Wednesday 23rd September 2009
Black Mountain.
WSW 8.4 mph. 15c . High cloud, bright…ish.
I took Roxy and Basso for a bit of schooling prior to Friday. I ran them alternately three or four times each. This worked alright into the wind but when we started to walk back to the car things became a bit fraught. I don’t know what was in Roxy’s mind, she had either had enough of me, even though I hadn’t been hard on her, or she was desperate for water and knew it was in the car but she resisted any recall and headed for the car which was by the roadside. It worked out alright again, but one of these times it isn’t going to be alright.
Roxy was fine into the wind. She demonstrated a tendency to cut short each time she reached the middle of the beat but it was relatively simple to turn her and send her on out. Basso ran and hunted hard but displayed this annoying tendency to pass behind me rather than in front. He’s going back to Yorkshire with Shaun for some increased exposure to game and hopefully that will sort him out on two fronts.
We have just the minimum of entries for out breed stake this Friday. Two stalwarts can’t come. James Coyle has to attend hospital and Richard MacNicol’s dogs have the Kennel Cough and this leaves us right on the minimum of sixteen. This is bad news. For a start off the club relies on the income to help defray the expenses associated in bringing over judges etc. and on the day it is always a bugger when you have multiple handlers. The one positive is that you are never under pressure for time with a small stake and dogs can be given ample opportunity to run.
I’m not particularly excited about this weekend as I haven’t got one dog that’s up to the job at the moment between Roxy just coming back into form and Basso and Chris injured and Jalad retired and yet I will have to run at least three of those four to make this stake legal. I should be used to it though. I kept the stake legal for years running dogs that weren’t ready or past it and the only thanks I ever got were commnts like ” I don’t know why you ran that dog, it’s not up to the job.” There must be a few F.T.Ch. pointers out there thanks to me.
Scotland.
In yesterday’s post I mentioned that Richard MacNicol’s dogs had The Cough. It appears there is what might best be described as an epidemic of Kennel Cough on the mainland. At this time of the year there is a lot of interaction between the estate workers and beaters and pickers up might work on several estates in a fortnight. Wealthy owners may have estates in Scotland and the south of England and the workers from the southern estates are brought up to Scotland to augment the beating and picking up teams on the northern estates. Believed to have started in the south and brought north by the annual migration of workers there are now outbreaks in several areas of Scotland.
Kennel Cough isn’t really that serious an ailment for otherwise healthy dogs but in my experience plenty of time needs to be given for full recuperation before work otherwise the symptoms may linger and adversely affect the dog’s performance.
Glenwherry.
10 mph. Dull at times but warm and sunny later on.
Jalad ran hard and fast BUT he back cast on the left a few times and was eliminated.(Yes I know he’s supposed to be retired but we needed sixteen dogs and only had fifteen.)
Basso ran agaist Flake. He stuck to his ground, nice and flat, maybe even too flat while she was taking a much bigger bite. She came to the right hand side of the beat, bored forward, pointed, then tried to relocate but while doing this four birds flushed and she was eliminated. I can only presume it was reckoned (wrongly in my opinion) that the birds were there for Basso as well. Out!
Roxy did a nice few fast casts and then disappeared on the left. I went to the brow hoping to find her on point but expecting her to be half a mile further on. No Roxy. The Judge came over and as we went to look for her six birds rose nearby. I said to Davy that I had fully expected to find her on point. At this point I looked down wind and there about a hundred yards away was Roxy on point. I disagree with Davy’s version of what now took place. As far as I am concerned two birds, that she had been pointing flushed loose and she remained steady at first but then moved forward possibly excluding herself. In any event I was run again and after a good few good casts Roxy had a nice find on a covey of four. Subsequently I was told I had been excluded for the movement on the first find. Bit like the executioner saying we won’t hang you after all and then hanging you anyway.
BUT
The winner of the stake was a Glencuan dog, Jimmy Dalton’s Bone Apart by Lisenaire Luke Skywalker X Exile on Main Street AND subject to Kennel Club ratification he’s now a Field Trial Champion. As Matt Damon said in Good Will Hunting, “What do you think of them apples?”
Glarryford.
Humid and warm dull but high cloud cover.
Roxy.
Ran hard but out of control. Eventually had a find on a snipe. Cast off again she went off the beat and although she came back she didn’t make the second round.
Basso.
Lovely bit of ground. He went right and wouldn’t return to the middle of the beat preferring to hunt short casts on the extremity of the right . Out!
Flake.
Flake didn’t really have a chance. Her brace mate had three false points and long work outs badly disrupting the whole run. Originally thinking Flake had made the second round Shaun was subsequently told by the judges that they had mixed up numbers 22 and 23 and that he wasn’t back after all.
Sunday 27th.
Shaun has taken Coco and Basso to Yorkshire for bird work and Flake and Enzo are now at Beechfield. Flake to run in a few trials and Enzo for rehoming.
Black Mountain.
18c. WNW 7.4 < 14.8 mph. Cloud overhead but sunny elsewhere.
Flake and Enzo.
A sort of a shakedown.
Enzo.
Let him off the lead, he made one cut right, but when he disappeared left I literally didn’t see him for a half an hour. Just as I finished with Flake and was putting her on the lead he appeared behind me and threw himself at my feet where he started to howl. At first I thought he had been hit on the road or injured himself some other way but after I had felt him hard all over I think it was just relief at seeing me again. Although he was on the lead his right ear didn’t leave my knee the whole way back down to the car.
Flake.
Plus Points :- Runs hard when she wants to. Her lines are particularly good.
Minus Points :- While she looks fit and runs like a fit dog she piddles about on scent some times the way an unfit dog would do. Sort of looking for an excuse to stop. I think this is a concentration thing. She needs to be kept running for longer in each spell even if she isn’t getting game.
I think I will feed her up a bit and may even put her on “Racer” to give her the added desire to run longer.
Murley Mountain.
Started off misty but cleared over the day and cool but bright sunshine by the afternoon.
Chris.
Seemed like the dog nearest to ready for this sort of stake. Drawn first brace he ran well in heavy ground and had a back to command on Desi Linton’s Craigrua Kansas. It was hard work to hold him and I had to stand in front of him to keep him steady but he made the second round.
This time against Desi’s Int.F.T.Ch. Craidrua Osprey we weren’t running two minutes before both dogs pointed the same snipe from different angles. Neither dog produced the bird, it got up itself and the big bugger broke after it. Having been laid up originally because of his elbow and then when Tam gave him a lutterin’ he is out of practice and needs tightened up again on his steadiness. The one aspect of his work that needs constant practice. He will be hearing the drop whistle in his sleep and the great thing is it can all be done here, around Beechfield, with the pigeons.
The Signal Centre and The Big Res.
Curate’s Egg sort of day.
First of all I took Flake and Bitch to the Signal Centre. I let Flake run about while I laid out the creanse and then I fed Bitch on the fist making her fly the length of the creanse. Worked Ok but it proved that 1 – 15 – 1/8 is sharp enough for the back garden where there are relatively few distractions but isn’t quite sharp enough for a strange place. She got her name from the first word I said when I saw her for the first time and she tickled the back of my right hand with her points. Flake then got another bit of a gallop. She had hematoma emptied from both ears yesterday and isn’t quite recovered from the effects of the anesthetic and the pain. One was so deep in her ear that the drain had to come out the back of her ear through the cartilage. Very painful the vet tells me.
I took Chris, the manual bird launcher and two pigeons to the Big Res. He pointed the first one Ok. Held well back and was as steady as a rock on the flush and dropped really easy after he had cleared the ground to the launcher. Having put out the second bird he ran round to the other side of the water and refused to come back preferring to walk along beside a lady dog walker. The more I called the less inclined he seemed to obey. He knew he was in the wet brown stuff when I went and put him on the lead. The dogs back home were going ape s*** listening to all this. I hauled him round to the bird, released it and gave him his pedigree backwards. He seemed suitably chastened but then wagged his tail when he was back in the box. Skitter!
The Signal Centre.
1.1 mph 13.5c. Bright but cloud overhead.
Took Chris and three pigeons to the Signal Centre. Explained what was required with the drop whistle.Planted the birds one after another and worked him in after he pointed each time. He was steady as a rock. Chris is no dozer and he knew from the minute that he got out of the car what was going on but I wasn’t seeking to hone his quartering skills just his manners around game. When he has his find this weekend it won’t have been six weeks since the last and he’ll fully understand the drop whistle.
My records show Roxy coming into season on the 8th of August. I came back from working Chris and noticed some blood on the back of Lucky’s neck. I felt all over him and could find no sign of a fight. It struck in a flash. I lifted Roxy’s tail and she is in season again. This is going to be some three weeks. Flake living in the house and Roxy in the single kennel. Where’s Tam going to go?
Rathgael.
A few entries ago I mentioned that the first dog to win both the Northern Ireland Pointer Club’s and The Irish Pointer Club’s breed stakes in the one year was F.T.Ch. Prince of Darkness back in 1998. This year Bone Apart, Jimmy Dalton’s pointer dog emulated his great grand sire and pulled off the same feat. He has now gone one better. The Irish Pointer Club run a breed stake on pheasant and Boney won that as well weekend before last. I reckon that that earns him a place in the history books. In case you need reminding Bone Apart is a Glencuan dog by Lisenaire Luke Skywalker X Exile on Main Street. Once again Boney is a Glencuan dog………………………………………………shouldn’t go on too much about it.
Glarryford.
13.5c warm when walking, hardly an air.
“What we have here………….is a failure to communicate.”
The Warden in Cool Hand Luke.
Having done all the work successfully during the week I went off this morning worrying about very little other than would there be a bird. Chris set off in good style and was quartering nicely, staying relatively flat and after a couple of cuts he pointed. He hunted around but eventually broke off so we were put down again. Again he was much flatter than the other dog and again after a few cuts he pointed near a drain. When I say “drain” this was a drainage channel cut in the mature heather, perhaps nine inches to a foot wide and maybe fifteen inches deep. There are places where the heather partially obscures the drain and other place where it is quite open. When asked to produce Chris worked on for maybe forty yards crossing backwards and forwards over the drain but never very far from the drain. Eventually we saw the bird running along the drain bottom. Chris eventually put the bird under sufficient pressure and it flushed and the ******* big Danish **** ******* well chased it the *******, ran to where it pitched in, pointed it again and then pegged the cock when it had difficulty flushing from high white grass. Fhasam tasam rassam rick rastardedly. After six years of impeccable manners on the flush the big dog, in two weeks has run in twice. I will have to disabuse him of the thought that this is acceptable behaviour.
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