Bareve
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Patridge CountingWe've just had the most cracking day 
I had accepted an invitation to run Freddy on a partridge counting day on a partridge shoot down near Duxford. The landowner has had no experience whatsoever with HPR's so it was important that the dogs the organiser invited were going to put up a good performance to show the "best" side of our breeds. I believe the farm had 2500 acres of arable but our first day (a fortnight ago) had to be cancelled due to the snow and in the meantime the rape has grown to waist high so the owner didn't want us in there.
We had 5 dogs - 2 GWP's, 1 GSP, 1 Spinone and 1 Slovak and off we went in two groups - one with the keeper and one with the farmer's brother - who we found out later has been shooting for over 45 years - both home and abroad over labs, spaniels and pointers but not HPR's .....
Our group was Lisa Brown and her Slovak and myself so off we set with two huge wheat fields to cover and some "odd" brown bits in the field 
As we set our two off to cover one half of the field we realised that them brown bits were moving..... hares
In those first two fields - which took us over half the morning as they were so big contained lots of hares and we had also counted over 25 brace of partridge - more English then Frence ones. At the end of the second field the brother had caught up with us and walked down the side of the field to watch how we finished off the field.
I couldn't have been prouder as Freddy pointed then flushed a single partridge, hunted on and pointed/flushed a brace of partridge, hunted on and pointed/steady to flush on a hare, and steady to running hare as he continued to hunt. As we got to the corner of the field the brother had a huge grin on his face and said "your dog made an excellent job of that ground - well done"
The remainder of the ground we didn't see so many partridge on the beat I had to cover but we made up for it in hares. I counted on the way home that we had 7 points/acknowledgements on hares and each one he was steady to the flush and watched the hare away and then on command continued to hunt on away from the hare track.
There were a couple of hare chases but they weren't Freddy
Got back into the farmyard this afternoon to a very happy farmer who confirmed that we had counted over 55 brace of partridge and covered nearly 1400 acres. I believe last year the job was done with men and spaniels and from listening to the conversation between the two brothers I think it took days to cover the farm whereas we'd done over half in about 6 hours.
Feedback is that we will be asked back to count again and they were very impressed in the way that we worked the ground. For them they had a job to do and for us we had the opportunity to run our dogs - somewhat a winning combination allround and very satisfying that there are now three more people who have clearly enjoyed watching breeds work that they had never seen work before
Can't seem to stop smiling - money couldn't have bought this day
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Helen
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Wow, sounds like you had a great day. If the weather was the same as it was here, even better! Well done Freddy, sounds like he did a great job and showed those spaniel lovers how hpr's can work! lol. A lot of grouse estates use spaniels for counts and I asked why and no one could come up with a good enough reason really!
Pleased to hear the greys are doing well 
Helen
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sashalgwps
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Wow sounds like a great success!
Very jealous I would have much preferred doing that with Gucci than having to be stuck at work
Alex
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Bareve
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| Helen wrote: | Wow, sounds like you had a great day. If the weather was the same as it was here, even better! Well done Freddy, sounds like he did a great job and showed those spaniel lovers how hpr's can work! lol. A lot of grouse estates use spaniels for counts and I asked why and no one could come up with a good enough reason really!
Pleased to hear the greys are doing well
Helen |
Thanks Helen - the weather was lovely after the initial hard frost which obviously helped the scenting.
I think the keeper was a little sceptical to start with but when we swapped over late morning and he came with Lisa and myself I found each time I watched Freddy hunt towards him he was watching him all the time.
I suppose the main reason that keepers/landowners use spaniels is that there are plenty of them around in comparision to HPR's but hopefully this farm will not be using spaniels next time
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Bareve
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| sashalgwps wrote: | Wow sounds like a great success!
Very jealous I would have much preferred doing that with Gucci than having to be stuck at work
Alex |
It was a great success for everyone owner, dogs and handlers and far better than looking at this PC and using the phone - but what am I going to do tomorrow ........
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windem bang
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Alex[/quote]
It was a great success for everyone owner, dogs and handlers and far better than looking at this PC and using the phone - but what am I going to do tomorrow ........ [/quote]
How about coming up here and training my mutt - I'm knackered !
BILL T.
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Tracy
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Sounds like you and Freddy had a great day. If I ever get Magic to listen to me I hope to do some more working with him.
Tracy
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Hapsberg
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Yay!! See! I told you this morning that he would be brilliant!!
Well done. Glad to hear the day was so successful.
Claire
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Hapsberg
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| Tracy wrote: | If I ever get Magic to listen to me I hope to do some more working with him.
Tracy |
Good luck with that Tracy. You should find your local GSP Club training classes as they are inexpensive but very good.
Claire
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Tracy
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starting training thursday night, getting him to understand English has been the main problem but he is now starting to understand me instead of just sitting with a blank look on his face
Tracy
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Hapsberg
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| Tracy wrote: | starting training thursday night, getting him to understand English has been the main problem but he is now starting to understand me instead of just sitting with a blank look on his face
Tracy |
Well with a name like Magic, he should be understanding you and up to field trial standard for the coming season!!!
Does he respond when you give him commands in his native tongue?
Claire
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Claire
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What a fantastic read ! Really well done and I too am very jealous Freddy is a super dog and pleasure to watch, you must and indeed should be very proud.
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maxine mccullough
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| Tracy wrote: | starting training thursday night, getting him to understand English has been the main problem but he is now starting to understand me instead of just sitting with a blank look on his face
Tracy |
Hi Tracy,
You need to speak to Penny and go where her and Paul go to training - you will have a great time there - very knowledgeable guy too.
Maxine
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Bareve
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| windem bang wrote: |
How about coming up here and training my mutt - I'm knackered !
BILL T. |
I'll come up if I can bring a couple of dogs with me so i can train them too 
Just out of interest how far away are you from Castle Douglas as our gamekeeper friends have just moved from the Bowhill estate to a private shooting estate there so I will "have" to go and have a few days with them as soon as they get themselves sorted. I think it is just under 2000 acres, lots of white grass, open woodland and game strips
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Bareve
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| Tracy wrote: | Sounds like you and Freddy had a great day. If I ever get Magic to listen to me I hope to do some more working with him.
Tracy |
Thanks. We too had the same problem with language but they do eventually understand.
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Bareve
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| Hapsberg wrote: | Yay!! See! I told you this morning that he would be brilliant!!
Well done. Glad to hear the day was so successful.
Claire |
I know I suppose we were all very much aware that it was primarily a PR job to show the people what HPR's could be like and secondly a training opportunity. Certainly when you hear of people being asked nicely not to come back to shoots because their dogs are out of control it puts even more pressure to put up a good performance.
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Bareve
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| Claire wrote: | | What a fantastic read ! Really well done and I too am very jealous Freddy is a super dog and pleasure to watch, you must and indeed should be very proud. |
He certainly did me proud - very proud. Great shame you are so far away as there is another partridge counting day next week on a different estate where Penny, Adrian and myself had a cracking day last week!
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cressy
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What a great day it sounds.
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Helen
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| Quote: | | Tracy, how do you get round the language barrier? Are you just retraining from scratch and using English, or are you having to use his native tongue? |
Good luck with it all. I'm sure you'll have loads of fun.
I do find that when I have Teal or even Harvey, there is that added pressure to show what they can do. When I have the spaniels, pointers or Dotty, it isn't there, even if things go wrong with them. You're right Sharon, there is something to prove when you have hpr's.
Helen
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Hapsberg
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| Bareve wrote: | | Certainly when you hear of people being asked nicely not to come back to shoots because their dogs are out of control it puts even more pressure to put up a good performance. |
OMG! Can you imagine how embarrasing that would be? 
Claire
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Bareve
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| Hapsberg wrote: |
OMG! Can you imagine how embarrasing that would be?
Claire |
It would wouldn't it - I would be so gutted and yet can see why the hosts/keeper make that decision as it would affect their livelihood to have adverse comments from the paying guns. The shooting community in some areas are very close knit as I know it's happened on our shoot when over lunch you will hear that so and so has been banned and the next door shoot and the other one up the road have all said they're not welcome 
One chap with a Springer "nearly" got banned last season as on the first drive (which is a game strip so dogs do have to be kept close at all times) which ran downhill towards the guns. As the birds started to lift the guns started to drop the birds on the grass between them and the bottom of the game strip - majority of them being dead. So us picker up's just stay back as we know the guns will want to use their dogs to pick them and the next thing you see is a b/w Springer come flying over the fence and picks up one of the pheasants..... the one sitting in front of Harry (the owner). Needless to say the owner was given a full blast from Harry and told either go home or keep the blessed dog on the lead and he decided on the former!
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langhaar
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hunted on and pointed/steady to flush on a hare, and steady to running hare as he continued to hunt
Sold your running shoes now ?
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Bareve
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| langhaar wrote: |
Sold your running shoes now ?
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Yes Brenda I have
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langhaar
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That's a pity , wanted to borrow them !
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Bareve
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| langhaar wrote: | | That's a pity , wanted to borrow them ! |
Oh dear.......
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countrygirl
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Shame you have sold them I could of done with borrowing them as Im out partridge counting with Rumour on Sunday
Caz
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Hapsberg
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| countrygirl wrote: | Shame you have sold them I could of done with borrowing them as Im out partridge counting with Rumour on Sunday
Caz |
Awwwww!! Have faith in her!!
Claire
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