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Mind the Wind by Tok Mostert
So… you think running a good field dog is all about the dog, maybe, but a good handler will be able to interpret the conditions and “assist” the dog to have the best possible chance of finding birds. Temperature, moisture content, humidity and wind all play a part in the scenting conditions and that is something all dog handlers should keep in mind, if they want to consistently hit birds on the field. Often handlers will say, the wind just did not work for us or the birds where holding tight and the dog could not find them. Even a great dog will have days in which the wind plays…
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We are Losing Legendary Methods (Fieldwork 4) – By T. Mostert
Tok Mostert, a Professional Hunter from South Africa, now living in Sweden, is sharing his writings on dog training with us. You can start reading them from Part 1 here. We are Losing Legendary Methods (Fieldwork 4) – By T. Mostert Hunting your Dog, the Best Experience Flake kept on improving to the stage where we shot several birds over her, placed birds and wild birds. The single biggest mistake you can make with placing birds, is making the game it too easy. The dog should work, work hard for each and every bird, some days I placed no birds or only ran her once other dogs have cleared a field.…
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We are Losing Legendary Methods 1 – by T. Mostert
Brief intro: here at Dogs & Country we are often looking to publish good articles, articles dog people can benefit from. I (Rossella) was therefore very happy when Tok Mostert, from Sweden, accepted to share his writings with us and our readers. At the moment, unfortunately, I do not have time to translate them in Italian, but if anyone wants to help out with the translation, I’d be happy to share that as well 🙂 Part 1: We are losing legendary methods Two years ago I came into the hunting dogs world, I knew nothing, I could not make a dog sit or stay, much less retrieve, track or hunt…
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Harkila Jerva: Field Test
A Siberian wind is blowing. Well I am not that sure it is Siberian but, it is blowing from East and it is very cold. Foreigners imagine Italy to enjoy a wonderful warm and sunny weather all year round. It is a hoax! I bet those involved in tourism spread this rumour, I can assure you that here in Northern Italy we often have very cold winters! What the cold wind is trying to tell me, however, is that the time has come to stop testing my Jerva suit. Those who follow the blog, already know that I was given an outdoor shooting/hunting suit made by Harkila to test it.…
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On steadiness (… and obedience!)
As soon as Briony became steady to flush I, full of pride, posted some videos on Facebook. The road that brought us to steadiness was a long one, I was extremely happy to have reached what, months early, seemed to be unattainable. Briony was originally purchased to be my personal shooting dog and indeed she became a good one. She knew how to locate birds, point, be steady on point and retrieve the killed ones but, like all the Italian shooters, I did not even think to make her steady to wing and shot. I simply did not care and she spent years “chasing” after the bird was produced, until…