Today has been hot. 36C and it is still 32C inside at 6:30 in the evening. The hounds didn't do much as expected so we let them out at 5:30 for a last run before bringing them in.
Oops!! Bree and Lockie went bolting down the hill...something was down there. Xena waited at the top of the hill, watching, waiting...and then she too went barreling down the hill. There was obviously a wallaby in the blackberries. It didn't take long for it to make a break for it. Xena was on it's tail. It came flying past us in a puff of dust with Xena in very close pursuit. It made a turn and changed direction up to our driveway gate. Xena was still on it's tail but I think the heat and her lack of fitness was too much and it got away.
Unfortunately Lockie didn't see it make it's getaway as he was too busy runnung back and forth trying to find it, and still wouldn't come in lng after it had gone. Finally had to send Terry down with a Good-O to bring him back.
We now have 3 very hot and tired hounds but at least Xena got a run, even though she did tear a nail. I don't think her rear end appreciated it either but I know she loved the chase.

Sounds really exciting Murray sounds like Lockie - where? where? where? By the time he;s figured it out everything has vanished

It is amazing to watch a group of hounds when we walk at Fernhill & see how canny & clever some are and how sweetly dim others. There are a series of fields and gates and only a few have the smarts to remember where there are openings if they see something on the other side they want to get to. Others will stand there helplessly frustrated. Of course Miss Cailean is one clever little bitch.

My boys are the same, they love to chase rabbits in the nearby golf course, never caught any yet! and to terrorise the golfers! They chase the greenkeepers when they are on the buggies, thankfully the guys are friendly and they all love dogs! Mind you, even they were a bit unsure when they fisrt set eyes on my 'wolves'!!!

jockanddougal wrote:


Ha ha,your boys sound just like my Murphy, we walk on the golf course that my hubby is a member of and he has chased a few people, they all mostly know him now, but one man playing golf on his own,picked his clubs up and ran, Murphy was 5 months old at the time and it did make me laugh (not loudly though!!) I was shouting "Hes only a puppy". He also chases the greens staff in their buggies.

As the weather hasn't been that good we haven't been over the golf course recently, opting for a half our daily run round a football field, it's big it has 3 pitches on, good enough to stretch legs etc. The bunnies tend to graze close to the edge, but today a game little bunny was in the middle of the field. I called Murphy, who was busy peeing and sniffing at the edge and at last he caught sight of it, off he went 300mph after a 200 yard gap and chased him, he missed him by a whisker, but what a sight, nothing pleases me more than seeing a sighthound chase a bunny or hare when it has got a good run. Bunnies usually don't interest him as he knows they will pop in the hedge.
Incidentally, watching my DH and Border Terrier work together is another pleasing sight. As our dogs are pets, not hunters as the Lurchers were in the good old days, it is amazing to watch them spread out, one go one way, the other go the other way to cut prey off, also watching the BT go in the bushes and the DH waiting eagerly for anything that might bolt. Just goes to show you can't take the hunting instinct out of them, no matter what Tony Blair thought!!

Normally ou guys work as a pack. Bree and Lockie are flushers and rounder uppers Xena is the catcher. And if Xena didn't have an arthritic back she probably would have joined them earlier but she is the canny one and knows exactly when and where to be. I am glad the Paddymelon got away as they usually don't.
I spent the evening de burring Bree of millions of grass seeds she picked up during her search.