Nick and Ted, and pup Percy
With Ted finally able to flex his hunting muscles, Nick Ridley starts to address young Percy’s joie de vivre
At long last there is a small glimmer of light on the horizon and gradually bit by bit I can see some kind of normality coming back into our lives. Over the past few weeks, I have been hearing some positive vibes about this coming shooting season and that bodes well for the dogs. I was genuinely worried that it would be really difficult to find work for both Ted and Percy this year but in fact my diary is already getting booked up and although I fully understand that this could all change I am feeling really positive and looking forward to the winter months.
Last month I mentioned a local shoot that was starting up again and just this weekend I was asked by the new gamekeeper if I could pop over and run Ted through his release pens just to make sure that there were no lurking predators hiding in the cover that could take full advantage of the young poults when they arrive later this week. It was a warm morning but it was a good chance to give Ted a good workout although I did feel under a little bit of pressure as Michael the keeper had seen the dog on my YouTube videos and I was a little concerned that his expectations would be shattered. The first pen was massive and full of nettles and stick piles, great cover for the poults but not enjoyable for dogs or humans alike. I am always fascinated the way that Ted can tell the difference between training hunting and proper hunting, it must be the fact that normally when I train I am by myself but this time there were four of us lined out at the back of the pen and I guess it resembled more the atmosphere of a shoot day.
It had been some months since I had worked the little dog with any degree of seriousness, in fact it was long before the lockdown when I was up in Cumbria on the fells for a flying visit, so I wasn’t too sure how he would go. At the end of last season he really had gone a bit feral and I felt that it was all I could do to hold him in any kind of hunting pattern, but to my surprise (and delight) as we progressed through the cover he actually went quite nicely and to be honest he settled into the job really well. The shoot has been dormant for nearly six seasons so there are very few birds left on the ground but we did see a cock and a hen pheasant and a pair of partridge which are obviously by now true wild birds as there are no other shoots in the vicinity.
All in all, it was a very pleasurable few hours and as we drove to the last pen, I contemplated whether or not to give Percy the pup a run. The little dog really has
“As soon as Percy saw the other dogs it was game on!”
matured over the past month and he is turning into a cracking looking cocker. One of the main negativities of the lockdown for Percy was that he hasn’t really had the opportunity to mix or even meet many other dogs and this is obviously a part of his education that is very important as come shoot days there will be plenty of other dogs milling about and I need him to ignore them and concentrate of the job at hand.
If I was slightly apprehensive about running Ted in front of the new ‘keeper I was very apprehensive about giving Percy a spin, but I have always had the mantra that in gundog training you should always take advantage of situations that may present themselves and this was by far too good an opportunity to pass by.
Lust for life
I got Percy out of the dog box and he was like a coiled spring that every now and again would expand and ping him into the air, he really does enjoy life and he makes me laugh so much. As soon as he saw the other dogs it was game on! The temptation of seeing four other dogs in front of him was just a
bit too much. I opted to go to the far side of the pen so that I had the wire on one side of me so at least I had a physical boundary on one side. I always train my dogs to sit quietly by my side or in front of me as during a shoot day there will always be periods when you are either waiting for a drive to start or picking up or shooting on a peg and you just have to wait for the action to start.
Percy has already shown me that despite his high drive personality he also has a really good off switch and I was really happy that he sat nicely in front of me watching the occasional butterfly or bee go about their business. Over the past few weeks I have really been concentrating on Percy’s hunting skills and overall I am quite happy with what I am seeing, he has quite a nice natural pattern and is fearless in cover but he is also beginning to pull me about and this is something I really need to get on top of.
The expression “pulling me about” is a strange one and may well only be relevant in the gundog world, it basically means that (normally) a spaniel starts to increase the distance it is hunting from the handler and may also lose its desired side-to-side hunting pattern. This normally occurs as the dog grows in confidence and starts to realise what its nose is for. In the early days this occurrence can exacerbate itself when the dog is working on scenty ground or indeed finds scent, it is s a fine balance between letting a young dog learn what scent is but also keeping a level of discipline in his hunting and this is exactly where I am with young Percy. Anyway, back to the release pen, after a few minutes I was given the okay and I clicked him off. He now fully understands that a click of my tongue means nose down time to hunt and find something, up until now the ‘something’ has been a fur ball or small dummy but I have been leaving his practice hunting longer and longer before putting down a find for him.
Obviously in the real world he may have to go quite a while before finding his quarry, so I need to gradually build up his stamina and drive and desire to keep going.
Unfortunately we didn’t have very much cover on our side of the pen and it was quite open but we got into a bit of a pattern and he stayed with me which I was really pleased about, even when one of the other dogs came over I was able to call him straight back off and hunt him on the opposite side. It was a good lesson and one I was glad I took the chance to try, it could have gone very wrong, but we got away with it. I have now also had it confirmed that there will be plenty of dogging in over the next few months so hopefully I can really push on with his training, I have an aim to try and work him later in the season but we will wait and see how he gets on.