Unleashed Dilemma: Dealing with Unruly Shooting Dogs

Dog tired 

We all get excited for the season ahead, anticipation for what will be hopefully the best season yet, new kit at the ready, old kit cleaned to an inch of its life, and the dogs all groomed ready and trained to perfection, at least we hope so. For some of us this preparation is as important and exciting as the day its self.

The first day out

So it's finally here, for most of us this means getting out of bed in the middle of the night and saying hello to the milkman in full shoot attire, we have tricked the dogs into eating 3 hours early and loaded the 4x4 with enough equipment to stage your own mini invasion, We are off on the road, depending on the size and type of day the structure of the shoot will differ but the etiquette is usually the same, meet the host, greet the other guns and beaters if possible. Generally, it's all straightforward good manners, you know the stuff your parents instilled in you as a child.

To the peg 

At this point you will have a good idea who's next to you and if they have a dog or not. I always make a point of letting the picking up team know I would like to pick my own birds as this to me is as much part of my day as the shooting, this is usually fine and will be respected by a good picking up team, (runners not included of course) that out of the way you are ready to start. This can vary but in most cases you will be live on the peg, now for me I like my dogs to sit and wait until the drive is over so I may leave them on the lead because as I see it they're not on duty yet. Drive underway you will be focusing on your area of shooting, this will be defined by the guns on either side of you. If you're on the end you could have more sky to play with, now we all want to make good show of it so being fully committed to the task is important. One thing I find most unacceptable is other peg's dogs running in, this is both distracting and dangerous.

Who's dog is that 

A loose Bruce aboot this spruce, my dogs are by no means perfect, they will on occasion show me up, ignore the whistle or decide to take one last look even when told to leave it. This can and will happen and its part of working with animals. What I find unacceptable, is the untrained dog, the one that's chased chickens around at home all summer and only comes back when it's hungry, why this dog is off the lead, that I will never understand. I was most unfortunate last season to have more than one of these ASBO dogs in the gun line, running about during the drive picking up birds and dropping them all over the place, which makes it very difficult to find the shot birds after the drive is over, and even running towards the beating line and flushing game in the wrong direction. All of this can really spoil the day and will make even the best behaved dogs want to join in on the fun, I mean why wouldn't they? They're getting nothing out of sitting there well behaved, all their birds are gone or lost and the drive has become a circus. At this point I will generally put my gun away and stand with my dogs, I've spent too much time and money training them to have it undone in such a manner. Now everyone will handle this in their own way but I'm not the shy type so prefer a more direct approach. I find speaking to the gun or guns personally usually has the desired effect, often they will take the offender back to their vehicle or to the shoot bus, or at the very least keep it on the lead.