Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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I lived in Cornwall about thirty years ago and before and after, almost all of my holidays have been to Devon too. My wife and I honeymooned on Dartmoor and we go back to the same village at least once every year. We'd love to move there but currently can't due to, well, long story but I'll just say "family commitments". I agree with you that it's better out of season (we usually go in the Autumn as that's our wedding anniversary) and I also prefer the area of Dartmoor that we go to as it's quieter and not full of grockles (hark at me: I'm one myself!). We've just come back from a week there (
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I lived in Coniston for a year or so after I left Art College in Falmouth. Beautiful part of the world (both of them). During the summer break one year during my degree my Cumbrian girlfriend visited me in Hampshire and she honestly said she'd never seen grass turn brown before, she thought it was always green. She said that once she'd gone south of Birmingham it was like driving through the Sahara.
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I'm really enjoying the new LT too. Finally felt confident to use one on game last week and have already taken one squirrel. Only weird thing I noticed was that the black bands it was supplied with only lasted me a couple of weeks so it was a good job I'd already ordered three HTH band sets from the same company. I'm wondering if it was because my band length is now shorter, thanks to the advice on here, which means I'm putting more stress on them.
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Thanks; I've just replied to it.
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I've had a look on the TPMS website but can't find a pricelist other than a very fuzzy document which I think says something like "see price sheet" after each item, but it must be cheaper than the other sites I've found. Most are more expensive than the individual 400g packs I'm buying already. Ironically, when we go on holiday to Datmoor I get a different brand called Farmer's Dog which is only £1.09 per 400g (my usual is £1.39 per 400g) but on their website it's more expensive, even if I bulk buy. Ridiculous!
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Some of those names ring a bell, particularly Blue Peter and Bilko so maybe the lines were similar. Thanks for the information Chartpolski. If memory serves me well, Skye's dam was called Sui and her racing name was Mermaid.
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The racing "whippet" which was the dam of my collie x whippet was 3/4 whippet 1/4 greyhound but, in addition to this, there was a collie x greyhound about four generations back on the "pure" whippet side. Fortunately, the breeder was open about it and it was all written down on the pedigree she supplied me with...not that I'd have been that worried seeing as there was also a pure collie on the other side anyway. Although, once again, I say pure but she was sired by Hancock's Tory who was Richard Jones x Katie so 1/4 beardie, 1/4 border, 1/2 Dartmoor collie (or 1/4 beardie 3/4 border for those
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Dogs n mooching with the catapult
Neal replied to Shortstraw's topic in Catapult & Slingshot Hunting
My older kelpie always goes behind me and sits down whenever he sees me take the catapult out as that was where I put him when I did any target practise. -
Thanks Gnipper and Socks.
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Dogs n mooching with the catapult
Neal replied to Shortstraw's topic in Catapult & Slingshot Hunting
My son loves this photo (he spends half his life up in our crab apple tree). I thought my old collie x whippet Skye was the only dog who could climb trees as well as this. Lovely photo. Edited to add: lovely looking dog too. Is it a straight bedlington x whippet? -
Although I've been feeding my dogs a BARF diet for over twenty years I've only done so on a "short term" scale. By this I mean, in the early days using fresh stuff like chicken wings etc and buying for a couple of days at a time, but then buying prepacked blocks of c 400g from Natures Menu etc and "bulk buying" a week at a time. The amount has been limited as I've only been able to use the bottom drawer of the family freezer. Recently we've had a clear-out in the garden room and made space for a freezer purely for dog food. However, I don't want to go ahead and buy a particular freezer of, for
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Dogs n mooching with the catapult
Neal replied to Shortstraw's topic in Catapult & Slingshot Hunting
I use mine alongside my kelpies, only started using the catapult very recently on game but Ned and I accounted for a squirrel while on holiday on Dartmoor last week. They locate them far better than I can. They're certainly not cheap though. Ned was £550 pre-all the recent weirdness with prices and his great,great aunt sold last year for $25,000!? -
Crikey, that photo's a blast from the past. Back when I got my first lurcher, my father and one of his mates both had half bred whippet x greyhounds sired by Bow.
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Not exactly DNA, but I once had a kelpie in overnight at the vets and when I went in to pick him up the following day, his eyes was completely gummed up. I was told the nurse had been too frightened to go in to his crate to clean him up as she'd heard Australian Cattle Dogs were dangerous...they didn't have Australian Kelpie on their database so had signed him in as the former.
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Must have been an urban myth I heard then, I'm not sure but I think it might have been my nan who told me. She said that was why her budgie's cere had changed colour. ?
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I thought some reptiles and birds could change sex if there were no opposite sex individuals around to mate with. I'm sure somebody told me once that budgies can do it.?
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I could be wrong, but I'm sure I've read somewhere (possibly "The Wolf Within"?) that there are different types of DNA test and that some pick up different elements so, depending on the test, you only pick up on either male or female ancestors. But, as I said, I could be wrong and I could be misremembering or reading betwen the lines.
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I think I'm going to go back to banding up both the Scouts and trying lots of different shooting styles with both, in case my instinctive approach has improved compared to either ott or ttf.
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Actually, all this talk of gundog crosses has jogged my memory: when I moved from Cumbria back to Hampshire I was "between dogs" for a while and, before I bought my collie x whippet, I went to see a litter of first cross labrador x greyhounds. I didn't come away with one simply because the dam was a greyhound and, when I asked about the sire, the owner admitted sheepishly that the sire lived locally but that the owners of the sire were unaware of the mating. I couldn't really be sure if what I was getting was therefore what I was paying for so decided to leave it, but I've often wondered how t
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I'm definitely not overly worried about not catching...I've got sheepdogs after all!? I only use six commands: recall, lay down, sshhh, quiet, shut up and shut the **** up to annoying ******* Ned!
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Re grip, I think I hold it in a kind of open pincer grip i.e. thumb and first finger either side of forks at top but the other fingers feel more comfortable if they naturally fan out; so it's my lower palm that holds the bottom of the forks in place. I often find I'm more accurate if I "drop" the scout after firing too i.e. loose on the lanyard. Never realised how difficult this is to describe as everybody's grip etc must be so natural that you don't consciously think about what you're actually doing.
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To be honest, every now and then I consider whether to try something different, usually along the lines of a small whippet x gundog or whippet x sheepdog, but then I remember the fact that I've got to actually live with the dog 24/7. Then I usually decide to stay safe and stick with another kelpie. They may not be perfect but I know them well enough by now to know what to expect from certain lines etc. Re Ned I think I'm probably hard on him because Noggin's now more of a pet for my son than a working dog (because of his accident) so Ned's effectively become an only dog who happens to liv
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Be careful which order you introduce them. I had a half bred kelpie/collie x greyhound who was an only dog so did his own bushing and catching. When I introduced a pure kelpie to do the bushing he quickly cottoned on to the fact that the lurcher was pushing out rabbits so he stayed outside and let him do the work. Funny thing was, every time I took him out on his tod he bushed but whenever the lurcher was there he'd stand back. Clever sod!
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Yeah; I instinctively missed.
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I've had a similar situation to you re anchor points i.e. at different stages mine's been edge of mouth, wedged up on cheek so that it sits behind teeth and a spot inbetween. The other odd thing was that, in the early days with the scout, I was getting more and more accurate until I was accurate almost every time but then I noticed that I was twisting the pouch anticlockwise a quarter turn so stopped doing it. Straight away the accuracy went. I did a bit of research on it and discovered that quite a few people prefer to add the twist. I tried it again with the new scout and it was better witho
