Shogun

I personally don't see a problem with the training you are doing, i have a 12 month old springer which is also a very fast hard hunting dog. I had him in the rabbit pen from the age of six months! The most important thing with this type of dog is the stop command it must be absolutely 100%, i don't expect my dogs **** to touch the floor when he flushes game but he must stop. you really need to get this message through to your little bitch or you will be in trouble. If needs be you will have to go back to basics for a while to really reinforce that stop whistle. This may also partly solve the problem of her getting up off the sit when you are roost shooting because speaking honestly it doesn't sound like to me that she full understands that if you say sit she must sit until you tell her otherwise. Bear in mind as well that dogs like ours don't like to sit for long periods, they want to hunt. So a bit of squirming as long as its not to far isn't to bad. Just my thoughts hope this helps a little.

I would also take a close look at your body language as she is coming in, you may be giving her the wrong signals and making her warey of coming back to you. Have you been a bit hard on her? or maybe not hard enough? You need to start from scratch and build a solid recall make it the best thing that she can do for you and you shouldnt have to many problems, once firmly embeded dont let her get away with not coming back. Firm but fair!

The way that i got my springer to look at me on the sit command is quite simple really, walk your pup at heal on the lead give a small tug on the lead and give the sit command, at this moment gently push the pups backside to the ground and turn her to face you stand upright and give the command again as soon as the pup looks at you give praise. Repeat this 3 or 4 times a session and you will get a really crisp sit to the whistle with the pup looking at you

I would be tempted to try working the pup in a smallish field that is fenced off with pig wire, if you have some thing like that available. If she is 100% on the long lead she knows what is expected of her so she is having you on. Hunt her up off the lead making sure she obeys every command quickly and if she breaks you can chase her and catch her against the fence if necessary, take her back to where the crime was committed and punish there. Do not let the pup get away with this under any circumstances.

Get some 8mm frame fixings 100mm long, these will do the job just fine as long as you dont over tighten and use an 8mm drill bit. You may need to put some washers under the screw head depending on the size of the holes in your cabinet.

4 months old is far too young to be teaching a dog to sit and stay in my oppinion leave that untill 6 months at least, you will be putting far to much pressure on your puppy and thats maybe why he has stopped listening to you, stick with the basics as mentioned in previous posts and you wont go far wrong. As far as the lead situation goes my springer used to do a simmilar thing, lots of praise and patience is required.

Got to agree with last post, my springer is 5 months and very good with recall to voice and whistle. Dont test your pup only recall with two or three peeps on the whistle when you have got him coming towards you. Make it fun and he will soon associate the command with running towards you. Start early, after all you want that recall to become second nature and instant in the future. Just remember that the whistle is only a sound to a dog like your voice.

Take a look on guntrader loads of guns for sale. http://guntrader.co.uk

Met a bloke the other day who is a keen fox shooter with loads of money, I was after a few tips off him and he was telling me how successful he has been with his approach to the job. He highly recommended the British gen 3 nv scopes apparently they are what the army use. He also recommended an gen 3 nv spotting scope and to finish of a laser range finder. I thought to myself no wander you are succesful with £15000 grands worth of gear to lug about. Bloody hell the fox doesn't stand a chance! It would be nice though wouldn't it?

Cheers for that, not been there yet and dont think I will.

Has anyone got a link to a site where I can get a cool free avatar? Cheers C

Im with old rooster on this one, I think its to easy to complicate your setup with gadgets. Imho stick to field craft and you wont go far wrong. Decoys on springs work fantastic, just that bit of movement on a windy day definately makes all the difference.

It will either be the zoom if it has numbers by it or it will be the ring to focus the reticule. Should explain all about that in the destructions.

No probs hope you could find it ok.

Thats brilliant

Go to this website then go to links click on decoy world then go to downloads here you will find a description on how to make a pigeon magnet. http://www.shootpigeons.com Hope this helps

You will have a job finding a spaniel that isnt mental!

dot, As long as you get the correct mounts you can put any scope you wish to on your rifle. I have heard nothing but good things about the night eye especially for the money. Personally before getting one I would have a look on ebay etc for a second hand Leupold as you will get a far supperiour scope for just a little more money. C

Thanks for the reply got it sorted now. Easy when you know how! :*) Cheers C

Hello all, Im new to the forum and not great with computers so I was just wandering how I get web links to highlight in my posts and how do i insert smilies? Many thanks for your help Chris

Hello all, im new to the forum so i hope my bit of advice helps. Im fairly new to lamping myself, have been after fox and rabbit for 3 years now on my own and with a friend. Safety is definately the number 1 factor when going out as we dont want any more tradgedies like the ones recently publicised with people getting shot. My advice regarding lamps would be to buy the best lamp you can afford now and get one designed for shooting. Personally I think the draper models etc are ok but the beem pattern isnt great and you will struggle to get a filter which you will find you deffinately need in time. I would recommend that you take a look at the lightforce models (the 170) is brilliant or clusen engineering's range. I use a gun lamp on the scope for rabits its a Deben tracer mini pro with adjustable brightness, if you go for this model you will need decent optics so that they gather the light in effectively otherwise when you turn the brightness down you wont see a thing. I have a simmons white tail classic 3.5-10 x 50 on my rimmy and find it is just good enough. Take a look at these sights www.deben.com www.cluson.co.uk Hope this helps and appologies for the spelling (I never went to school) Chris

Salopian, Tell me about it, we are even struggeling for a bit of half decent roost shooting in north shrops. Last year was great on the rape, not so good for the farmer though! Where in shrops are you from? C