I decided to go fishing in the river below my house.
The old stone stair case down the cliffs is collapsing and almost gone. That, paired with a pair of sandals on my feet (why didn't I wear boots?), almost cost me my life as I tipped ass over teacup backwards, falling 12 feet onto sold stone.
The good news is that there was no serious damage other than a buggered knee and elbow. I will survive, but my knee should be pretty swollen tomorrow. The sign, by the way, is on the bottom of the cliff, not the top. Brilliant!
Here's another rock and dirt slide a little farther along.
Pearl with the river behind her. With all the recent rain, the river was too muddy to fish, but I practiced casting for a few minutes anyway. Things will settle down in time.
Pearl at once of the waterfalls along the cliffs.
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5 comments:
Wishes for speedy recovery!
Pearl always wonderful.
Mirko!
Great pictures! We certainly have been up-to-here in rainfall this spring, but it makes for a verdant landscape. Seeing Pearl out and about reminded me of a link I came across last night for an organization I knew nothing about, but I know you do. I read the T.R.A.P.P.E.D. website and realized how much I've learned reading your site (digging tools, dealing with skunks, etc.). For anyone who doesn't know, this volunteer group assists when people lose their terriers underground. Our three Jacks lived the farm life and we rarely had any trouble, and certainly never lost them gone-to-ground and not returning. Maybe it was luck, but the stories I read last night were scary and too often tragic. Are your girls able to turn the hunting switch off and simply have a nice walk outside without you being concerned about not having your digging gear? I have to think they can, but after reading all I have the past year or more, my 20+ years of fairly trouble-free JRT ownership seems like luck! Our dogs had on/off switches and came when they were called. I dunno, it just never seemed that hard, but maybe time softens memories of the work involved...
Seahorse
Thanks Mirko -- I'm hobbling around with a knee that is bruised several colors, but I'll probably live. It could have been much worse.
TRAPPED is an American analogy to something that exists in Wales and parts of Scotland. In the North of the UK, terriers are mostly worked in rock and there are old mine works around as well. The Fell and Moorland is a rescue that runs as a kind of co-op to share expenses and as a kind of shared labor pool as well. In the south of the UK, where the terriers are work in dirt dens, digs are pretty simple, and rescue is rarely needed and so there is no parallel to the Fell and Moorland.
In the U.S., most terrierwork is done in dirt and is generally done along the edges of plowed fields. There is not much need for a formal rescue, and when terriers do get into trouble it is more likely to be due to skunk and the terrier is dead in short order. It's very rare for a dog to get seriously stuck in an undiggable area. Even a dog trapped under a foundation can be pounded out with a slede and a cold chisel if needed.
That said, terrier work is not risk-free. Dogs can suffocate underground (very rare), be killed by skunk spray underground (a little more common), etc.
See >> http://www.terrierman.com/dogstuck.htm for stories of trapped terriers and the lessons to be learned.
See >> http://www.terrierman.com/mistakes.htm for common mistakes to avoid if you want to keep your terriers alive in the field.
Not all Jack Russells from the pet side of the gene pool are dead game, and not all are small enough to actually go to ground. In addition, there is some learning-by-watching that goes on with terriers, and so dogs that have never seen another dog to ground, and have never seen an animal go into a dirt or rock den, may not realize that wildlife is to be found underground.
I can walk two of my dogs in the woods without much of a problem -- Trooper and Pearl. Mountain is another story -- she will self-hunt in a minute and will disappear underground in a blink. She lives to hunt, and if she's in the woods or fields, she's on a leash or else she has a deben locator collar on her and I have a shovel in my hand and a locator box in my pocket. Put Mountain on a farm alone and without supervision, and she would kill 50 things and get herself seriously wrecked inside of a week.
Patrick
Terrierman, I've been an avid reader of your blog for some time now. Love these pictures of Pearl at the river, and it inspires a question. I see Pearl isn't on a leash, and I'm wondering how closely she sticks to you during activities like fishing or other unleashed areas. How did you train her to come when called? I have a 7-month old Westie puppy, and even though he follows me pretty much anywhere, I worry about letting him off the leash. For instance, in the park, he's likely to scamper off after a squirrel or even a woman with a stroller, and I would feel very uncomfortable. I would love to get to the point where I feel like I could let him off but call him back even if he's distracted. How did you get your dogs to that point?
Terriers are not Retrievers (just about the easiest dog to train) or German Shepherds (generally highly bonded to their owner). What that means is that you can NEVER walk down a sidewalk with traffic zipping by on one side and have your dog follow you around at your heel. Even a well-trained terrier is susceptible to having "the code explode" within if it sees a squirrel or rat or even a blowing moving plastic bag. Westies generally have very little hunting code inside them, but they are sill terriers somewhere down there deep inside....
That said, teaching a recall good enough for field, forest and dog park is generally not hard and involves two key bits: 1) Keeping your dogs very hungry, and; 2) Giving them a bit of kibble instead of leashing them up every time they come.
Job One is not to feed your dog at all for 24 hour or 36 hours. I assure you the dog will be fine, but at the end of that period, he or she will be VERY FOOD MOTIVATED. Now take the dog to the dog park (fenced) or some other large area that is fenced, and let the dog play. Every once in a while, whistle, and when the dog comes, slip it a SINGLE piece of kibble, Do not leash it -- let it go to play some more. Whistle again when there is a break, and when it comes, slip it another piece of kibble very quickly and with no fuss. Do this again and again, occassionally (after the 2oth bit of kibble) giving no food but a lot of pats, and other times five or six pieces of kibble (a jackpot). Your dog will learn recall pretty quickly. Feed your dog by hand like this, and do it all the time, and the dog will be as loyal as Rin Tin Tin. It will also not be a fat sausage and will look and feel better its whole life.
This technique will work on 99.9 percent of dogs. It does not work on Mountain (one of my terriers) at the farms, however, as she would rather hunt than eat or have sex or ... well anything. She will not go very far from me (50 yards is about it), but she wants to hunt and knows this is her time to do. If I cannot let her off the leash to hunt without worry, then she is on leash. The other dogs are always off leash in forest and field and mountain is too most of the time, but she is not "safe to follow" if we are just out walking as she WILL take an opportunity to hunt. She lives for that. It is her reason for being.
Patrick
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