Sorrel’s siter is Tallulah who is not quite so accomplished as a gundog and is in training. Here is Chapter One of her adventures.

Tallulah is a very sophisticated 2 year old black Labrador Retriever. She lives at Low Farm. Although a working gundog in training, she does like to wear a pink collar at weekends. She just loves dressing up. This makes it hard for her to be taken seriously by the other black Labradors in Colmworth but she is sufficiently confident in her abilities to retrieve pheasants, partridges and other gamebirds from the shooting field not to care. At weekends she likes to be known by her full name,  Tallulah, because she thinks that suits the pink collar and more feminine accessories that she likes to carry.

During the week, however, she is known as Tally. Well, actually, most people shout “Tally-ho” as she races across the fields to retrieve the pink (of course) dummy which forms part of her gundog practice routine. Every morning Tally’s owner takes her into the grounds of Low Farm to practise with the dummy launcher. The launcher fires a canvas cylinder high into the air and far into the distance with a loud bang. It is supposed to simulate a game bird falling to the ground after being shot on the shooting field and Tally, being a Labrador Retriever, instinctively runs at top speed to retrieve the dummy. The first time it was fired, Tally jumped into the air in shock and surprise, all four paws off the ground for several seconds. Now, she sits directly under the launcher waiting for it to fire. It is a real treat for her. In fact when she spies the launcher in the Wellington boot basket in the boot room, she gets quite excited. This doesn’t happen very often though because she isn’t officially allowed into the boot room. In the past, on entering the boot room she was momentarily possessed by a vagrant spirit (she calls it “that other dog”) and found herself chewing the boots and shoes. This always leads to trouble and a spell outside in the cold courtyard and so is best avoided. If the boot room door is left open, she keeps her eyes down to the floor so that her ears fall forward and stop her seeing those tempting boots and shoes.

Tally was going from strength to strength in her gundog training. Her mistress had purchased a range of dummies that were all tremendous fun. The rabbit-covered one (being cylindrical it looked like a rabbit with no legs) tickled her chin but she held it gently in her soft mouth (despite wanting to spit it out), not wanting to let her mistress down. She was paw perfect. She became very excited when the big bunch of keys to the gun cabinet could be heard tinkling across the courtyard to the gunroom. The first time she saw the gun as a young pup, she didn’t know what it was but instinctively felt excited and exhilarated. The truth is that she was bred from a long line of gundogs and it’s in the genes. She had learned to wait patiently by her mistress’ side and on days when she was picking up in training she had to be extra careful to remember everything she had been taught. Her main problem is overexcitement. This has led to many problems. One day she stood so close to her mistress when the gun came out of the gun cabinet that as her mistress turned, the barrels caught Tally in the eye and she had to have it bathed with salt water (a very nasty experience). On another occasion she smacked into the back of the Landrover on her way to picking up training because she forgot to wait for the door to be opened before she jumped in. She slid down the closed door like a cartoon dog.

Then there was the lap of honour occasion. Tally had been invited to a pheasant shoot to sit with the dogs who would be picking up. She was let off her lead during the picking up. All of the older Labradors went off to pick up birds and trotted back to their handlers triumphantly with pheasants held dead centre in their mouths just as they had been taught to do. Some of the less experienced retrievers came back with bits of bird dangling because they weren’t holding the bird right in the middle of its body. This can trip up the stockier, more short-legged of the retriever dogs. Tally was then invited to sweep up. This entails the dogs sweeping through the undergrowth – the cover – to see if any birds have been left unnoticed. Tally found a bright, golden-brown pheasant with beautiful plumage among the cover straight away. She picked the bird up carefully in her mouth and remembered everything she had learned in training except that, rather than sitting down at her handler’s feet and releasing the bird to her mistress’ hand, she ran off and did a big circle around the other dogs to show off. The lap of honour bemused the other handlers who looked very disapprovingly at Tally and mockingly at her mistress but it made the other dogs laugh with glee and they were secretly envious of the free-spirited young Labrador who just didn’t seem to care what anybody else, human or canine, thought. It helps that Tally is a very confident and friendly pup. Of course it did mean that Tally wasn’t allowed off her pink lead at the next shoot.

Sorrel, is a young bitch, trained as a gundog in Yorkshire. She is a black labrador and her favourite passtime is chasing rabbits, something that she would never do during a shoot, when she sits quietly waiting to be told to pick up game.

Sorrel will be three at her next birthday and is looking forward to celebrating with a large bone.