Dog goes off like a shot... but only if guns are silent
LAST week I watched the Derbyshire Dales District Council’s planning committee allow a clay-pigeon shooting club to extend the number of days per year it can operate from 28 to 215.
I quite like clay-pigeon shooting. I’m absolutely rubbish at it, but it’s good fun and a safe and ethical way to wield a shotgun which, no arguments please, makes you feel more manly than just about anything else you can do.
But I have a dog that is reactive to bangs. Rupert, my five-year-old cockapoo, is incredibly laid back and, as a rule, nothing fazes him, but for some reason fireworks and guns terrify him. And yes, I am aware that both his parents – spaniel and poodle – were gundogs.
He also loves jumping around on rocks. When he was quite young we took him to Harboro Rocks near Brassington, a fascinating limestone outcrop right next door to the claypigeon shooting club.
Rupert was in his element, chasing up and down with my wife and I desperately trying to keep up with the happiest dog in the world. He’s usually not a great one for exercise and physical exertion, but there’s something about Derbyshire limestone that pushes his buttons. But the guns weren’t firing that day.
And when, a few years later, we went back to Harboro rocks to let him indulge his inner mountain goat once again, the guns were incessant. Getting him out of the car was hard enough.
Picking up a trembling dog is like trying to lift a small washing machine that’s on its spin cycle. We hoped that, when he realised where he was, his excitement would overtake his fear – but all he wanted to do was race back to the car with his head down and his tail between his legs.
So now Harboro Rocks, and much of the High Peak Trail, will be offlimits to us because we can’t bear to have another walk ruined by a dog who just wants to find a quiet corner to cower in.
I’m not pinning any blame on the shooting club. It’s great to see it thriving, and these pursuits have to happen somewhere.
And it’s not as if it’s just guns that are the problem either. Fireworks night we can cope with, we just dose him up with Rescue Remedy, strap him into a “Thundershirt” and play some 1970s rock music until the displays die down. But we’re now entering the season of the bird-scarers. And it can wreak havoc with our holiday plans.
We’re big fans of Lincolnshire, but any swathe of arable land will, quite rightly, need to be protected from birds who could devour thousands of pounds of crops in one sitting, so farmers use gas bangers to frighten them away. Obviously, Rupert hates them.
A few years ago an idyllic evening spent on a picturesque Fenland campsite surrounded by fields of oats was completely written off because poor old Rupert was a quivering wreck every five minutes as the bangs repeatedly fired.
If you have a reactive dog, you have my every sympathy. There’s really nothing you can do but seek shelter and hope the noises end soon. Watching your pet being traumatised by something they don’t understand is awful.
And if you have any tips on how to ease his distress, then please write in and let me know.
It would be great if we could enjoy even one more weekend trip to Rupert’s favourite place in the world without him descending into an undignified panic.
Watching your pet being traumatised by something they don’t understand is awful