We took our two year old grandson out for the day with the dogs yesterday to the river at Richmond for a picnic. The video shows him walking Bingley across Richmond green, although we are in a empty bit when I videoed, on a bank holiday Saturday, there was a cricket match going on, people picnicking, other dogs and bikes to negotiate. I was so pleased with Bing as he took his baby sitting duties very seriously and ignored all the distractions and never pulled Matthew at all!
You can’t have everything with a dog though, and I wasn’t feeling quite the same love for him on Thursday evening when I took Bing to Gundog club training. First retrieve, he trotted out about 20 yards and had a big roll, ran off to one side and had a poo!! I had to walk out to the dummy area and call him up and we hunted for the dummy together. When I walked out I realised why he had rolled, as hidden in the very long grass tussocks was a fox carcass. We walked back with the dummy looking shamefaced.
Things improved from there, though, as all the following retrieves where executed in a more workmanlike way. He never runs in, goes where he’s told, ignores distraction dummies, always stays in the hunt area and hunts till he finds and finally retrieves to hand. But he does so with the distracted air of some one entering a room looking for his glasses rather than a purposeful search.
Anyway, I forgive him for the way he looked after our grandson, who was adamant that he was the only one who was allowed to hold Bingley’s lead for the afternoon!!
xx
