Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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I hope they beat Japan as my wife bought me tickets for the match for my birthday...I'm taking my son and I hate seeing an eight year old cry!
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Bird: the problem is they all vary so much. That's compounded for me by the fact that when I look back at the lurchers I used to have (starting 26 years ago and ending 11 years ago) I'm no longer sure if their temperament was because of their breeding or because I wasn't as calm as I am now (parenthood and all that jazz!). I had a collie x whippet who was so easily spooked that I remember one occassion when either my landlord or I shouted some obsenity at Dirty Den on tv and she ran and hid under my bed and wouldn't come out for ages. If you stopped suddenly while out walking she'd scream
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I've had lurchers with both beardie and a mix of beardie and border as well as one with border and kelpie...though they were all a long time ago so my memory of them could be either rose-tinted or jaded. My memory was similar to what forest of dean redneck said above i.e. the border blood made them more likely to do exactly as they were told whereas the beardie blood made them more likely to use their own initiative (and therefore sometimes more likely to NOT do as they were told). When I got my first kelpie I naively thought they were the best of both worlds without any of the drawbacks i
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One of my Australian herding books has a section on the Tasmanian Smithfield with photos of dogs very similar to mongrely beardies(I think it's the Rod Cavanagh book but I'm not sure without checking). My humble opinion is that the "original" Smithfield was a collection of different herding/droving dogs with nothing in common other than the era they worked in whereas the Australian type is a breed originating from one of those types. You Australians have a knack for taking something and improving it. N.B. That's a compliment...not a criticism.
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Yes thanks. Still a tad pink in places but the best advice seemed to be the boredom thing i.e. I stopped resting her and started taking her out on her usual mammoth trecks. Good job too as we're off for our annual holiday to Belstone on Dartmoor next week!
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I was speaking to a lady with two French Bulldogs recently and she said that, what most people don't realize, is that the folds etc on the outside of the muzzle are mirrored on the inside. As a result she recently forked out over 4K for, what basically amounts to, life-saving plastic surgery!
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Thanks BGD. I'll just have to hope they don't accidentally catch them before they make it to the nearest tree.
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Well...I'm impressed by that clip of the lion taking on the giraffe...unless it was made using Weta Workshop miniatures!
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I'm afraid gamerooster's right. I know it's ridiculous but then again everything about the hunting with dogs act is. Not sure how it applies to treeing them and then shooting with air-rifle or catapult though.
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Thanks to the absence of rabbits in my neck of the woods, treed squirrels is about the only thing we do get nowadays...or at least it would be if it was legal. ...which it's not so I leave the poor cuddly little things alone.
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I'm not certain but I think I saw a programme last year (either a wildlife documentary or science based one) which said that a lot of mammals (including cattle) can't differentiate red so the whole "waving a red cape" thing is a fallacy...not sure how it did start though.
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I believe that several people die every year as a result of being crushed by cattle and it's not just "strangers" that get the treatment. As mentioned above, I make sure the cattle have already "met" my kelpies before I go through a field if at all possible. I also make sure I know where all the available exits are...just in case! I'd also agree with another point mentioned above i.e. don't run and, despite what signs in a field may say, I always let my dogs off the lead. My thinking is that in most cases where cattle come to investigate, they're doing so because of the dogs and if they do
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I've got Dusty on dvd and my current kelpie is descended from the dog used in the film. Tarka's another of my favourites though, as is usually the case, the book's even better than the film.
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A trellis that smells of shit. Nice! I hasten to add that I did clean it up after! That reminds me...a school I worked in once was suffering vandalism so the caretaker set up a few cameras and caught one of the year 5 boys climbing on the roof and cr*pp*ng over the side down a trellis! I work in a nice school now though.
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I'd agree with having a dog loose in the garden as this is enough to put most off. I'd also agree with the pyracanthus. The chap who owned my house before we moved in had problems from people using his garden as a thoroughfare so put a hedge of it in at the back and it stopped them immediately. After I moved in I trimmed it back while wearing a barbour...when I removed the barbour my arms were covered in blood...it's evil stuff. Failing that...in my first house my neighbour's son broke into my garden a few times to let my ferrets out (the first time it happened I came home from work to
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It was by Rob Graham and the bitch was called Holly and the article was written in March '97.
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They are hard to keep the weight off unless you run them ALOT Yeah, in the John Holmes book he says they can "survive on an oily rag."
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I've got an old Shooting News or Countryman's Weekly article written by somebody using a pure heeler for ferreting...I'll see if I can dig it out to recall the name and date.
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I bet passing that ten pence piece made its eyes water! Sorry Tiercel: I couldn't resist.
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The earliest two terriers I can remember growing up were both fox terrier blooded (over forty years ago now mind). One was a pure smooth fox terrier and the other was half wire fox terrier half sheltie!
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I've never tried hogget; how does it compare? It always amazes me that lamb is so readily available yet mutton is so hard to come by.
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I've never known a summer like it for amphibians (and reptiles to a certain extent too). Apart from the frogs I see every February spawning in my local wood, we've only seen maybe a handful of frogs and palmate newts over the last ten years or so but this year we see at least one amphibian every trip out. Maybe it's a particularly good year for them but I'm more inclined to think it's because my son, Oscar, and I are spending a lot more time actively searching for them. Under one single piece of wood alongside a local school we've found common frogs, common toads, short-tailed field v
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Why eat lamb when you can enjoy mutton? P.S. that's a genuine question...not a euphemism.
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Thanks forest of dean redneck; he'll love that. We saw one at a recent reptiles and amphibians event in Portsmouth. It was the one thing he really wanted to stroke but they wouldn't let him as they tend to bite and have a vice like grip. This one was about the size of a dinner plate!
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Hello from the far north...of the Forest of Bere.
