Very self indulgent I know, but this is the link to my site/blog. I will post the individual posts from the start of 2009 and if people find it interesting I will continue to post the entries individually.
For those that haven't come across Glencuan before the main participants are,
Judy, Exile on Main Street, Pointer bitch. Open stake winner.
Roxy, Oxspring Roxanne, Pointer bitch. Open stake winner.
Jalad, Ballincoher Barcley, Pointer dog. Open stake awards.
Jump, Ir.F.T.Ch. Sugarloaf Bold. Pointer dog.
Bess, Cuan Black Bess, Pointer bitch. On transfer list.
Chris, Toftens Chris, Pointer dog. Open stake awards in Denmark.
Gina, Glencuan Orangina, Pointer bitch. On transfer list.
Coco, Cookstown Cocopop, Pointer dog pup.
Tam, Julchris Super Trooper, Clumber dog. Shooting dog.
Basso, Oksby Basso, Pointer dog.
Ross, Ross O'Neile #2 son.
Jay, Jay Black grandson.
Don't hesitate to ask questions. You may learn something, even if it's only how not to train a dog.
Beechfield.
Roxy is now out of season so things should settle down, at least until she has to be seperated from Chris to whelp. He will not be impressed, however he should be impressed tomorrow as he is dogging with Tam. Tam’s sore paw from Monday has disappeared but although it has scabbed over well he had a wound right on the top of his head. Elsewhere Judy has shown no ill effects from her run on the mountain but Basso seems to have a problem with his right eye which is slightly swollen and he blinks it a bit from time to time.
Co. Tyrone
Clear and bright. Highest temperature 3.5c more like 1c most of the time There were very thin layers of ice on the cattle drinkers.Hardly an air all day.
The only bad thing about today was that this season just has to be down hill after this. It would be nice but it can’t get much better.
A big Danish blond taught me a thing or two today and he had four legs, Chris. I thought I had seen everything you could expect of a gundog over the last thirty years but Chris pulled off a new one, to me at any rate.
I asked and received the agreement of the guns as to what I wanted to achieve today and that was to get the hunt, point, retrieve scenario polished off with Chris. For a long time it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. First off I waited by the nettles at one end of The Orchard. A hen pheasant was shot, dead as a door nail, easy pick up later…Ha! Spent a good fifteen minutes with Tam but couldn’t bring it to hand. I went and got Chris from the car to do the same expanse of rank heather as Monday. I was in the rain forest with one gun, the other two walked the grass field. Chris slowed right down but just before he pointed a woodcock flushed and flew back. Bang, dead woodcock…………………..the other side of not one but two, just about water tight sheep fences. Damn! A gun picked it by hand. About twenty yards further on he pointed, just his tail and rear end showing from high rushes. I warned the guns in the field and put the big dog in. A cock pheasant flushed, two shots, but the only thing to come down was one of the cock’s legs. ******* hell! I was loosing the will to live.
We finished off the hedge/fence line and my gun and I turned away to do the rest of the enclosure. After about ten minutes Chris slowed right down and eventually stopped on one of the game tracks running all through the high cover. I positioned the gun further forward and away out to the right. I walked in beside Chris and he roaded in slowly eventually turning off the track and pointing into high but loose brambles. I stepped into the brambles and a hen pheasant flushed going out at an awkward angle for the gun. I was concentrating on the dog but there was only one shot and out of the corner of my eye I saw a hen pheasant fall about forty yards in front of me, the other side of a narrow stream. The gun’s opinion was that it was dead. I gave Chris the “Aporte” command and he rushed forward only to bang on to point just this side of the stream and a good twenty yards short of the bird. I reckoned he had miss marked but as I walked in beside him another hen flushed but the gun was open and it wasn’t fired at. Chris jumped the stream but he went round the cover to search for the more recent bird. I was able to drop him and get him back to the area of the fall and he eventually pointed into rushes and when encouraged he emerged with the dead hen pheasant. Backward somersaults through hoops of fire without the aid of a net!
Several more parcels of ground were done before lunch but nothing was achieved other than a bit of good teamwork between Chris and The Blunder. After lunch we went down to the river. I was to walk along the anglers’ path down by the river and attempt to keep the dogs up the bank which must be about thirty to forty feet high in places and covered with dense brambles and whinns, with a gun stationed at the far end, about three hundred yards along the river bank. You are going to love this, I did. There isn’t usually much happens until you are about halfway along the path. Chris and Tam were hunting methodically up and down the bank. About three quarters down the path I eventually saw Chris on point right at the top of the bank, beside the fence and crouched down looking at the base of a tree. I was negotiating a fallen tree and I don’t know if the bird flushed loose or Chris put it up but it flapped up against the fence and then headed out across the river. It started off about forty feet above me and it was well above the treeline and heading for the safety of the far bank when when it was shot. Just as nice a high pheasant, with a curl, as I have ever seen. It fell right in the middle of the river but never fear Super Blunder launched himself (This is Blunder Speak for walked down and entered the water) into the river and started to swim upstream and out towards the bird. He snaffled it at the first go and he was back to the bank before he was down stream of me. Up the bank and bird delivered to hand. More backward somersaults!
Couldn’t get any better. Or could it?
More sterling teamwork followed and then Chris broke out the good wine. The gun and I had just crossed an old dilapidated fence. The dogs were out in front and birds started to flush and fly out of coppicing, quartering away towards the right side of our direction of travel. Towards more coppicing with a bramble and whinn floor and surrounded by low whinns. Bang, count two, bang. Hen pheasant down to the right, just short of the coppice, and a cock bird down about thirty yards to the left of it, again just short of the coppice. Hen probably needed picking first. The dogs hunted hard for no return. I gave up on the hen and went to look for the cock. No result there either despite high excitement from the dogs. They visited the two fall sites and were in and out of the coppice till my head spun. A measured approach was required. Back to the fall of the hen. It was a relatively flat area in the white grass, about the size of a hearth rug. I blew no whistles or gave no commands in fear of calling a dog off the line. I went back to the fall to call the dogs in.
There is something that pointers do when they are tired. They make a bed. They pull up heather and turn round and round and eventually lie down. My dogs usually only do it when caught in hail or snow on the mountain. Chris started doing it at my feet. It was an exaggerated action. He was pulling the grass up and nearly throwing it over his shoulder. I thought ” This big dog is going to expire on me or something” After about the sixth mouthful in the air he stuck his head down into the white grass, down till I couldn’t see his ears, and emerged with the hen by the tail feathers.????????????????????????????????????????????????? **** me pink and call me Rosie. Within a foot of my right toe!!!!!
Just at this a gun appeared and I elicited his help to look for the cock. Again we went to the fall and let the dogs hunt about with no distractions in the way of commands. They were in and out of the coppice, round and round the tree and covered a heap of ground very thoroughly. As we were going to loose the day we decided to give it best. I turned round to call Chris and saw him on point in the coppice. Now he had been in this area a few time, in fact all three dogs had. Calling Tam after me I ploughed through the brambles. Once in the coppice the cover was a bit more open. Chris was pointing into a clump of light brambles. He worked round them a few times and pointed again before Tam blarged in and the cock ran off along the ground with Chris in hot pursuit. It went about fifteen yards to the right and Chris tried to lift it but it nutmegged him and headed off to the left in a hurry with Chris an Tam after it. It was running in more light brambles but Chris cared not a jot and eventually he pinned it to the floor before bringing it to hand. If ever a dog looked pleased it was Chris. Me too.
The end was rather mundane by comparison. I beat out The Orchard and when I was finished there were two pigeons and a hen to look for. The pigeons were picked by hand and Chris hunted the rushes for the hen eventually swaggering up to a clump of rushes and brambles and pointing. I really can’t remember why it was decided for me to take Chris away and allow a gun’sspaniel to make the retrieve of the very much alive but tucked in hen but that’s what happened.
Some day, eh?
Beechfield.
It has been cold here overnight, most nights of late and I have decided to feed twice a day. I haven’t upped the rations yet, except for Roxy but I give about two thirds in the evening and the other third in the morning.
Roxy is about four weeks gone and already she has started to thicken about the waist. Roxy is always ravenous at feeding times but she has now started to steal from Chris’ bowl and he is such a soft big crater that he just walks away and lets her. I don’t want to bloat her but I don’t want to starve her either so I will just have to monitor her closely. She has made a new coat and is in really good form.
Bit of a boot in the swingers as regards dog food. Buying a pallet a time the last delivery cost me £6.16 a bag/ but as it is sourced south of the border and the pound has depreciated against the euro, and, changes in vat rates in the south our price for the next pallet is going to work out at something like £10.03 a bag! If we go ahead with it.
The Battery, Coagh.
Jay and I headed off at seven this morning to pick up a new pup. The pup I wasn’t going to take as a stud fee, but then I made the fatal mistake. I went to look. Not to look a Coco, but at a brother of his that Eamon thought might be going to be a self coloured white dog but there were touches of colour in his coat. The moment I saw the big, strong liver dog I was in trouble. I remembered saying to the falconers who came to pick up their black pups out of Bess’ litter that in parting with the dogs I was making a big mistake. Well when I looked at this big liver dog I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
The day started off in truly spectacular fashion. The sun rose in the deepest dark red sky that I had ever seen. I remember looking from the foothills of Mount Sinai towards Saudi into a very deep orange sky but never anything like today. It wasn’t just me either for when I called into Charlie Keenan’s in Toome to look for waterproof trousers for Jay he said he had felt compelled to get his camera out.
The pup’s name is Cookstown Cocopop and he will get Coco. He is by Jalad out of a bitch from Davy Shaw’s litter that was sired by Jump and there is Jump, Bold ,Roi and the USA import Blackadder in the bitch so it is at least well bred. I didn’t remember to weigh him but he hasn’t been bullied at the trough and it takes all his body weight to keep feet the size of side plates on the floor. He looks good except for blocked glands in his upper eyelids which should be easily sorted and ears full of mites which Thornit will cure. I took him to the vet for his first jab and she took the points off his nails. He is out in the run with Basso and Gina and I have yet to hear a murmer other than play growling but that is mostly Gina and Basso.
Last edited by Des O'Neile on Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
Monday 12th January 2009.
Beechfield.
Coco is settling in well. The most important thing is that he is feeding readily and I already have him changed over to about half and half of what he was getting at Eamons and what I intend to feed him. I take him in his grub in a bowl and he gets stuck in right away. I sit in the doorway to keep Basso and Gina away and I keep the bowl right beside me and already he will take food from my hand. It’s easy to tell when he’s had enough as he then wants to go out for a drink. This then heralds a five minute manic session where he wants to play so I give him the full treatment. I pull him about by all and sundry parts of his body, roll him over and generally batter him about and he absolutely loves it. It is nice to see that when he hears the gate he is out of the box like a shot and comes straight to me to get fed.
It is also nice to see that I have another baby sitter in Basso. He is so laid back with other dogs and now I see it with pups as well. The only dog that wanted to hump Coco was Tam which isn’t that much of a surprise but the only dog that showed an intention to harm him was Jalad, his father!. His nose was right out of joint but he settled down eventually though I won’t be putting them together any time soon.
I wanted to get out this weekend but with the pup on Saturday and a promise of rain for Sunday I didn’t make it. It’s hard to imagine but the first trial is on 7th February.
Glenarm Castle.
The annual trip for the Lachan Gun Club members that I get invited to. I usually shoot on these days so I didn’t really know what to expect. I reckoned I would spend most of the day beating and that’s what I did but the big dog got ample opportunities to retrieve as well.
Started off bright and frosty, about 0 c. For once the weather forecast did exactly what it said on the tin and the wind picked up by dinner time and by three o’clock we had driving rain but we had the bulk of the bag by then in anticipation so our day wasn’t unduly spoiled.
The Bag.
54 pheasants
9 woodcock
1 snipe.
For me this was a very enjoyable but still not perfect day. There were numerous good things but three disappointing things. 97% good, 3% bad.
The bad.
Putting the Skodapop up the kerb not one hundred yards from the front door. Black ice. No obvious damage. Tam’s refusal to carry the snipe and a cock pheasant that he dropped in between boulders and couldn’t bring to hand after crossing the river, climbing the bank and hunting for it. An ultra soft mouth can be a burden some times.
The Good.
We started off doing decayed woodland interspersed with wet rushy patches heavy with white grass. It must have taken a good hour to do this long strip. My gun accounted for two pheasants and Tam flushed five woodcock, none of which were shot but a total of four were brought to hand and another lost believed held up in high blackthorn.
We did a shorter bit of the same type of cover in reverse but few birds were produced although my gun accounted for two cocks.
We next did a large expanse of high grass, in a line. All this time Tam had been hunting well. He had taken the odd line but in a heavily populated estate lines can seen interminable as the dog goes from one scent line to another, however apart from getting the wrong side of bushes he was still in gunshot, mostly. This high grass yielded maybe one hundred birds although not all were shootable. As we approached the end of this parcel of ground Andy shot a cock bird well forward but it fell as a runner, heading off to the fence line at pace. Eventually Robert Luff’s dog Skye brought the bird to hand. A very accomplished retrieve. I almost forgot about Tam’s snipe. He had hunted well the whole time and was doing about as near to quartering as Blunders will condescend to do when we approached a small damp patch. He pushed the snipe which was shot within twenty yards and he hunted to it, picked it up but more or less spat it out and refused to bring it to hand. Just before that however he had pleased me no end pushing a number of well tucked in birds from dense tussocky grass and making a couple of retrieves.
The Chablis having been quaffed and the pate scoffed we next did another bit of open grassy ground interspersed with the odd hedge line and trees. Right at the start, standing by the bridge my gun downed a cock bird that bounced on the ground no more that ten yards away and disappeared over the edge of a low cliff. Tam didn’t even break his stride as he went after it. Robert, the keeper, wondered how we would get the dog out of the river and up the bank again but never fear. Super Blunder sails up over the edge and deposits the bird at my feet. Robert was quite impressed and I was as pleased as punch. No more than fifty yards further on he did it again. A hen bird quartering left to right from behind was dropped near the river’s edge on the right, and right in the middle of a clump of tall black thorn. I see this sort of cover quite often In Ireland. The bottom four or maybe even five feet of the blackthorn plant are as straight as a die. They are well spaced out and if it wasn’t for the top you could quite easily walk through them without touching them. The top of these plants is a different matter. The branches from all the plants meld together and you end up with a blanket of blackthorn three feet thick, suspended five feet off the ground and this clump might have covered a tennis court. Tam was in the cover agood ten minutes. By bending down I could see him from time to time, working in the same area. I can’t say for certain exactly what happened but the bird was still alive when brought to hand, just. I suspect that the bird pitched into the canopy but whether it fell from the bush near death or Tam managed to pull it down I can’t say. Anyway, another fine retrieve. It was down in this river bed that my gun shot a beauitful high cock bird. It landed on the far bank, dead as Hector. It took a bit o’doing but I got Tam across the river and eventually up the bank (He seemed convinced the bird was under a slight overhang and still in the water.) where he picked the bird. He went down stream on the far bank looking for an easy entry point and when crossing some strewn boulders he dropped the bird down a gap in the stones and couldn’t get it again. It was picked by hand. It was a good enough bit of work anyway but it would have been nice if he had completed it.
I only have the time to tell you about my dog. There was plenty of other sterling work done by other dogs. In fact the retrieve made by Matthew the under keeper’s dog of a wounded woodcock that couldn’t make more than about two foot off the ground but could still go like stink was impressive by anybody’s standards.
So it was a fantastic day all round and Tam seems to be getting better by the outing. It appears that the presence of other dogs brings out the best in him.
Thursday 15th January 2009
Beechfield.
After a word with Eamon to tell him just how pleased I am with my Cadbury coloured pointer I realised that he needed to be de-wormed again. I weighed him and have to admit to being surprised to find he is bang on 10 kg. I was so surprised that I went to check in my weight records for other litters but they only go to about eight weeks. The weight alone doesn’t tell the full story, he is a big strong lump of a dog and he is very responsive, but then I have worked very hard at it.
Co Tyrone.
Another Ronseal weather forecast, wind strengthening from the west to gale force and rain by mid afternoon. It was a bit unnerving working in the woodland, which is decaying, and both see and hear large bits of dead wood falling, mostly into the river, thank goodness. On the way home anywhere there were trees near the motorway a lot of small debris had been blown onto the road and that combined with heavy driving rain and wind made driving, well interesting.
The birds were there but just not where we expected them to be. In addition they were jumpy probably due to the weather conditions and the attentions of a dog fox that we didn’t get a shot at. That said in the three hours we were out we bagged five hen pheasants and a rabbit. Several woodcock were produced but I don’t think any were actually fired at.
For the first time this year I beat out The Orchard and failed to produce a bird. We then went and did the long version of the river walk. I was down on the path with a gun, and Chris and Tam worked the bank. Early on Chris disappeared in the area of an ash tree heavily covered with ivy. I thought he was on point somewhere behind the tree and when I got near the tree a woodcock flushed from maybe ten feet up the tree but it didn’t offer a shot. When I got round the tree there was Chris standing on his hind legs with his front legs about five feet up the tree. Pointing up into the branches where the woodcock had flushed from.
After maybe another ten a minutes a bird was shot and it fell out over the valley in line with where I was working. I could clearly see the bird, well up the bank, and I thought as Chris seemed to have it well marked in low thin brambles that it would be to hand in no time. I don’t believe that Tam had it marked but jealousy is a wonderful spur and he ran to where the pointer was trying to locate the bird. They both farted about for maybe a minute but eventually Tam eye-wiped Chris and brought the hen to hand.
After maybe another five minutes Tam took a line up the bank, under the fence, and into a hedge in the field where he pushed a rabbit that was shot. Tam hadn’t it marked and I couldn’t see him to direct so the gun picked the dead rabbit by hand. We pushed out the rest of the river bank but no further birds showed.
For once I went forward along the tributary to act as a stop but couldn’t prevent about two dozen birds, mostly hens flushing in the direction of the rushy field. It wasn’t all the birds though and I think three were accounted for.
In the aforementioned rushy field I usually work Tam along the hedge but with the pointer in good form I headed for the open ground. After working down wind for about fifty yards Chris pointed in my direction. I called for guns and also called Chris towards me and almost at my feet a hen flushed. The left hand gun couldn’t get the safety off and the right hand gun missed with both barrels. A glorious chance for the old, hunt, point retrieve lost.
As the weather was deteriorating fast I beat out The R.M.’s garden. This is near the cow sheds and I couldn’t take a gun in with me. You would nearly think the birds new the circumstances as I could see, not exactly droves of them, slipping along the other side of the hedge in the field towards the safety of the farm. However not all of them got away and Chris pointed and produced several, two of which were shot. In addition Chris pointed into the branches of a fallen poplar that Tam had ignored. The pointer couldn’t get into the branches against the flow, so to speak, and neither could Tam but he barged in from the side, almost lifting the tree and releasing the bird which unfortunately didn’t attract a shot.
As you know we ended up with five birds and a rabbit. Sitting at home watching Ulster beat Harlequins we would have got nothing, no birds, no walk, no hunt and no opportunity to share great dog work so I feel like a self satisfied Old Hector. I am going to feed the dogs and maybe have a glass or two of Baliey’s, over ice, later on.
See ya.
Black Mountain.
SW 3 - 4. 3c but feeling a lot colder. Bright but no sun.
I did a lot better than I thought I would when at home. I did ten times better than I thought when I saw residual sleet on the high tops and I did a hundred times better than I thought when I saw some idiot throwing dummies for his lab in the middle of my best snipe spot.
With shooting taking a lot of time just recently Basso and Jalad haven’t had a lot of time on the heather so this was a big blow out for them. It was also a fact finding operation. We have had nothing short of a drought up to very recently and this, combined with frost, has kept the snipe off the hill. I wanted to see if any were back. I thought there was a chance of hard ground so I didn’t take Judy. Judy is in her ninth year and with her having been lame late last year I didn’t want to take any risks with her. This will probably be her last year in competition and I want her both sound and fit for the summer. Roxy is of course in pup.
I parked at The Gap and just ran through the back of the quarry, (notwithstanding the disturbance), over the shoulder and onto the middle flat. I reckoned that would tell me what I wanted to know. Both dogs ran hard and were hunting hard. Jalad covered the most ground but was a tad wayward. Other than to back Basso he never broke his stride and you could see he was enjoying himself. Basso was doing his best but he kept getting tied up with old scent. I now believe there may have been a considerable number of snipe moved off the hill by the erstwhile dog trainer.I know that Empty Head as a more than adequate nose but I suppose his extra experience over Basso means he is more able to tell a haunt from a bird. In any event Basso seemed the more likely to have a find and that is exactly how it worked out.
I was still on the up slope of the shoulder and Basso was crossing me at pace. On the way out to the right he whipped round no more than fifteen yards away, no, more like twenty five. Right away I could tell he had a bird. Smaller than Chris he still has some traits of his Da’s. There is NO movement when he is pointing. No quivering, no flicking the tail, nothing. Jalad was going to cross well in front so I called him back and the moment he saw Basso he backed.
I should have had the camera, again! Beauitful back, foot up and all. With Jalad in Basso’s eyeline it was difficult to get him to go in so in getting him to move I lost control of Jalad. In any event Basso was steady to the flush which was no more than five feet in front of him.
There were a few thing I noticed today. I can now read Basso around game not least because he is very like Chris, his dad, who I can now read like a book. Basso has developed an extra yard of pace as he was not only able to keep in front of Jalad, on very good ground, on at least one occasion he reeled him in. There was however one thing I didn’t like. Several times Basso managed to trip up, or tripped himself up as much as got his front legs tangled in the heather. There is no excuse for him as there might be for Chris who was five years old when he arrived, Basso was only eleven months and has been on heather now for a year and a half. In any event the heather is short on the shoulder.
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