Adventures of Nick & Ted
Nick Ridley is excited by Twig’s early progress and what is in store for her and his two more experienced hands over the coming season
“She is soft in nature and very affectionate, but she has a bit of the devil sitting on her shoulder”
Age 78 months
It may be an illusion, but I am pretty sure that as you get older, time goes faster – and we always seem surprised about that. So, in time-honoured fashion, I can’t quite believe that Twig is already four months old.
It has been a pretty full-on period, with such a lot happening that it is hard to know where to begin. Twig is growing like mad and, looking at her build-wise, she takes after Percy; she has a broad chest and I think she is going to be a powerful little bitch, as she is already crashing through what remains of our flowerbeds, and she shows no fear. The amazing thing is that her markings are almost a carbon copy of Dott’s. It is remarkable, and I am sure that when she is fully grown we will get them mixed up. Personality-wise, she is a 50/50 split. She is quite soft in nature and is very affectionate, but she certainly has a bit of the devil sitting on her shoulder. She is also showing her desire to learn, which is most encouraging.
With Twig I have decided to once again use a placeboard for training. The very hot weather we have experienced over the summer has meant that I have had to take things slowly, which is no bad thing. The advantage of having more than one dog is that there needn’t be any rush. That said, I am under a bit of pressure, as we have been commissioned by The Shooting Show to produce a monthly series of training videos, which should keep me focused.
Quick
I have to say that I have never had a pup that has cottoned on to using a placeboard as quickly as Twig has. Ted was pretty sharp, but I can’t even get the board on the ground before Twig tries to get on it. I employ it for five to 10 minutes each evening and she loves it; her eye contact and focus are already coming along nicely. In a multi-dog household it is really important when you get a new pup that you spend plenty of time with it on your own to help to develop a bond. It is obvious when Dott or Percy are out with Twig that she is far more engaged with them than she is with me, so that one-to-one time is vital – but it is also very time consuming.
Another aspect of Twig’s early conditioning is trying to get her to develop a strong retrieving instinct. I am confident that her genes will mean she will be a little hunting machine, but I don’t want that to overshadow other aspects of her gundog work. I have been giving her little retrieves of a small dummy and making her realise this is a good game to play. I don’t want her to get bored or learn to run off with the retrieve, so I restrict this to the passage at the side of my house. She has quickly, ahem, twigged, so fingers crossed we can maintain this.
An annoying habit that she has been taught by the older dogs is how to collect a never-ending supply of sticks. I have no idea where they keep getting them from, but Twig by name, twig by nature, I guess. This presents me with a problem, as I don’t want her to keep eating them, but if I keep going after her to take them off her, she will very quickly start to run away, and I really do not want to develop that into a habit. Patience is therefore the name of the game, and
I am spending a lot of time calling and cajoling her to bring her ‘prize’ back to me.
Uncertainty
It has been touch and go as to what was happening on our local shoot and I was concerned as to whether we would have any beating this coming season. However, despite the shoot being let down with the poults, a deal was done and some ex-layers arrived a few weeks ago. With an early harvest it means Percy and Ted have been working hard dogging-in, trying to keep the birds within the boundaries of the shoot. My understanding is that ex-layers can be more difficult to hold, but the dry conditions we have had mean the birds need a reliable supply of water and the keeper has been working hard to ensure a constant supply in the drinkers and troughs. One advantage of having so many adult birds around is that the dogs are getting plenty of good flushes, which is a great way of getting them fit and also sharpened up for later in the year. I am particularly pleased with the way Percy is shaping up; he has just turned three and although I feel he has been slow to mature, over the past few months something seems to have changed and I am excited to see how he goes this coming season.
Ted certainly hasn’t been put on the back burner and he is once again showing how reliable he is, no matter how many birds are in front of him. At six, he is in his prime – both in his physicality and his experience. He has pretty well seen and done it all, yet still he maintains his enthusiasm. I have just returned from photographing his most recent litter and once again he has produced a mini-me pup. I know I am biased, but he does produce some cracking-looking offspring, and with luck we will see a few of them in the field this year as well.