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Neal

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Everything posted by Neal

  1. Neal
    Lundhag forest. The problem with goretex boots is that when they let water in they take ages to dry and you know the liner is probably now past its best so you need a new pair of boots. With lundhags, when they let in water they dry overnight and you just put more leather dressing on and off you go!
  2. Neal
    Waitrose and a helicopter!
  3. Neal
    Blackbriar, I had to look that up but it did ring a bell when I saw it. Rapids is actually a comedy character on a cbeebies sketch show but I always think of him whenever I see Ray Mears. re Bear...I'm sure somebody once told me it's sometimes used as a nickname for people called Rupert or Teddy...not sure how true that is.
  4. Neal
    It'd have to be Rapids Johnson..."Keep 'em peeled!"
  5. Neal
    Tapairu Smithfields, don't worry about the appearance of your dogs; it's far more important to have a dog which works the way you want than one which looks like it might.
  6. Neal
    Thanks Trenchfoot.
  7. Neal
    Good point. I don't recall any weight gain problems but, as you imply, it may just be that I adjusted their food without realising it.
  8. Neal
    You may have a point there Fuji. While I owned Tessa I also bought in an adult 3/4 collie 1/4 greyhound who was reputedly stock steady. On his first walk with me he ignored a flock of sheep then decided to chase one single sheep on the far side; I shouted at him to stop (which he did) and it was as though he was confirming, "No herdwicks either then?" He was completely fine with them after that...even a hand reared one which walked straight up to us once when the rest of the flock waved goodbye and latched on to his nose in an effort to get some milk. I can still picture him looking
  9. Neal
    Same problem here. I've got a pair of Seelands and Paramo trousers for keeping me dry (the paramos are particularly good) but can't find a pair of "normal" trousers for dry weather with a crutch that'll last more than a year...oo er missus! I think I remember someone on here recommending cactus trousers once though and my fjallravens are good but high waisted which means that when I wear them on my waist I end up with a droopy crutch!
  10. Neal
    No experience myself but I'd say one element to consider carefully is whether you're attempting self-sufficiency by producing food for yourself or by selling what you grow/slaughter to provide yourself with an income and getting the balancing act right between those two. A small community near me has recently clubbed together to cover a field with solar panels to feed into the national grid.
  11. Neal
    Every vote counts...it's now 64%
  12. Neal
    I initially got repeated thumb, knuckle etc slap until I switched to a Scout and started shooting through the forks. I also moved from not being able to hit a tree let alone a can on a branch but can now hit it more than 50% of the time. The other odd tip ( which I discovered by accident when I sneezed or coughed or something similar at the point of release) is to drop the catapult! I know that sounds daft...and only works with a strap around your wrist...but for some reason it improved my accuracy. Maybe it's just because it gave me one less thing to concentrate on?
  13. Neal
    I no longer have any ferrets but I previously kept three castrated males together year round. They all got on fine and worked well too. Initial outlay for the op is the only drawback.
  14. Neal
    If it wasn't for my experience with my first bitch (mentioned above) I'd say pts as better safe than sorry. However, I know from owning her that it's possible to turn a liability into a steady and bomb-proof dog. Having said that, it's probably because she was so keen at first that I had to put so much work in on her which made her so steady. I remember one occasion, coming down off The Old Man or Wetherlam and there were several sheep hunkered down by a stile beside a cattle grid and all but one moved off when they saw us but one didnt realise we were there so stood under the ladder sect
  15. Neal
    I'd completely agree with Magpie's comments and would also add that, as far as I'm aware, the reason the Smithfields from the southern hemisphere are so named is because of their resemblance to the old Smithfield type. However, unlike the "original" they are still bred and worked whereas the "original" has just become a name used to sell lurchers with no recourse to actual working ability. That's not to say that such dogs don't or won't work though.
  16. Neal

    Applecross

    Neal replied to gnasher16's topic in General Talk

    I've only been to Applecross once and that was back in the late 80s/early 90s sometime after the coastal track had been turned into a road. I stayed in a campsite with red deer wandering through it and left early in the morning via the other route (I think it's called the Bealach na Ba mountain pass...apologies if the spelling's wrong) and sat at the high point having my breakfast overlooking the Sound of Raasay and the Cuillins. Stunning!
  17. Neal
    I've always broken all my dogs to sheep. The hardest was a first cross beardie/greyhound though that was probably as much to do with her being my first dog and living in Coniston, surrounded by sheep, than it was to do with her breeding. However, although she initially proved a tad difficult (to say the least) she did become completely bomb-proof. Although my kelpies have all been stock broken I have had cause to use them for their original vocation on a couple of occasions...something which they certainly seemed happy to lend a hand to.
  18. Neal
    I think it's 3/8 whippet 7/16 greyhound or, to put it another way... 6/16 whippet, 7/16 greyhound, 2/16 Labrador, 1/16 collie or (as I'm sure somebody else will point out)...16/16 lurcher! Good luck and enjoy it, whatever the proportions. Edited to add...Poo...s.e.s.k.u. beat me to it!
  19. Neal
    It could be worse...you could have my permission...they're so rare I had to look it up in a field guide when I saw one before xmas!
  20. Neal
    Growing fast isn't necessarily a good thing...slow and steady.
  21. Neal
    I have a pair of Lundhag Scouts (they're now called Forest) which have already lasted two and a half years of long walks in Hampshire, Dartmoor and Cumbria with little sign of wear. They're a simple shell boot which means no waterproof membrane and rely on a wonderful smelling tin of stuff which comes with them to keep your feet dry. I've worn them through some awful boggy ground with no water getting in. However, the advantage of a shell boot with no liner is that IF they ever do get wet e.g. water over the top when crossing a stream, then they dry much quicker. They're expensive but they're
  22. Neal
    I use my kelpies as above i.e. locating squirrels and encouraging them around to my side of the tree. It also works the other way around in that a near miss can occasionaly spook one into making a run for it when they'd otherwise stay put.
  23. Neal
    Interesting read Jigsaw; especially the part about 5% of body weight in food being enough to fill the stomach. I started feeding BARF(ish) about fifteen to sixteen years ago when I swapped my last lurcher pup over to it after reading an article by Jackie Drakeford. As a result, all my kelpies have only ever been fed this way. However, as Noggin was my first pup in seven years I did some more research, as I was a bit out of the loop when it came to feeding pups, and found a lot of disagreement even within the BARF camp. Some advocate fruit and veg; some don't; some say mainly bones; some sa
  24. Neal
    There's an awful German Shepherd which frequents my local wood: or to be more precise an awful owner. The first couple of times we met was in the dark as I was walking my kelpies before work. I could hear a woman shouting frantically for me to put my dogs on leads. I politely refused and asked why to which she replied that hers hadn't been socialised...I said, "That's ok; mine have been!" I didn't see her again for a while but when I did, several months later, I pointed out that maybe she should have socialised him during the intervening months. I saw her last week and she took
  25. Neal
    Sounds like canine-racism! I get the same with Noggin, my 22" black and tan kelpie. There are a few bad tempered German Shepherds which are walked in my local wood so people think, "black and tan and pricked ears so must be vicious." Ironically, I find it's usually the small fluffy ones which cause all the problems! When Amber, my cream kelpie, was alive everybody tried to make friends with her though she was a grumpy, one-man-dog and they'd avoid Scout just because she was black and tan and exuberant.
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