All in a Winter

First published in ICS&CL 2016

The lamp light up a rabbit that was squatting very tight, his ears folded tight over his head and he wriggled tighter into the grass as the light moved in the wind. I gave the slip lead to David and whispered to him not to release the dog until the rabbit run and the dog could see it. James and I stood still and as I held the beam on the rabbit David approached carefully on the outside. Closer and closer they got, the dog on the end of the slip lead had no clue what was going on at all, this was his first lamping foray, his first venture into the world of twilight pursuits. David whispered to him all the way up, encouraging him and letting him know something was on. The rabbit seemed to go almost totally flat as I held the light on him. By now both David & Reggie were almost on top of the rabbit and for what seemed like minutes he sat tight and they looked on , edging and edging ever closer until just as they got right on top of him he sprang right up out of the grass. Reggie reared up on his back legs and as the rabbit made some distance the slip lead cracked as it slid through his collar and caught itself on the end. For me the whole thing went in slow motion – The rabbit came straight towards James and I, David’s voice could be heard 100yards away in the black dark cheering Reggie on! The rabbit passed us, turned and came back while Reggie turned like a boat on the wet grass. He attempted a strike as they passed once more and I heard his teeth snap like a crocodile, before he put in a second strike and almost lost his footing before trying for a third which didn’t connect but he certainly got a mouthful of fur! We were all holding our breath. The rabbit turned again and jinked against a fence and back out into the field and with one final attempt young Reggie scooped the rabbit up almost right at my feet. I breathed a sigh of relief and my two comrades cheered.

With all his retrieving training since a pup I hoped he would retrieve the rabbit back to me and he didn’t have far to go. He did retrieve it but back to David! Either way it was a success and it was nice to see the other lads as genuinely pleased as I was that Reggie had got off to a good start. He is a likeable dog, in fact very likeable and has been a pleasure to train. Reggie is the result of a mating twixt my bitch Fudge and an Irish Terrier Lurcher named Rocky who came from a line of working Irish Terrier Lurchers going all the way back to an imported American greyhound bitch bred to a working Irish terrier. Fudge, my own bitch now 7 years old was the result of a mating between my old bitch Ruby and Darren Connellys Paco who was bred by Fiona Devlin. Unfortunately, both Ruby and Paco are now deceased. So, as you will have gathered, there is much mish mash in the breeding of Reggie. Collie, Whippet, Greyhound, Irish terrier and whatever else! Does it matter? Not really to me, he is a Lurcher and that’s what Lurchers are. The longer I have Lurchers the more I like them, they are a wonderful dog and I feel can be taught to do most anything from lamping to retrieving shot birds off the water. Indeed lurcher aficionado Jonathan Darcy published a photo of a well-known dog he owned “Scooby” retrieving a goose, squirrels, wood pigeons and even an egg which he cracked on camera to prove it was raw! My own very good friend John Rooney once owned a bitch called Roxy who retrieved several geese to us one morning out shooting and the same bitch would have dispatched foxes and retrieved rabbits live to hand.

 In my last article, I wrote of a young bitch Bella, a littermate of Reggie and a lovely bitch which I had chosen to keep for myself. I have always preferred female Lurchers and she was my choice from a litter of 7 in which there were 3 bitches. Bella was in no hurry to be born and is in fact a full day younger than her littermates. Fudge gave birth to 5 puppies on a Saturday evening with another born on Sunday morning and just after my daughter and I counted 6 in the whelping box that evening and I put her to bed just after 7pm I returned to find 7 puppies, number 7 being a little Irish terrier coloured bitch which I decided then and there was going to be mine. 5 of the 7 were already accounted for and would be off to their new homes in 7 weeks to good genuine homes where I knew the pups would be well cared for and worked to the best of their ability. I won’t make any secret that I was choosy where they went, not because they are anything special but because I prefer that they go to a sensible & permanent home. There are enough dogs in rescue homes and on the merry go round of being swapped and sold every two weeks without me adding to the problem. With 6 out of the 7 accounted that left a rather large fawn coloured dog pup. I offered him to a good friend but he declined him on account that he may not give him enough work with already owning a dog. My wife had strangely taken a liking to the pup and we decided to keep him, he stayed and I named him Reggie. A strange name for a Lurcher I agree, but it stuck.

One wet evening in late September I was exercising all the dogs on a local field and as usual they were getting excited and fired up and began chasing each other on the grass. They were just coming up to 6 months old at the time and as Bella passed me on a small hill she turned very sharply and slid onto her back and let out a yelp. She got to her feet and held her rear left leg up tight below her. I thought she had perhaps twisted it in some way and she limped back to the van and I lifted her in. A day or two later she was no better and with the greyhound vet on holidays I let the local vet look at it. It was X Rayed but they could find no problem and said to return in 14 days should it not improve. I wasn’t totally convinced and when the greyhound vet returned I made the 2.5-hour journey to see him. I walked into his surgery with the young bitch on a lead & he simply looked down and said “Broken Hock”. My heart sank, I asked him could he do anything with it and his reply was to suck his teeth and raise his eyebrows. My heart sank further as he X rayed it to confirm. “I can try” was his reply “But I can’t promise you anything”.  At this stage, her leg had broken and re healed incorrectly and it would be a job and a half to repair it, it was close to the joint and could be a problem with running should it not heal precisely as he hoped it would. I returned a week later and dropped her off.  She was in the surgery for two days and it was a wet, cold and windy night when I returned again to collect her. I took her from her cage and carried her to the van, setting her on the front seat and she gave an appreciative but short wag of her tail & was feeling very sorry for herself. The veterinary nurse also had a large coursing bitch who belonged to a man who was on my route home and asked if I would take her too, I didn’t mind and she was no trouble in the back. Ironically the coursing bitch had broken her left hock as Bella had – The vet had never fixed a left hock as track dogs generally break their right one and he done two in one day!

The weeks went by and each Wednesday we would travel to the vet, get the dressings changed and get an x ray and a check over the joint. Each week that went by the vet seemed happy with it but overall wasn’t totally sure if Bella would run again with the nature of the injury & all I could do was hope. She had her dressings waterproofed by way of a drip bag as she found it difficult to adjust in the house and seemed to prefer to be outside, the arrangement worked well and she spent her days in the kennel and I fed her inside in the evenings, all while hoping the leg work come good in the end. As Christmas came and went the dressing and splint was removed and it was a strict no exercise programme for another 6 weeks until we would see finally how the leg had healed.

During this time, I took every opportunity to work with Reggie.  Taking him out ferreting and raking about with the Teckels and the occasional night when I was lamping with Fudge I would give him a run. As unfortunate as it was the situation worked well in many ways as it gave me a lot if time with him when he needed it most. The only problem I had with him was jumping, for all my efforts I could not get him to jump until I found a small sheep dog training pen on the hill behind the house. This was simply a little enclosure made of sheep netting about 8ft square that the farmer who trains many sheep dogs uses and was happy for me to use it. One day out walking I jumped Fudge in and out of it and then lifted Reggie in and left him in it and kept on walking down the hill with Fudge and the Teckels. He howled, barked and protested and eventually tumbled his way over & out and reached us – I did this every day for a week and any trouble he had jumping is now far behind him! Having a Lurcher jump is handy, maybe not totally essential but handy – For a small dog you can lift over the fence it isn’t a huge problem, but did I really want carry a lamp, rabbits and lift a 6 stone dog over a fence on wet windy night? Definitely not!

My grandmother always said good things come in pairs so having one Teckel wasn’t going to be much use. Anyway, I needed another so that the two could go missing after things together, hold me back and make me late together and have me out looking for them late at night together. They could also bark at the ferrets together, annoy the Lurchers together and chew everything together, and that’s just exactly what they do!

I acquired my first Teckel a little over two years ago and have had great fun with him since he arrived. I have written before of the many scrapes he has gotten me into as well as the few times he has saved the day. I find their scenting power exceptional and only a few weeks ago I passed a clump of Whin bushes well over 100 yards in diameter, we usually pass them every day either very early morning or late evening and none of the dogs pay any attention to them. The Lurchers didn’t pay any attention today either but as Archie passed behind them, he stopped and looked in. Then he went back a little further and slipped between two bushes and I could hear him rustling about inside further and further away until it went quiet for a few seconds then just as a pair of Bavarian lungs opened up simultaneously a pair of pheasants exploded from the centre of the Whins! The Lurchers cocked their ears and I smiled as Archie continued his baying and then knowing he wasn’t going to get a hunt, sniffed about and came back out and continued on the route we were on. Back in June last year he did sort of the same thing except in the cover was a Red hind and a calf which he drove out in my direction and continuously annoyed it for several minutes baying at it while getting kicked several times as I tried my best to get him out of the way without getting the same. The deer and the calf then took off with him in pursuit and that was the last I saw of him for over half a day. I returned to the area that evening to find him curled up below a road sign, soaking wet and absolutely covered in goose grass with a large cut to his forehead but otherwise fine. His antics are non-stop and I have at times considered keeping a diary for him alone as he gets into so much mischief he usually becomes the majority of any diary entry anyway. They are known to be a multipurpose dog and it is true that you could pretty much use one for anything, they take to shooting, beating, blood tracking, underground work or hunting with Hounds very easily. Archie hunted a year or so ago for a full day with the Sunnyland Beagles like he had done it all his life, even walking off the bog with the pack at the end of the day and looking like he fitted right in. The night we arrived at the house before the hunt he stayed in the van although he was no trouble he never slept much at all. However after a full day on the bogs of Galway keeping up with the hounds I put him back in the van that evening and we actually had to wake him on Sunday morning, and he rolled out looking like he had a night on the tiles!

So, what about the pair I mentioned, well after all that sport with one Teckel it was time to add another. Another to run off after things and not return, another to hold me up and make me late, have me out searching for him at night and another to bark at the ferrets and sleep between the bins on a warm day. On 25^th June, last year a small pup was whelped. I picked up young Oscar in late September last year after an 8-hour drive I arrived with his breeder to find a very well reared and extremely well socialised and confident little pup who was very pleased to see me. When I scooped him up from his little run and tucked him under my arm to admire him, He knew full well he was going with me and he didn’t seem to mind at all. . When I brought him home and placed him in the yard with my 4 other dogs he simply looked up, wagged his tail and went about his business. Like a brick in a wall he slotted in and to this day he sleeps between all the Lurchers and they all get along like very well. At the time of writing he is just 10 months old and still very young. He has been out and about with the big dogs and Archie but still is very young and has a long way to go, it is for him and me only the beginning. He has so far enjoyed a spot of ratting with Archie, the Lurchers and some German Smooth Haired pointer friends which was a great day out. I have also been busy trapping squirrels recently and he and I have thoroughly enjoyed checking the traps each morning and in only two weeks we managed 79 on only a small area of ground with cage traps. Our Rabbit jobs although plentiful have been mostly shooting and although I don’t do much shooting and it is taken on by the other lads I operate the lamp and take Archie along as “Finder” which he does very well at. One of our contracts is a Government site with many miles of roads and verges bordered by heavy cover. As the rabbits are shot they sometimes make it into the cover and due to the thickness of it, only a small Bavarian Bush Buster can fit into it and he never very often leaves a rabbit behind. One night in particular he ran into a small piece of cover and as we found the rabbit he began to bay into a log pile, I removed log after log to reveal a large pile of nesting rabbits, a dogs scenting power never ceases to amaze me. You may be wondering about Bellas leg and how it turned out? Have a look the photos and they will tell you all need to know, Mr Scullion is nothing short of a genius..I think he even surprised himself!