>>>>Anybody interested in Australian Pointer &
Setter field trialling might
like to check out the following site. In
addition to trial results and
text based descriptions, there are some
outstanding photos of the dogs,
the birds (wild Australian Stubble Quail)
and the county.
http://wgaa.blogspot.com/Cheers,
Rob>>>>
This brings us to new and interesting problems. How do we
convey a message over the internet so that all of those who we want to
understand it gets the most out of it? When we look at all the good photos from
your Oz field trials most of us will experience that there is something more
that we would like to know? Personally I started to wonder how the flushed birds
down there fly - are they difficult to shoot? Do they fly in a rather straight
line like partridge, curbed fashion and downhill like willow grouse or do
they fling from side to side like snipe? Well, there does not seem to be too
much "downhill" possibilities on those plains so probably they fly either
straight or unpredictable from side to side?
Anyway, my reasoning starts some years back, in 2006 to
be correct. That was when my heart problems were discovered. Waiting for a
by-pass operation I had to start to eat different medicines that did both good
and bad to me, before the bad ones were sorted out and that took 2 years. In the
mean time Maud and me continued to shoot clay pigeons regularly. Due to the
heart problem as well as the different drugs my shooting deteriorated for a
period, mostly due to mental disability to concentrate properly on each target.
This of course to some extent made me feel bad and sad but it also awakened my
curiosity to how to train good game shooting. Since I could not work I had all
the time to study wing shooting. In due time I had the by-pass operation, as
well as I had sorted out and quit the use of some of the bad drugs. After the
operation my shooting in general improved and I started to concentrate on
particular targets that were difficult for me. I rather soon realised that
England is the place in the world where most small game has been shot, where the
best shotguns are built and where "the art of game shooting" had
been perfected better than anywhere else in the world. That was the place
to search for knowledge.
"The art of game shooting" consist to a great part of
perfecting the body control of the shooter. Here I found that I was not very
aware of how I moved my body, even though I thought I was. I could swear that I
did not do this or that particular fault - even though the British books
and videos, as well as Maud and other shooting friends said I made
those faults. We had an old video camera that was about to
breathe its last sigh. Since Maud also had some
shooting problems we decided that we should go to the West Stockholm Shooting
School to get her a lesson and I would document the entire lesson on video tape,
so that we could continue to analyse it back home. The owner of that school has
got her (yes, its a woman, good with the gun as well as spaniels) education and
training at the West London Shooting School so the instruction follows the
British path into the smallest detail.
When we looked at the video back home we realised what a great
tool this camcorder really is. Unfortunately it was that camcorders last job, it
passed away silently after the job was finished. During the 15 years we had had
it it had documented hundreds of hours of dog training and dog mentality at the
late Swedish Dog Training Centre were we attended gundog training classes for
totally 6 weeks. I believe that material is unique and invaluable today.
However, to the person doing either wing shooting or
communicating with a dog, body control is essential and the one who is not aware
of his body will never learn to shoot or train a dog perfectly well. That is the
truth and nothing but the truth. The video is a great, sometimes the only,
tool to make a person - like myself - to understand that he does, or does
not, this or that in a wrong way.
So I understood that in order to get further with my shooting
and also dog training, and to take the sharing of our experiences with
dogs on our web-site into a new dimension, I had to buy a new camcorder. Since
we have so much experience from photography and the equipment needed for it,
I decided that I do not want to buy a new camcorder before I
can afford one that can do what I want, particularly for as long as I want,
without batteries run empty or the storage media to become full. I had
to wait until I started to work again but now I have a Sony
(HVR-HD1000E) that can be held at the shoulder, that is much
more comfortable than to try to hold a smaller camera in front of
our face. It uses small one hour DV - tapes, a pocket full of them will
not cost more than a few hundred dollars, and its battery will last 8 - 10
hours, an entire day on the field in other words.
I was not pleased with the microphone so I ordered a
RODE microphone, without knowing they are made in Australia, hence I had to wait
a couple of months before it arrived. I also needed a good video stand (tripod)
but did not know what to buy so two days ago we drove 500 kms to Scandinavia's
biggest photostore http://www.scandinavianphoto.se/ and
their exhibition in southern Sweden. I got what I wanted, Maud bought a new
macro lens to her Nikon to be able to shoot flowers and insects, and
then we visited over the night the ES bitch Bejla that is a cousin to
Briz. She is our late Foxys sister Fifty-Fifty's, also dead not, child.
Bejla is a beauty with a wonderful mentality.
Anyway, what remains to get now are a pair of radio
microphones also, but they are expensive so they have to wait until next
year or something like that. Then we have all the hardware we need.
Well, all those gear and gadgets you can buy with money.
Something money cant buy is knowledge in how to edit the video. I downloaded an
AVS video editor from the net for US$ 53 and now I have to learn and train
to use it. Actually I know nothing about digital video editing, although I did
some analogue editing years ago with my old video camera and a couple of good
play back units.
Maud is very good with Photoshop and I can use it reasonably
well but now we have run into a new world were they speak a language
that we do not understand very much of. So I guess it takes a number of
months, half year or a year before I can make any decent videos but in
the mean time I can shoot and store the material on an external harddrive
so when I feel i can make something out of it, the material is there
already.
Hopefully we can publish something simple with birddogs
already this autumn. In the best case, if we are really lucky, we can get a
puppy or two soon and then we could document their development during many years
to come. We will see, we don't even know if the bitch is pregnant and should she
be, then there has to be a lot of bitch puppies also so that we can perhaps get
one. They are very sought after and it is up to the breeder to decide who will
get them. We can only offer a good home but there are many folks up in the north
who can offer a lot of hunting and trialling for the pups also. You could say
that we are not very competitive in that branch  )
Torsti
Borta Med Vindens Kennel
www.rospigan.net
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous,
he will
not bite you; that is the principal difference
between a dog and a man."
/Mark Twain
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