ArbDogs? Pics!

[Mick Dempsey]

1 hour ago, AHPP said:

Have you had much to do with shooting, Mick?

I used to look after a release pen for a couple of years when I was 16/17, went beating every Saturday for a few years. I actually wanted to be a gamekeeper, till I realised the servile nature of it.

Kept ferrets etc.

I was mostly used as a stop on pheasant drives, because of my age.

In West Sussex we have ‘ghylls’ streams with steep banks either side wooded with overstood hornbeam coppice.

Anyway me and another kid were stopping on the top of the banks and a pheasant flew over, the gun (stood at the bottom of the ghyll next to the stream) followed it and fired, catching the other kid in the face with a half dozen pellets.

The gun (an upper middle class sort) was devastated, never really recovered, went round to see the parents, chucked his gun away etc. the kid carried the pellets for years, the docs not deeming it safe to retrieve them.

I didn’t think too much of it at first, I actually envied the attention he got, but over the next few years I grew to be scared, not so much of shotguns, but me making a similar mistake with one, and I never wanted one.

 

Pheasant shooting? Meh, not all that sporting imo, but no real objection. 

 

 

Edited November 16 by Mick Dempsey

[Mick Dempsey]

By way of an addendum.

 

There’s a saying I often use when I’m talking to some unfortunate employee about why I’m making some seemingly over the top safety belt & braces approach to a back leaner over a property or the like.

 

All the pheasants ever bred, will not make up for one man dead.

[AHPP]

I'm a rifle shooter, rubbish with shotguns and not massively interested in shooting driven game. I'll probably have a go on beaters' day to say I've done it and to see it from the other side though. I've only been beating a handful of times but getting into it because my mate goes, it gets me out of the house and it's good for the dog. Still learning the tactics but I get used for what I think is a stop? Like if a long wood is being driven the long way, I'll be thirty yards outside the wood steering the sideways escapers back in or down the valley.

 

On a different sombre note, after today going so well I thought to myself, "I know who'd love to hear of this triumph: Ray."

Ray's dead. Keen countryman, lived really well, kept really fit. Punished by a presumably vegetarian god for the amount of meat he produced with bladder cancer. Went from 100 to 5 in a very short time and died gasping for breath sat down. 

Edited November 16 by AHPP

[Mick Dempsey]

Sorry to hear about your mate Alex.

[AHPP]

Thanks but it's not a particularly sad thing as these things go. He had people looking out for him and it didn't drag on as long as it could have. I urged him to not bother with chemo (or frankly anything) and just live and die as fast as possible. I had the good grace to not say I told you so.

 

He had a fabulously direct way of speaking that will amuse me forever.

"I'm not looking forward to this test tomorrow. They're going to shove something up my dick."

 

A few people on here knew him. I'll raise a glass to him tonight.

Edited November 16 by AHPP

[Doug Tait]

We decided yesterday enough was enough for Cassie. She had a year longer than the 6mths she was expected to live but things were becoming a bit much for her, it was time.

 

Woke up this morning for the first time in as long as I can remember without a dog in my life! Really hoped she'd see her 14th birthday in a week or so but not to be.

Wee Poppes...

 

[Stubby]

5 minutes ago, Doug Tait said:

We decided yesterday enough was enough for Cassie. She had a year longer than the 6mths she was expected to live but things were becoming a bit much for her, it was time.

 

Woke up this morning for the first time in as long as I can remember without a dog in my life! Really hoped she'd see her 14th birthday in a week or so but not to be.

Wee Poppes...

 

So sorry Doug . Never a happy time . Been there 8 times with dogs 3 times with cats and 3 times with horses . Makes me wrenched every time .  

[Doug Tait]

It's a bit bittersweet stubby, she hasn't been herself lately and it was a relief to see her relax into her mum's lap, no more problems, but the hardest decision to make.

[Stubby]

6 minutes ago, Doug Tait said:

It's a bit bittersweet stubby, she hasn't been herself lately and it was a relief to see her relax into her mum's lap, no more problems, but the hardest decision to make.

Understood mate . 

[roboted]

19 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Understood mate . 

Ditto.