Never doubt the dog…

First published in Irish Country Sports and Country Life Magazine
Spring is here and I have been glad to see it. When I was a little younger, I never looked forward to the end of winter as it brought with it and end to winter sport. However times change and people change with it and these days I look forward to a little down time as spring arrives, it is most welcome after a busy winter and gives me the time to knock a few jobs off the list and get on with dog training and the likes over the long evenings.
This Spring I have a young Teckel bitch to work on, she has completed most of what I had intended or her but now will require just a little more to get over the line. “Eyka” was bred from my German bitch “Cider” and sired by a brother to my other bitch “Poppy”. A smallish bitch who is very much her mother’s daughter with her nose always down and a busy keenness about her. She is looking like making a reasonable blood tracker and has completed quite a number of laid tracks and assisted in a live one over the winter. A likeable and easily managed little bitch, there is simply no fuss with her and even at only 5 or 6 months old she kept up with the others when we were raking about on Saturdays over the winter and got under fences, crossed drains climbed through cover without a problem.
“Eyka”
I find Blood tracking a most fascinating subject, the “mystery of scent” discussed, argued and pondered over by dog men and Hounds men in particular since time immemorial. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could for one day, have the olfactory powers of a Hound or dog, just to see for ourselves how they scent and what exactly it is like for them to hold the scent of a fox or Hare, or even an injured Deer which holds most fascination for me and takes me back to a cold October evening in 2021 when my good pal Nigel and I were out stalking as the light fell.
I had been with him since early morning and we had been hunting a few pieces of cover here and there with the Teckels and later, a fine brace of Beagles brought along by another guest. I have always loved Beagles or Jelly Dogs as they were known by the Victorians. I followed the Sunnyland Beagles for many years and found nothing more satisfying than hearing them in full cry across a field or Bog. Many people prefer the deep bay of the English foxhound and it is true that there is nothing can make the hair stand on your neck like a dozen couple of fine foxhounds in full cry, however for me there is something special about Beagles I could never place, there keenness and enthusiasm for the chase, their kind nature and quiet temperament I always liked. Beagling is a fine sport and it is such a shame that it is misunderstood – In my years of following them I have never known them to catch a Hare, of course there are occasions when they do but it is oft a sick or elderly Hare that would likely befall a worse fate anyway. The Hare is an athlete & reaches speeds of up to 30mph. One only has to see a Hare opened up in full speed to really appreciate her ability, the Beagle certainly never was a match for him, a little 12/13” high hound running with his nose to the ground is never going to do much harm, certainly he will stick to her scent like glue and go on forever, but the point was always the pursuit but never a kill, a point that is always missed.
The light was falling and Nigel and I were in a small hide on a hillside awaiting the arrival of some Sika deer he had spotted regularly in the area over the last few days. Sure, enough they arrived, and I watched closely as they cautiously made their way down the hillside, stopping now and then to scent the wind and take a look in every direction. I love nothing more than watching Deer, they are constantly on alert, far from nervous or weary but just alert and bright eyed – Any change in scent or a sudden noise and they pick it up instantly. It became quickly apparent these Deer weren’t going to go where we wanted them too and they almost seemed to know we were there and stayed almost within 100yrds of a safe shot. We made a last-minute decision to go to them and left our hide and stalked carefully uphill and down a lane to get within reach. As we hid behind some gorse bushes a hind winded us and the entire group looked up and froze – I had to make a decision to take a quick shot or just leave it. Nigel threw the sticks up quickly and I was too hasty and inevitably missed what should have been a straight forward shot. I kicked myself, you know how it is with these things – If we had of waited longer, if we had of came in the other way, all the ifs and buts were going through my mind. We headed back to his land rover and had really only a few minutes of light remaining, with all hopes of a Deer for the freezer gone we rumbled quietly along the lane and the only thing I had on my mind was a good warm coffee to take the chill out of my bones. All of sudden Nigel eased up the vehicle and knocked the ignition off and let it roll to a standstill. That only ment one thing! “Theres a few to the right and it’s a safe shot” he whispered. We slipped out of the land rover, left the doors open and creeped along a hedge line, Nigel had the binoculars and after looking over the field gave me the thumbs up. I set up the sticks, placed the rifle, got the stag into my sights and squeezed the trigger. There is always that split second when the firing pin strikes and the bang goes off that seems to be just black until you see what happened – I saw the deer go down, but when my eye left the scope, he was nowhere to be seen. Nigel saw it go down from his position, but it appeared he had went over the crest of a small hill behind. We left it a few minutes and he checked the shot area but could not see the animal anywhere. We assumed because of his initial drop that he had not went far so after 15 or 20 minutes went back and fetched “Cider” from the land rover and slipped on her tracking collar and lead. The tracking collar is one that should only be ever used for tracking, the only time the dog wears it is in a tracking situation, and Cider who is well schooled in the tracking business now, knows that when the collar goes its time for business! We walked her to the shot area and after licking the ground she proceeded in a straight line to hedge with a small stream running behind. She immediately marked some blood on a Hawthorne hedge and pushed on through and began to bark. Behind the hedge, laid up on the far side was the Stag – Nigel approached him as I held Cider back, but he took off, obviously injured – I now questioned my shot, what had happened? Following a an injured Deer when it has just taken off is best avoided as you will only pish it further and further – The situation is best left alone to let the Deer settle and perhaps expire, you will ultimately increase your chances of recovery. We returned the jeep, got the much-needed coffee and returned after dark to make some sort of attempt at recovering the animal. We returned an hour or two later and Cider was very keen on the original strike area, she follow the exact same path as she had before, and headed North, along a broken fence line before ducking through and taking me to a large clump of Rhododendrons on the bank of a very deep ravine. It was maybe ten or twelve feet down, with fast running water below and a steep climb up the other side. Nigel and I both checked up and down the bank but found nothing – I doubted the Teckel, but Nigel didn’t! “She knows he said to me” We took her back to the shot area and a second time she took us back to the Rhododendrons. He climbed down the ravine and up the other side, I passed Cider over and Nigel’s little Lurcher bitch “Trouble” was now also with us. They very quickly found blood on a post on the far side and as we entered a small rushy field Ciders body language changed completely, as did the Lurchers, both were scenting the air and Cider was pulling hard on the line. She went down the field and doubled back, with Trouble ahead of her – Nigel called to me he had found it and as Cider and I approached, Trouble was standing beside it. They did well, without either I doubt we would have found the carcass and I certainly never would have crossed the ravine had Nigel not suggested we did. We wasted no time and got the animal gralloched and extracted back to the land rover, not before Nigel told “I told you never to doubt the dog” – A great ending to a very memorable day as is often the case when I visit him!
The Teckel is very much a multi-purpose dog, a sort of Hound / terrier but very much a unique breed and suitable for many tasks, although an individual dog rarely does it all they usually at excel at one or two things. Within the several that I keep some excel at tracking, some at working with the gun and fetching birds etc and others at simply flushing vermin to the gun or bolting it from an earth. My dog “Remy” imported from Germany from breeder Doreen Klaus, owner of the well-known “Vom Alten Friedrich” kennel in Dresden. Remy has really found his feet here and is a sure and steady blood tracker, but also has really taken to flushing vermin to the gun. He isn’t an overly large male, but powerfully built with a bay like a mastiff and stops for nothing when on a line and although he was a little more difficult to train, I have got him reasonably well done and he will happily, sit, stay, retrieve and has good recall for a Teckel. As he arrived as a young puppy in late October 2020, it would be the season gone before he really would see around him and really before he matured. We had a great season and he has established himself well. If it is coincidence I cant be sure, but on the many days we have been out either stalking a deer or just rousting about with a gun, he has flushed Woodcock, I have never had a Teckel before flush them except what appeared to be accidentally, although it seems that he can perhaps scent them but I cant be sure, but many times he has intentionally entered a piece of cover or some bushes and flushed one, it makes no difference to me as I am not a Woodcock shooter anyway, although I do enjoy when he finds them. Remy took to scent trails well, I was surprised as usually a Teckel that is busy and keen around cover has not got the patience to work out a blood trail he however does and we did many trails together in the spring of 2021, working quickly up to 1000 metres laid 24hrs before, which is not bad going. However, this all changed after his first encounter with a fallow pricket over the winter and he has absolutely zero interest in laid trails which is something that just happens.
2022 will see the return of the Irish Game Fair, and I for one am really looking forward to it – I think the phrase “don’t know what you have until its gone” springs to mind for us all. The fair has been sorely missed by us all the last two years – It is our thing, a celebration of our way of life, which is more important than ever that we work to protect and if the last 12 months is anything to go by there are individuals and political parties who want nothing more than to pull the rug from under us, we stuck to our guns (no pun intended) and didn’t let it happen and we must continue to do so, I hope to see each and every one of you over the 25th – 26th June, let us make it the most memorable one ever.