Fenlander ®

Khan was put to Holly and Rabbit and this is where the gene pool opened up. The second generation litters were a spread of variety. Two inch long-haired solid livers, silvers, dark and light liver and whites, as well as short-haired in the same colours. Most of them were sturdy, with decent length of leg and longish backs resembling hounds, some similar in appearance to the Vizla. A few were more like Springer size but not so slight.

Due to space and cost I was restricted to how many breeding bitches I could keep, also I had to have land and time enough to work and train animals to ensure they were worthy to breed on from. I selected the handsome rather than pretty bitches swaying to the heavier hound type. Fennel, a huge liver and white short-haired bitch from Rabbit, about twenty five inch at shoulder, large chest, strong head and bone, with a Pointer x Blood Hound look about her, proved to be sweet-natured, a good worker, always wanting to please and a very soft spacious mouth apart from with foxes, and the like!

Myrtle! I waited for Holly’s last litter with Khan before finding her. Silver and white short-haired, her character and frame reminds me much of Willow her grandmother. Nicely proportioned about twenty one inch at shoulder she’s a buzz of energy and passion. A great trusted beating dog and shooting companion. People always comment about Fennel and Myrtle on what beautiful or gorgeous dogs they are, although Fennel gets mistaken for a dog occasionally due to her size!

HERCO

Herco a recent second generation from Khan and Rabbit, the last as age dictates, almost not at all due to Rabbit catching kennel cough while five weeks gone. The pups other than Herco were reabsorbed during her sickness. Of all places to catch it on a shoot was the last, so I thought. But whilst travelling in the beater's wagon, a beater opposite lent over to a colleague to say `My dogs had kennel cough last week' of course I asked her to repeat what she had just said! I had three dogs with me; there were five or six other people's dogs and she had her two labs which incidentally were of little use, one you couldn't let off the lead and the other was wanting for everything.

A week to the day the first dog started coughing! Now some may say you should have had your dogs done for kennel cough in the first place. Maybe so, but people who work and live on estates most of their lives with hounds and horses like her should have much more responsible attitude! I had to quarantine my place. Not only did I have no pups for people who were waiting for that parentage and I for a long-haired male like Hugo to put back over the half-pointer bitches, but I also lost valuable stud fees from Digby and income from the use of my land and ponds for dog training!

                                                              The sword, strength, domination and power,                                                                    give to me the courage and will in this forsaken hour!

Herco the gods spared you and gave you to me to finally drive me insane! At around seventy pound in weight, dinner plates for paws, much a hound in looks and gait, with golden eyes and rich short liver coat, a juvenile delinquent of godly gorgeousness so much the character of Hugo's youth. No matter how much money people keep offering me, you are here to stay!

I started taking Herco shooting at about eight months with Digby to start with simply because he wasn't likely to get in Digby's way as Digby would be off and away, which he was. It gave Herco an idea of things in the field and what it was all about. Just the sight and smells of a few birds and a couple of kills if possible, the odd trial at retrieving fresh game.

At ten months I took him and Myrtle on a cock shoot. Herco, I did have to tether him to make sure when standing at my peg, but Myrtle was pretty steady considering she's allowed to run into shot. I had plenty of admiring comments and questions about the pair as well as acknowledgement their scenting and working abilities.

I got talking to a man on my team who had a Weimaraner bitch, a sad looking creature lacking in drive, life and colour for that matter. Also unfortunately she had a head that looked like it had been squashed sideways and melted! It could have been that this bitch was over subdued in training.... as in made to work very close, when they were developed to work and quarter further out, no fun there!

Well, on one walking drive four or five of us including Weimaraner and owner were blanking some sparse knee-high cover into a wood three hundred yards away which would then be driven to the guns standing. I was on the left of the line and the Weimaraner owner on the right. For some reason the Weimaraner was left to wander as it wanted across everyone's paths, which while there are probably no written rules there is a code to give other beater's dogs their area to work. So I reined Myrtle in who was keeping a tab on a scent line and another beater called his dog to heel due to the sparse cover and wandering Weimaraner. As we got to the end of the cover and the Weimaraner wandered back to its master I let Myrtle go and she proceeded to flush the hen she'd been keeping a tab on then flushed two more further over where the Weimaraner had worked!

We got into the wood and a cock bird was shot going back, hit the floor and ran, the Weimaraner with no master in sight gave chase to return with a very dead bird, something I witnessed twice more close up. This was before I let Herco wait ten seconds to retrieve a dead bird a little way in front which he scooped up in his spacious mouth and delivered promptly, to have the Weimaraner owner say `It's good if you can get them to retrieve'. So poor dog or poor trainer?! I did extract from talking to the owner that he did frequent the show ring with his dogs, well deduce what you will from that!

Herco has now had a couple of trips out with the air rifle stalking rabbits and seems to have got the same sort of character for it as Hugo, which I had hoped was the case for I sorely miss Hugo a most intelligent, useful and considerate companion. I lost Hugo at the age of 9 in the Summer 2012 to a growth on his liver. I believe this was due to when he had a tape worm at eighteen months old that I could not shift with the pet shop type wormer, so for the third time I gave him a triple dose. I believe this damaged his liver as from then onwards he would wake up dry retching but never vomit, and ask to go out and eat grass. Herco will be a great sire to make the fourth generation to come, I hope that there will be some long-haired pups in there too!