----- Original Message -----

From: Maud & Torsti

To: working-gundog@web.whc.net

Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 1:28 PM

Subject: [working-gundog] List not working?

Marg asked me to put this input to the list since she believes it was not seen on the list. As far as I can understand it has been on the list twice before and I naswered it today. Don can read the list but not write to it and Marg, living nearby, does not seem to be able to read. I can both read and answer from the other hemisphere.

Torsti

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Hi Torsti

 

I have been trying to post this email for Don Nicol but now my emails don't seem to be posting to the site.

 

Can you put it up for him please.

 

Thanks

Marg

 

Don's email I finally managed to get home so I could place it on here for further comments.

 

I have read about prey drive as Torsti discusses i.e. behaviour in the pack and individual attack on prey, in relation to the work of cattle & sheep dogs but have never clearly understood what is meant.
 My 10 month old Springer spaniel male is developing now and is at a point where I am stepping up his obedience and field & game introduction .
He is a major challenge because from the moment he leaves his kennel he is ‘hunting’ with very strong drive. By that I mean, on a walk for instance, he is constantly focussing on birds flying and ground movement e.g.  leaf movement  or a movement in the bush.
 Around the garden ,when he is loose, he is constantly hunting for lizards & anything that moves e.g. bush turkeys that come into the garden. He catches frill-neck lizards and retrieves them to hand gently.
He is quite obedient on lead , however at the local obedience class, if a bird flies within 150m it distracts him.
He is not too biddable or people orientated but slowly is building up some regard for me.
When he was younger it was food that was his main driver but now this hunting drive seems to dominate.
If I let him loose in an open park or field situation he runs hard and v.fast  (for a Springer) and if I give no command, heads directly for water or the heavy scrub where he chases scents and will quickly lose touch with me.
He is otherwise a soft dog around the house & people i.e. very submissive .
Torsti , my experience with ‘soft’ Springers has been that they may be soft around people and everyday situations but that quite often they hunt like Zulu warriors . However often ‘soft’ means that they are very obedient at contact with game or the flush of game and that is why the British have gone that way in their breeding perhaps. This fellow has none of that type of field softness however and ‘control’ is purely based on taught obedience.
Is it a surfeit of dopamine hormones that drive this pup? His brother from another litter won the National trial , but was a late bloomer. Another brother from that previous  litter was offered to me at 2 years of age, totally out of control.
I was told he would retrieve well. We went to a nearby piece of open ground and sent him for a retrieve, he ran straight to the fall of the dummy but kept going and we found him half an hour later hunting ducks in a reedy creek 750 metres away. So there are some genetic components.
I have been around a lot of gundogs but only once or twice have I seen this level of hunting drive, so he will be a challenge to get to a  steady dog on rabbits , let alone a trial dog.
Any comments would be useful,
Cheers, Don

Borta Med Vindens Kennel
"Ask not what your dog can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your dog."
www.rospigan.net

Marg asked me to put this input to the list since she believes it was not seen on the list. As far as I can understand it has been on the list twice before and I naswered it today. Don can read the list but not write to it and Marg, living nearby, does not seem to be able to read. I can both read and answer from the other hemisphere.
Torsti
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I can also read it and have read it twice.  Maybe no one apart from Torsti has had any experience of Springer Spaniels.  I have a friend who has two litter sisters of Springer Spaniels which he kept when he bred from his bitch.  They are about two and a half years old now, one is as steady and reliable and the other sounds like Don’s.  He works the one but not the other, but took her picking up for the first time last week, an easy pheasant dropped on the track well in sight, so he thought it a good idea to send her for this one, she went off like a bat out of hell, straight over the top of the bird and into the far distance, he lost her for half an hour.  I have to say, that she is more biddable than she was, he keeps her at heel all the time and only lets her hunt in a tight pattern once a day, this is an improvement as he couldn’t keep her to this pattern until recently, so there is hope for Don.  

A very well known spaniel man who is now dead, helped to keep a “wild” spaniel within working distance, by suggesting the handler took a tennis racquet and ball and gave the spaniel lots of retrieves, somehow this taught the spaniel not to range so far (it would go into another county!!) and she could work it finally.

Another wild spaniel went into a Lake and was so bird mad that it swam round and round, totally out of control until it started to sink with tiredness, a chap had to dive in to save it.  This dog was then trained on an electric collar, but managed to work through the pain and so had to be rehomed into a house with a walled garden!  It was a rescued spaniel, so maybe it had been in the hands of a novice.

Sonia

Seems like only the Aussies and NZ:landers have problems. Maybe they have invented some new kind of spam filter down there? ))

----- Original Message -----

From: Ron Stanfield, Lameduck.com

To: working-gundog@web.whc.net

Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 8:53 PM

Subject: Re: [working-gundog] List not working?

I seem to be getting the messages.

 

Ron

Seems like only the Aussies and NZ:landers have problems. Maybe they have invented some new kind of spam filter down there? ))

 

Torsti

Borta Med Vindens Kennel
"Ask not what your dog can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your dog."
www.rospigan.net

----- Original Message -----

From: Ron Stanfield, Lameduck.com

To: working-gundog@web.whc.net

Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 8:53 PM

Subject: Re: [working-gundog] List not working?

I seem to be getting the messages.

 

Ron

----- Original Message -----

From: Rob Clay

To: working-gundog@web.whc.net

Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 8:28 AM

Subject: Re: [working-gundog] List not working?

I'm in Aussie and am able to both read and write to the list. Afraid I don't have any solutions to the computer related troubles.

Cheers,
Rob

Maud & Torsti wrote:

Seems like only the Aussies and NZ:landers have problems. Maybe they have invented some new kind of spam filter down there? ))

 

Torsti

Borta Med Vindens Kennel
"Ask not what your dog can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your dog."
www.rospigan.net

----- Original Message -----

From: Ron Stanfield, Lameduck.com

To: working-gundog@web.whc.net

Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 8:53 PM

Subject: Re: [working-gundog] List not working?

I seem to be getting the messages.

 

Ron