Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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I get where you're coming from. Before I had Rusty (my first kelpie) back in 2000 I had a kelpie/collie x greyhound from Dave Sleight in 1998 (the one I sent you the photo of). I'd not bought the Countryman's Weekly for a couple of years so didn't know he'd bred a litter of whippet crosses until the whippet/greyhound crosses (Purdey's litter) came up. I originally wanted to hold out for him to breed another whippet x litter as, by this time, I'd met Dave and Gem (the bitch he kept who went on to win the lurcher Field Trial) and I really liked her (she looked more like a staffy cross whippet).
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Jigsaw, in hindsight, are you glad you made the decision to breed your own? If so, would you be tempted to do it again or was it definitely a one off? The only reason I ask is because, over the last thirty years, I've only owned ten dogs (five lurchers followed by the five kelpies) but never bred a litter. I was tempted once and nearly bred a litter from my first two kelpies, but things conspired against me and she had to be spayed during the season before I'd planned to try it. I'm just wondering if now I'm old enough and wise enough to give it a go. I still wouldn't do it for a few years but
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You're welcome! I'm blushing!?
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I can't understand why farmers don't push mutton more. I've always found it odd that a beef eating public is horrified at the thought of veal but won't touch mutton in favour of lamb.
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My first lurcher was a Hancock bred beardie x greyhound but that was back when he had Remus as his beardie stud. She certainly wasn't nervous! Anything but! I had a devil of a time breaking her to sheep (a bit of a necessity as I lived in Coniston!) but she became bomb-proof on them. She'd have a go at anything from mice and magpies to shelduck and heron...fortunately she didn't catch them but it was not my proudest moment...the heron was in the garden standing in the beck but the shelduck was at Torn Hows with tourists close by. Eek! My dog training has come a long way since then.? Edite
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It's where my wife and I had our honeymoon fifteen years ago and we go back there at least once every year. Sorry all; back to the beer thread.
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Thanks for that reminder Arry...Black Tor Brewery...heaven in a glass. My all time favourite pint was a one-off by them which I had as a lunchtime pint in the Tors in Belstone. It was 26th May 2018. I can remember the date because a) it was the day that the U.K. was hit by what was described in the media as "The Mother Of All Thunderstorms" and b) it was the day my dog was born. I even took a photo of the name of it on the pump so I could remember it, but when I went in the next day it was no longer there. It was made using Jasper hops. I toyed with the idea of calling Ned Jasper instead becau
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She is a farmer. I can fully understand what you mean, re when someone becomes known for breeding from their dogs more than their other livestock then the dynamic changes, but I assure you they get fully tested. Tony Parsons didn't give his Karrawarra dogs as much station work once they were used for breeding but nearly every stud in Australia includes their blood to a greater or lesser extent. I feel Tracy's strength is that she gives a lot of thought to the lines she's producing and which matings will work best as a result of tried and tested results. Some people just mate two good dogs toge
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Sod that: I'm in in for myself! I've changed my mind and I'm going to sell him the nets at twice their original price because they're now "vintage."?
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I'm sure most people on this site will have similar stories to us on this subject. I always get complimented by my vet on the weight of my dogs whenever I take them in. He says if all dogs were the same build he wouldn't get so many dogs with heart conditions etc.
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P.M. me your address: I've not had any ferrets for about seven years and I've still got some nets hanging up in the shed you're welcome to.
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Have you still got your locator and nets?
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Thanks Aussie Whip. I must admit that, before I got Rusty, the only kelpie I'd seen was Avenpart Dusty (who plays the part of Dusty in the film and who I later found out is actually one of Rusty's ancestors). I was amazed at how slim he looked. I always thought it looked like someone had done a cut 'n' shut job with a prick eared collie on the front end and a whippet at the back. Then, when I got Rusty his build was the same. I got lots of criticism from people telling me to feed my poor undernourished dog! But that was just his natural physique. All of mine have been similar and although I ca
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My incident was about ten years ago too. My kelpie bitch had gone off into the bushes for a wander, which was unlike her as she was very much a stay-by-your-side kind of bitch. About ten minutes later she started acting oddly. You know that thing dogs do when they want to stand up in front of you when you're on the sofa watching tv but they're actually really tired and want to go to sleep, so they fall asleep standing up and keep falling over? Well, she was doing that. It eventually got so bad I had to carry her home and then my wife drove us to the vets. They said it was probably an allergic
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As I've said several times in the past Collie John; although I have kelpies and prefer them to collies that is purely a personal opinion and I'm a big fan of all pastoral type dogs. I know a lot of kelpie fans who are anti collie but I think they've just been unfortunate in knowing the wrong kind of collies. I suppose it's similar to why some don't like collie lurchers i.e. they've met the wrong type. In the U.K. I still think that a collie is probably the best for allround farm work...it's simply that I get on better with the kelpie temperament. Even though I'm a big fan of them I still regul
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Feed once or twice a day when working?
Neal replied to whitefeet4190's topic in Lurchers & Running Dogs
Do you do B&B? You've made that sounds delicious! -
My first kelpie was Rusty who was bred by a shepherd in Wiltshire. Then I had two bitches Amber and Scout who were from a Welsh farmer who'd relocated to the Forest of Dean from Amroth. There was a four year gap between each of them but then I waited seven years before getting Noggin in 2014. He was bred by Tracy Huxtable who has a website: Devonairs Kelpies. When Noggin had his accident in 2016 I didn't want to be without a workable dog so went back to Tracy for a replacement. Unfortunately the pup I booked (Bailey x Maid who are both on her website) died at about a week old so I booked one f
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Sod it! I decided to be brave and do it again straight away. Noggin's on the left and Ned's on the right. This was taken on Dartmoor a couple of weeks ago. We went up Cawsand Beacon for the view but this was all we could see so we went back down to the ford where I scattered Rusty and Scout's ashes. Actually, Scout's are in a hole in the bury next to the ford as she spent so much of her time trying to get in there I thought she's like to spend all eternity in it.
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Actually, his ears are up more than usual in that photo as he's one of those kelpies with slightly floppy ears...his nickname is Gumby because his ears go flip-flop when he walks. Noggin looks even more German Shepherd like (I'm not putting up another photo straight away though; I need a lie down after that) as his tail is longer than usual as well.
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Does anybody know why? In my case it's probably lack of habitat but I gather in some places it's VHD. Please tell me I've got those initials right and not written something rude!
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As a pup I always thought of him as an ugly dog. I used to compare him to Noggin by saying that if Noggin was Brad Pitt or George Clooney then Ned would be Harvey Keitel or Robin Williams. Now he's two and has calmed down a bit he's more like Gary Oldman!? He caught his first squirrel in March and has caught four more since then. I'm beginning to like him enough to be a tad annoyed at the fact he's only got one testicle.? P.S. Shaaark: apologies for removing two "likes" from your last post but my chromebook is a bit sensitive and it kept selecting that instead of the "thanks"
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It's been several years since I saw more than a handful of rabbits near me. Every time I see a rabbit on the piece of permission I half heartedly call mine (it's a local farm which is rapidly diminishing under a tide of housing estates but I like to look at it a few times a year just for old times sake) I leave it in the hope it'll find another but no luck. As a result, my dogs have been solely rat, squirrel and pigeon dogs for about seven years...apart from when we go on holiday to Dartmoor.
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Yay! I finally worked out how to put up a photo! It's taken me the best part of half an hour though. This is Ned.
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Have you ever had problems with snake bites? We have a lot of adders where I live but, apart from one "possible" bite, the dogs have managed to stay clear. I put it down to some far off race memory in their kelpie genes of taipans and brown snakes!?
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My last lurcher once tried to dig up a wasp nest. Similar to yourself, I had to take my jacket off, wrap it around him and ran as fast as I could (bit tricky for a little hobbit like me while carrying a solidly built half cross) until they gave up and stopped following us. Funny thing was that I didn't get stung once...until about an hour later when I put my hand in the jacket pocket to take something out and there was one last wasp in it! My last kelpie bitch was stung once and her head blew up leaving her looking like a staffy or a klingon from Star Trek.
