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Wednesday 14 September 2011

A little training for the pup!!

 This week i've decided its time to train my young bitch the arts of bushing and hopefully in an attempt to help me speed up the time spent netting up on rabbitless holes, i will see if I can get her to smell whats home. Well thats the plan anyway, its going to be a long windy road and i'll probably have a lot of swearing that needs to be deleted, but hey ho

First off, for the last 2 weeks she has been playing with and retrieving a rabbits pelt. This is a skin I have wrapped around a small ball, it will help her get the smell I need her to track, it also makes this part of the training fun.

After that I tried her in the field, at this time I am still stock training her, so I will keep her on the lead any time I think she may chase sheep, cows etc.




 This shows Lucy sat back from a hole in a warren that the ferret has been entered into, Lucy is ferret trained and will allow the ferrets to run over her and even bite her without any thought of retaliation.
I wanted her to learn from the other dogs what this game was about.




Once she had seen the dogs catch a rabbit, I let her play with the pelt ball and get the smell in her nose, we then went a short walk to a small warren I know usually contains a few rabbits.




She was shown a warren we have previously ferreted, I know some of the holes are just diggings and are not used by the rabbits.




She searched a few holes but this one took her fancy...........




.............so much so I thought I was going to lose her.







I removed her from the area and tied her to the spade so she could watch, I then entered a ferret and was most pleased when a small female rabbit was quickly dispatched from the hole. We did this only once, and will do it again before the weekend, that way she is not getting to hyper and making yapping noises in excitement, she will realise after a few times out that stealth plays a big part in the catch, she was also rewarded 2 of the rabbits feet as a treat, she loves them.

To Be Continued.............

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