Tom D
Well-Known Member
Just read the long dog thread and it got me thinking..
I walked my lab round my permission a couple of days ago, I am wondering wether he will have any deer dog potential and so was keeping him to heel and practising waiting etc. After rounding a few fields of barley on the edge of the permission I came to a field full of recently calved cows. They really don't like seeing a dog so rather than put him on a lead or walk him to heel ( which he does well around stock) I put him over the fence into a sitka plantation that is not on my permission. I trust him in these circumstances even though I can't see him, apart from the odd myxie rabbit he has never caught anything and he needed free run. I sometimes walk him off the lead in these woods anyway. I could hear him in the wood about 50 yds ahead of me and then a doe jumped out of the wood and into the field about 70 yds ahead of me, obviously spooked by the dog. Had this been a buck and had I had a rifle, would I have been doing anything illegal if I shot it?
I walked my lab round my permission a couple of days ago, I am wondering wether he will have any deer dog potential and so was keeping him to heel and practising waiting etc. After rounding a few fields of barley on the edge of the permission I came to a field full of recently calved cows. They really don't like seeing a dog so rather than put him on a lead or walk him to heel ( which he does well around stock) I put him over the fence into a sitka plantation that is not on my permission. I trust him in these circumstances even though I can't see him, apart from the odd myxie rabbit he has never caught anything and he needed free run. I sometimes walk him off the lead in these woods anyway. I could hear him in the wood about 50 yds ahead of me and then a doe jumped out of the wood and into the field about 70 yds ahead of me, obviously spooked by the dog. Had this been a buck and had I had a rifle, would I have been doing anything illegal if I shot it?