NickNic Ted
& Thanks to Mrs R, Nick Ridley is all fired up and primed to deal with ‘January dog’ syndrome if Ted tries it on
Anyone who works gundogs will, I am sure, have experienced the phenomenon known as “January dog”. Quite simply this is a timeframe in which your well-trained and normally reliable gundog thinks he knows better than you and will constantly try it on. The symptoms are easy to spot: runningin, pulling-on when hunting, going off the whistle and generally being an idiot.
As we entered the last month of the shooting season Ted had really found his feet and I was just about hanging on to his shirttails. Readers may well recall that this time last year I was concerned that Ted’s hunting was leaving a bit to be desired. That concern has long gone. The little dog really is flying and if there is a bird taking refuge in any kind of cover, he will root it out. Recently he has taken a few too many steps when flushing his quarry. Funnily enough, this is only when have been beating and he has remained totally steady during our rough shooting forays. However, this is something I need to nip in the bud rather than let develop into a habit.
New knowledge
In between the Christmas and New Year break we had two shooting trips and a day’s beating on the trot and I once again learnt something about the dog, including that he certainly has some stamina. On both days’ shooting I walked an average of seven miles. I have no idea how many miles he would have covered and although he was exhausted by the end of each day, he was raring to go again the next. Unfortunately, I was out of the shooting for most of the two days but we had the opportunity to do a bit of retrieving and Ted pulled off a couple of really impressive ones. But he really needs to work on his carriage of the birds as he nearly always picks them up awkwardly and that makes his return to me a bit more challenging for him.
During our days beating we also had to stand in and do a bit of picking-up, which I consider to be a “big ask” for any gundog, let alone a spaniel. One minute they are hunting hard and flushing birds, the next you are asking them to sit perfectly still and quiet and remain steady while birds are falling all around them. It takes a level-headed kind of dog to manage this change of skills.
On the subject of beating, I have really been suffering from what is colloquially called “flaggers elbow”. As a consequence, I have been the butt of many jokes and pretty constant Mickey-taking from my fellow beaters. I have never suffered from this ailment before and I can only put it down Ted takes up flag duty following Nick succumbing to ‘flaggers elbow’ to either my enthusiastic flag waving or my ageing joints. I can, however, confirm it is quite painful and not at all funny.
Christmas surprise
Staying with the theme of “January dog” and the fact that the shooting season will soon be ending, I have been thinking about the forthcoming working test season. I like entering retrieving-based tests but as I normally train on my own it can be difficult to train for some of the more distance exercises, as I don’t always have anyone to throw dummies. Mrs R kept pestering me about what I would like for Christmas and I cheekily said a “reliable dummy thrower”. One thing led to another and I started to do a bit of research on remote dummy launchers.
“I normally train on my own, which can make it difficult for the more distance exercises”