Day 2
Torrential rain but not as windy or cold as it was two weeks ago, called it a day after third drive as apart from eze being very wet, shivering and looking generally miserable she was holding her front leg up, cant see any cut or anything stuck between toes so I assume she may have slightly sprained it or something. Seems ok now but she still keeps licking at it so something bothering her.
Anyway during the three drives we did she didn't put a foot wrong. Recall, stop and turns to whistle were bang on. A few shooters and beaters did not show presumably due to weather so we only had five dogs, I was offered a shoot on the fourth drive but politely declined as I was a bit worried about eze.
First drive like last time birds were scarce but she worked very well staying close and looking for instruction. Second drive I was sent up a hedge line 90degrees to the wood joining it at the end presumably (I think) to keep the birds from coming out the wrong side but to be honest I was given little instruction as to the plan and as I was on my own I didn't want to do too much in case I did something wrong so I pretty much just hung around with eze on lead. The other beaters incl the boss man said all was well so I may not have had much input but didn't ruin the drive. About twenty phessies bagged on this drive, everyone was very pleased with it.
Third drive I was instructed to join the boss man and his cocker in some thick tall grass too the side of the wood eze flushed a phessie and either stopped of her own accord or stopped very quickly to my whistle, it was difficult to tell anyway she effectively stopped to flush (ish) and did not chase (incidentally I did witness another dog chase a flushed bird full length of a field) boss man then asked me to accompany him along a stream into a sort of gorge, I didn't question it but it turned out we were looking for a couple of pricked birds, he must have thought we were better than we are and god knows what would have happened if she had got to it but it was too late by the time I realised what we were doing we were making our way along a very precarious bank. Luckily his dog got the birds so no problem. Oh there were no rabbits found by eze so no bog offs. An enjoyable if not a wet and difficult morning and a shame I missed the last two drives but I could not risk working eze on a potentially injured paw, no one expected me too and thanked me for coming. One bloke with a couple of obviously good dogs said to me and I quote " good little dog yours isn't she" so she did very well again in fact its fare to say she was even better than day one. She asleep next to me on sofa warming up now, oh and I am resting my back as that gorge bit knackered me.
The end
