PEG DOG DEBATE
As a sporting agent, I have to say that I agree with much of the article regarding over-zealous pickers-up (Pushing out the peg dog, September issue). The first thing I do at a shoot is to speak with the keepers and beaters, then I tell the picking-up line how many dogs I have in the gun line and ask them to let the guns pick first. This normally goes down well though occasionally it falls down, mainly on shoots where the owner/tenant is not a “dog man”. Of course, there are occasions when birds need to be picked-up and dispatched as quickly as possible and, therefore, a picker-up is right to step in.
This season, I hope not to have a repeat of what happened to me a number of years ago at a wellknown shoot. The host for the day came up to me after the second drive complaining his birds were being picked-up during the drive and unsettling his new dog. The tenant and I spoke to the pickers-up who said they’d see it didn’t happen again. But it did. During the fourth drive my client came up to me fuming and said he was going home before he shot the offender’s dog. This was sad and embarrassing for his guests – and annoying for his son, who he left behind without transport. Another job for the sporting agent…
Jim Gale Horbling, Lincolnshire
Do I detect a whiff of paranoia in Peter Pennington Legh’s article? I accept that face-to-face communication appears to be a dying art but I suggest he reads up on it and tries it in the field. I have shot with a few Westcountry syndicates where the guns alternated between standing and beating. Dogs were essential – in fact, membership was often based on providing a working dog. Working my dogs was part of the enjoyment of the day.
During this time, I also beat on a couple of commercial shoots and in the ’70s took to picking-up for them. I must be lucky, as I do not recognise the description of the pickers-up whom your writer has had the misfortune to encounter.
On the relatively rare occasions when I happened to be behind a gun with a dog, I would approach the gun to establish what he wanted to do. Invariably, we were able to set ground rules that satisfied both parties. Usually this meant that he picked dead birds that fell in his vicinity. Runners and birds that fell well back would be mine. Picking-up behind the guns was carried out during the drive, otherwise the “seried ranks” of pickers-up would arrive late for the start of the following drive. Approached in this manner, I never had a dispute with a gun.
Mr Pennington Legh bemoans the fact that few guns now shoot with a dog. Two suggestions: maybe those paying a four-figure sum come to shoot; guns have begun to realise that deafness in peg dogs may not be hereditary. I haven’t yet seen a dog wearing ear defenders!
Tony Page
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