More time on one’s hands
As Editor of The Field, an unruly gundog would just not do, says Jonathan Young. But as he hands over the reins, training the terriers may finally take precedence
DURING a long and varied shooting career I’ve been privileged to witness some outstanding dog work, from field trial spaniels, which are so clever they could fix your computer and rustle up a risotto in between making perfect retrieves, to huge-hearted labradors forging through choppy seas to collect a greylag slipping away on the ebb. And in those wet winter days when I’m confined to my study I dwell on all those canine companions that not only add to the bag but whose presence adds immeasurably to the day.
Some of them are undeniably glamorous. No one who’s shot over pointers and setters will drive homeward without that picture of functional beauty as the dogs flow over moor with effortless grace before freezing as they catch the hot scent of grouse or snipe. Some years ago I was fortunate enough to shoot with Raymond O’dwyer, keeper of the true working Irish red setter, and watching his charges gallop over the mountains is a spiritual experience. We shot 11 snipe that day and I consider it one of the best shooting days of my life.
Other dogs may not have those Hollywood looks but still have a long paragraph in the game diary for their sheer determination and character. Robbie the springer, for instance, is not included for his looks (he mostly resembled an Ikea coffee table covered in shagpile carpet) but for his cor-blimey-you-guns-are-useless attitude, extended particularly to his socalled owner. The latter might peep-peep on his whistle like a distressed moorhen but Robbie would utterly ignore him, disappear into cover 40 yards from where his master was trying to send him and unerringly return with the bird.
Some, however, have less favourable mentions in the game book, such as those canine hooligans that escape the beating line and plummet through the maize, flushing everything before No 8 gun has reached his peg. And we’d all have enough for dinner at the Ritz if we had a fiver for every time we’ve seen a dog charging from the line dragging a giant corkscrew and, on high days, a cartridge bag.
Happily, I’ve never owned such a brute but that’s because I know my limitations and have had only two gundogs over the past 50 years. The first was a beauty, a broken-coated, brindle lurcher of alsatian/collie/whippet parentage. If she’d been human she’d have gone up to Oxford aged 16, was death on rabbits yet would sit quietly and readily take to water to retrieve a foreshore duck. We only once had a disagreement. I’d killed a wigeon on a foggy January morning and could see it floating gently on the slack tide. I asked her to retrieve; she said no, repeatedly. Being young and stubborn, I stripped off, swam out and found it was a lump of log. When I returned to shore, there she was with a wigeon in her mouth.
The second was a bear-like labrador of gentle nature and impeccable breeding. He soaked-in all the basic training and would have made a brilliant gundog if I hadn’t let him ‘dash to the splash’. But when you’re mostly wildfowling that’s not such a terrible vice, especially if there’s a rip in the channel, and he was expert at marking a bird’s fall. His high point was a European white front goose – the only one I’ve ever shot – on evening flight on the Medway. His low point was a driven day in Cambridgeshire when he pretty much caught every dead bird before it hit the ground. As a Test match fielder he would have made his captain’s day but the shoot owner was distinctly unamused.
At the end of that day a friend – a good dogman – pulled me aside and said, “You’ll never have a decent gundog, JY, unless you can put in the time. And in your job, you can’t.”
He was right, of course. Whilst I’ve spent an enviable part of my life by river, moor and covert side, much has inevitably been spent travelling to and in offices, editing firstly the Shooting Times and then, for the past three decades, The Field. And commuter trains and gundogs are an unhappy mix. Of course, I could have had a really badly trained hound but in this job you’re always on parade to an extent and having your sport ruined by that bloody dog owned by the Editor of The Field doesn’t make for good press. So, that’s why I’ve always stuck with terriers. Everyone knows that a terrier can be sort-of trained in the way one can have an ‘obedient’ hawk: it will, much of the time, do what you wish but only if it fits in with its desires. And often it doesn’t.
My two Sealyhams, Betsy and Minnie, will, for example, find anything. No matter how tough the cover, if it’s fur or feathered, they’ll keep going until it’s flushed, which makes them super companions for a lone mooch round the farm or on a pick-up after a day’s decoying. But equally they might push up the birds 100 yards away, which makes them as popular as the plague on a formal day.
What they need, of course, is more discipline and we have been able to make some progress during the lockdown, when all the Field staff have been working cheerily from home. Given more time, however, I’m confident that they could – almost – be reasonably obedient and, finally, I might have it. For after 29 happy and successful years as Editor, now is the proper time to hand over the reins and this will be the last issue under my guardianship. It has been a great privilege to serve you.
Some dogs have a paragraph in the game diary for their determination and character