The last part of the HPR season
Alice going for the pheasant and bringing it back
Alice with her perfect retreive
Gollums approach on the bird
Gollum bringing the bird back
The shooting season finishes on 1st February. Apart from working on “rough shoots”, the HPR is often used for picking up on driven shoots. I don’t do much of this any more as I find driven shoots too un-natural. However, here are some images of Alice as she picks up pheasant in the snow. An efficient dog is important on such days as the birds can quickly disappear into the fluffy snow. To justify shooting, quick despatch is important, which is why good dogs are needed.
Alice, Hungarian Vizsla, is perfectly happy in the dry, cold snow as one would find it on the continent. Those wet, windy, Scottish days are not so much her cup of tea usless she is moving all the time. Even on a cold, brisk and wet August day on the moor, she gets shivery.
And then, of course there is Gollum’s approach to getting the bird. Good job they have such and “arial” sticking out of the snow….
As the shooting season closes on the eve of 1st February, work soon resumes for the HPR as I will describe as we go through the year. At the same time, dummy training and fitness is part of the HPR maintenance.
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17/03/2011 17:06
What is an HPR?
HPR stands for Hunt, Point and Retrieve. Dog breeds like German pointers, Vizslas, Brittanies and Weimeraners are all HPRs. When they are used as gun dogs, they should hunt the terrain and use their nose to find sitting.. -
02/04/2011 12:31
Counting Grouse Pairs on the Moor.
As I work my pointers on the grouse moors together with my fantastic friend, Anne Johnson, we are involved in the grouse counting from time to time. Early in the year, February-March-April, the grouse is pairing up ready..
