Thread: Not a hunting dog as such

Girl is about 16 months old now. She has been an incredible young dog to have around the house. Since the last update we have recently purchased a property over the other side of town so things have been a bit all over the show. Hunting and training the pup took the backseat while sorting the mortgage and work was in full swing. Starting to find a better balance now and have gotten out a few times, once successfully and once just for a scout.

Took Girl away for a tahr hunt down the lakes recently. Had a wee walk up the hill on the night we arrived and sat on the edge of a gut for an hour or so until dark. Darkness came quickly and the wind drove me insane so we headed back to camp. Next day we climbed up into the snow and sidled around the hill for a few hours before getting hungry and deciding to slowly make our way back to camp. We stumbled upon a small mob of tahr crossing a scree slope and knocked a couple over.



Excuse the shot placement on one of the tahr. That is actually a result of a pass-through of the first animal and unfortunately wounded the second. A mistake I do not wish to make again.

A couple weeks later I went exploring with the dog in some poor weather looking for sign of animals in the area. Came across a few hot spots but not enough to encourage me to head back for another look. Might have to try further up the river. Find it quite hard to keep the dog in close in situations like this as the area is so vast and open that she wants to explore as much area as she can.



Training is ongoing - continuing to work on trying to establish a solid range for her walking out in front and continuing work on extended stops. I feel I have a lot to learn around steadiness, especially when other dogs are nearby. Seems that she just cant resist the urge sometimes to go and play with a nearby dog.

So far the pup has been introduced to a few geese, a couple tahr, a chamois and spooked a few pigs. Yet to stumble across a red. Looking forward to this spring and getting out more. Fingers crossed a deer is next on the list.

I recently went for a day walk in an area I haven't checked out before in Canterbury. Spotted this fella feeding on the edge of the creek at 1200+ masl in mid morning. He was a bloody big guy and unfortunately I wasn't able to position him for a decent photo. The pup was pretty stoked to have her first deer. She was nice and calm throughout the entire hunt. She cruised along nicely in front of me and kept coming back to check in on me when we were climbing the hills and I was blowing hard. Turned what I intended to be a gentle day walk into a 12 hour slog which had me feeling sorry for myself for a few days following.

I enjoy taking a dog on the hills good having a mate. It looks green on the hills have you been getting a bit off rain? coming down that way in couple weeks and thought it might be a complete draught

I've never been one to enjoy hunting on my own very much but its a whole different ball game now that I've got her to keep me company. First time I'd been in that area and I was surprised how green some of the land was. Saying that though, you don't have to go far from there and there is some extremely scorched land.