4 Richard and mine was 1/4 Sally 3/4 Richard...mine wasn't as fast but he was more obedient and completely indestructible.?
  13. Neal
    Completely agree with the sentiments of both Terry D and Old Phil. When I had lurchers I always reread John Holmes' "The Farmers Dog" before I started any training with them. No wonder I ended up swapping to sheepdogs I suppose.? There was also the fact that all the lurcher books at the time were of a certain type and left me feeling like I'd done a bad job if my pup couldn't retrieve a rabbit which I'd secretly hidden two weeks previously from a distance of 3.5 miles...a slight exaggeration but I'm sure you get what I mean. As Old Phil says, letting them be dogs and enjoying their compa
  14. Neal
    I remember, many years ago, when I lived in Cumbria and was walking from Coniston to Torver to do some sketching. I had all my art materials in an old gas mask bag and my 3/4 collie 1/4 greyhound on the lead. I walked past a bloke pulled up in a car talking to a couple of primary school aged girls and noticed a police car going up and down the road a couple of times and assumed they'd clocked the bloke too. Lo and behold they were going up and down because of me having a lurcher...not the weird bloke chatting up school girls. When they pulled me over and asked what I had in my bag (no doubt ex
  15. Neal

    22 yr old.

    Neal replied to king's topic in General Talk

    Completely agree. I have a degree in Fine Art from Falmouth Art College (way back in the late 80s early 90s) so I'm fully in favour of a bit of art in everyone's lives...but...no matter how good a painting is it can't bring out the range of emotions music can. There are so many songs that remind me of my wonderful mum that just thinking of the opening bars of "Wind Beneath My Wings" or "Run" by Snow Patrol and I'm blubbing. I doubt if a portrait by Auerbach, Giacometti, Modigliani or Soutine could do that. One of my favourite art-isn't-all-that quotes was from Alberto Giacometti: "If a ho
  16. Neal

    22 yr old.

    Neal replied to king's topic in General Talk

    I thought she was younger than that. There was a bbc4 programme about her a few years back and it said how she was introduced to Dave Gilmour by her brother (or someone else) as she was writing stuff while she was still at school. Could be wrong...I often tend to stick two facts together and come up with one instead.?
  17. Neal
    I remember one called padsanol...for toughening up feet...is that the one you mean?
  18. Neal
    But the benefit of the fabric is that it doesn't keep you waterproof in the traditional way i.e. by having a waterproof lining, so even if it does get damaged it still works, whereas other garments would then let water through the same hole. Having said that, you do need to wash them regularly and the washing stuff's not exactly cheap. I've got one called a Glamaig which is made by a company on Skye called Cioch using the same material but theres can be either off the peg or made to measure. It's great for when it's tipping down but, when you're a little hairy hobbit like me, it's warm i
  19. Neal
    I've seen the same with litters of lots of working dogs. Also heard something on radio or tv earlier in the week about how animal shelters are already getting full of Covid saplings. I think the report was saying about how people who "rescue" dogs from abroad don't realise that they're perpetuating an industry by doing so. I've lost count of the number of people living near me who've bought dogs from Romania, Greece etc.
  20. Neal
    Phew! That's a much more positive outlook than my doom and gloom. Thanks Sid!?
  21. Neal
    If it's the breathe then could be kidney failure. Sorry if that sounds like a doom and gloom answer. To be honest, thinking back to when my bitch died last summer, although her breathe stank I don't think it was an onion smell.
  22. Neal
    Yeah, you're a bit to the north of where Ned was born: Trefaldwyn (Montgomery). We went to Aberdyfi last summer and saw a few but not huge numbers.
  23. Neal
    I rarely see a rabbit near me now; it's only my holidays to Dartmoor that give the dogs a chance to remember the scent of rabbit. Even there, as you say, it's rarely more than a five or ten yard dash. I get a lot more fun out of watching mine stalking a rabbit or squirrel than a protracted course. Ned nearly caught his first pigeon in the garden last week when it took off under the kids trampoline. It hit the base several times before it had the sense to fly out instead of up. The only reason he didn't get there in time was because I'd told him to lay down by the back door as I was walkin
  24. Neal
    You've hit the nail on the head! I've always wondered why it is that I prefer whippet crosses to greyhound crosses but could never quite put in into words. I even wondered if it's simply because I tend to believe that "the best things come in small packages," e.g. I prefer sparrowhawks to goshawks, jackdaws are my favourite crows etc but what you've said makes so much sense...I don't think of whippet crosses as small lurchers but as vermin dogs in the same way as mongrelly terriers and dogs with "a bit of collie and some spaniel back on the dam's side."
  25. Neal
    I agree, but in regards to whippet crosses in general. What gets me is that the people who like whippet crosses like the elements you've outlined above but then threads like this always end up with additional comments of, "Yeah, you're right...but they'd be better with some greyhound blood too." I got my collie x whippet umpteen years ago after hearing someone raving about a bloke near me who had a collie x whippet which had the attitude you're referring. By the time I met the guy his lurcher was no more and he was now into big deerhoundy types. I met him while he was out with two friends
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