Walking to heel – 14th October 2008

We went up onto the heather late this afternoon for an hour and a half. The initial walk to get there from the road takes about 15 minutes and the path winds its way between areas of gorse, rowan, birch, and bracken. This is, I suppose, a typical moorland edge and will eventually take over the entire moorland if more aggressive management isn’t reinstated at some time, but this is an aside. The area, whilst no good for grouse, does hold a good number of pheasants. This is especially true now as the shooting season has started lower down the valley driving the birds up to this area of relative peace and quiet.

With this in mind, as the last thing I want is Grace tearing about in the undergrowth putting up pheasants, I keep her on a lead until we are into the wider expanses of heather moorland. It is a useful exercise and one that needs to be quite disciplined for it to work. Grace is made to walk to heel on a loose lead for this section of the walk. If I let her pull the lead taught she becomes distracted by the scent of pheasant and pulls all over the place winding herself up in the process. By making her walk to heel she seems to have to channel all of her energy into this task, ignoring the attractions that lay alongside the route. I walk with her chest level with my knee. If she moves ahead too far I stop and she steps back. Only when she is level with my knee do we move forward again. This does work and is the closest I have managed to get to walking to heel. I am not sure if she will ever walk to heel better than this but, in reality, I am not sure that I really care.

Before she is released I make her hup, remove the lead, then let her go with a ‘get on’. You can almost sense the impending explosion of energy before she launches herself into a flat out run. She quartered well and recalled without any hesitation. I even dropped her to the sound of a pheasant taking flight in the valley below without a problem. All went well, even with no grouse and horizontal rain.