Gundog training and pheasants – 30th March 2008
A bit of a mixed weekend. Having decided to concentrate on proofing the drop against all distractions I found that yesterday the distractions were just too much, too early. I took her into the forest and wherever we turned she found pheasants, most of which where obviously either nesting or trying to do so. I wonder if, when nesting, pheasants can reduce their own scent as Grace, in all cases, flushed the birds from under her nose. I am sure she had little warning of their presence. In order to avoid this happening again I had to find ground with no birds.
As perverse as this may seem I decided that the most likely place to find barren ground was up on the moors. Not the places that I go throughout the late summer, autumn and winter but a very rough, unmanaged area of moorland, criss-crossed by motorcycles and walkers, and obviously suffering from the effects of heather beetle and a recent, uncontrolled burn. Its pretty sad really. To think that 75% of the world’s heather moorland is in the UK, and the stuff we have here in Wales seems to be degenerating before our very eyes.
Anyway, I took Grace to a patch I knew was degenerate and we walked its edge, cutting back into the wind to quarter an area about 200 metres across in a straight line back to the landrover (arrowed). She dropped to the whistle every time which was great and even dropped to the raised arm signal alone when returning to me. All in all a pretty good half hour. As predicted we found no birds, no scent and virtually no peace as a group of motorcyclists turned up, ripping the peat up as they past. I give this are of moorland another ten years at best. I must stress that I wouldn’t ever train her free-running on a productive area of moorland at this time of year. We then headed for formal training classes where, amongst other things, we practiced her drop between other dogs. This was ok…not great, but ok. If I can crack the drop with the distraction of other dogs around her it should be far more durable out in the field…that’s the theory anyway!
