Neal
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Everything posted by Neal
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I use a pure kelpie bitch but I'm lucky in that she's very small for a kelpie ie only about 17". The big benefits are the nose and tenacity coupled with obedience. I also have her great great uncle who's a great bushing dog but being a couple of inches taller isn't quite as fleet of foot through the brambles. Her half sister is the tallest of my three and does the lurcher role of standing outside, waiting for a bolt. She hasn't realised that she's not fast enough to consistantly catch in the open.
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I've only owned working dogs for about seventeen years, far less than some, and for nine of those years I've hunted with one or more pure kelpies. During that time my kelpies have accounted for more game than the lurchers I'd previously owned. By no means am I saying that pure sheepdogs are better rabbiting dogs than lurchers; it's simply that I find they do better on the ground I use them on. Good luck if you decide to give a herding dog a go. -
Great photos Jigsaw. What size did she make in the end?
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Hi dpitman, I work three pure kelpies on rabbits and find that although mine catch the occasional one they only manage in cover and a straight run is usually too much for them. If you put collies into search I'm sure you'll get more information about people using them for a variety of rabbiting tasks.
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I know this sounds daft, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell if a dog is a merle or not, especially if a brindle gene is involved too.
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Thanks!
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She's looking good Jigsaw, one bit of advice though: try changing the apperture on your camera. I needed Sunglasses for a couple of them!
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Most of the replies so far seem to be on the subject of whether to go for one or the other but what about using both. By this I mean as a back-up ie in case the battery goes dead or if they sneak out on the other side of a hedge or bank, unnoticed, and give themselves a quick shake? Do people use ordinary cat bells or falconry bells?
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It's amazing how much of it you can squeeze into the National Curriculum and Early Years Curriculum eg argument texts for and against fox hunting and food webs featuring foxes killing sheep and chickens. I had two eleven year old girls in my class last year, one had a pet rabbit and the other was a vegetarian. We had an ongoing joke about it which involved them sneaking onto my laptop to put up a picture of a cute bunny with a pink bow and me keeping a toy plastic rabbit on my desk which I regularly pretened to kill in various ways. All good clean fun!
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I was out a few weeks back and my kelpie pup caught her first rabbit which we carried home in the basket under my baby buggy; in which was my son aged just over eight weeks. Incidentally, I'm also a teacher and I try to get as much pro-hunting information into the children I teach from Nursery age to Year 6 (eleven). I once did a ferreting demonstration to a class of Inner City Reception children, that's four and five year olds! Four years on and I still get one of them regularly accosting me in the playground to tell me about how many rabbits he caught with his Grandad at the weekend.
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Tarka the Otter is based in the same area; in fact there's a few lines from the book carved into a bridge a short walk between Belstone and Sticklepath. Beautiful spot!
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I spent my honeymoon in Belstone, and we saw a fox, so does that count?
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I always wrap them in a piece of kitchen paper before squashing them once they've been removed; or at least I have done ever since getting shot in the eye by some blood once. YEUCH!
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Thanks Fireman!
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Thanks to both for the very honest and interesting replies; it's certainly opened my eyes to what I might get to replace Rust at some, hopefully far off, future date. As the last post says, Ive heard they are particularly, and deceptively, agile; much more so than you'd expect from such a solid looking dog. My eldest, Rust, is slightly more heeler like in build than your usual kelpie, though this is partly due to the fact that he's inherited his sire's coat which is more husky-like than kelpie-like which makes him appear chunkier. Thanks again!
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A genuine question for Wild Rover, A SME IX and Fireman: as some of you may know I have three kelpies, a nine year old dog and two bitches aged five and one. I've been a big fan of the Australian herding breeds for many years since reading John Holmes' "The Farmer's Dog." but I was led to believe that the Heelers which had been imported into the UK were largely from show lines. Indeed, this was one of the reasons I chose kelpies instead of heelers to use for rabbiting. From what I've read the quality of the dogs you've produced is unquestionable so does this mean that what I'd heard about the
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Thanks Compo! It's nice to get a compliment.
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If you got on particularly well with the spaniel then maybe another would suit you better than a lurcher. It's better to spend a day with a ferreting spaniel that you like than a ferreting lurcher that you don't like. As has been said above, people look for a variety of different attributes in a ferreting dog which is why the "type" is so variable. Good luck with whatever you decide to go for.
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Maybe the fact she didn't make the grade as a sheepdog is putting people off. If you put up some more information about her skills in some areas and lack of them in others then somebody may find that what has made her not-such-a-good sheepdog could make make the perfect bushing/ferreting/hunting partner. Good luck with her.
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Hi Mollie 1337, don't worry, you're not alone. I once had a collie x whippet which would chase rabbits, squirrels etc until she had them cornered, then simply stare at them, waiting for another chase: as you say, very bloody annoying! Fortunately my kelpies aren't quite so fussy.
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Following some advice on here, I've been regularly visiting my local TK Max in the hope of finding something decent and after finding several pairs of boots which were either too heavy or the wrong size over the last few months my patience finally paid off this week with a pair of Danner Jackals for under £40!
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All three of my dogs get on fine with the ferrets but each views them differently. One seems to see them as tiny dogs and likes to play with them, one respects their space and gives them a wide berth when they emerge and the other seems to see them as one of my "stock" if that makes sense. By this I mean that she keeps an eye on them in the same way as she does with the bantams eg when I'm cleaning them out she'll wait by the rabbit hutch that I put them in while their larger hutch is being cleaned. As a result, she's a bit better than the other two at marking ferret-inhabited buries.
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I think one problem is that many people disregard Hancock simply because of the connection with Plummer. My first two dogs were bred by Hancock. The first was bought as a pup in around '91 and was sired by Remus. The second was bought shortly after as an adult from a third party, this one was Richard x Linnet ie 3/4 collie 1/4 greyhound. I was fairly pleased with both but the important thing, and which many people keep coming back to so apologies if this is going over old ground, is that I liked the look of the collies. By this I mean that I'd found out about them and was confident in their
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I think Mike still has one kelpie x greyhound left.
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I found the same thing with the tweed ie sole wore out fairly quickly and very little grip on wet grass or mud; I went A.O.T. in them a few times. Have since bought another type with much better grip but also a bit heavier.