Nana Finally Gets The Message.

[OEH]

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Nana is perfect in many ways, she is fast beautiful obedient and loving, however she has had one major fault in my eyes, in the just over 2 years I have had her she has shown no inclination to catch rabbits.

At first when I went walking with her and Tess wher I knew there were rabbits Tess would stop playing with Nana and become very serious about checking all the burrows and very helpfully marking those she thought had someone at home (and then getting furious with me because due to the lack of ferret I could do nothing about her beautiful marking). This upset Nana greatly, she simply could not understand what was going on. She would walk beside my staring soulfully up into my eyes and then wander off to Tess and sniff whatever she was sniffing and then come back. This went on for pretty much the first year I had her. She didn't even get excited when Tess caught them, and the expression of horror on her face when she found I expected her to eat the rabbits Tess caught was pricless.

I thought as she likes lure coursing so much if only I could get a running rabbit for her to chase she might get more interested, so I took her lamping at the beging of last season. And while she clearly loved chasing them when they ran it seemed as if she was just running for the fun of it and had no interest in catching one.

So I am thrilled to say that she has finally clicked. I went out lamping for the first time with my own lamp on Wednesday night and while the circumstances were far from ideal- the bunnies had clearly be lamped rather a lot and most of them saw us coming from a mile off, Nana was keen, very very keen. She had quite a few chases and then finally caught one beautifully quickly and keenly. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to slip her again after that. But she very quickly learnt that there was generally a bunny at the end of the beam and followed the beam like a magnet.

I can't wait for my next trip .

 

[Janimal]

Well done Nana :cheers:

and Well done you Olivia going lamping :thumbsup: brave girl.

 

[Paula Roberts]

Well done Nana :thumbsup:

 

[dana]

fab nana, i do hope that the rabbit meat was put to good use though?

 

[~Helen~]

Wow, how cool is that - Catch Your Own Dinner :lol:

How do you feed it to them, Olivia? Do they just eat it as it comes, or do you skin it?

The closest Lola has ever come to catching a rabbit was finding a very freshly killed baby bunny early one morning. I think it either dropped from the sky (buzzards?) or we disturbed Mister Fox :- " She did enjoy that... wouldn't let Josie have a look-in!

 

[OEH]

I gut them straight away, then when we get home I skin them and joint them and freeze them (to get rid of nasties). I find that one does one meal for two of them.

 

[nigelmcfc]

Well done OEH and Nana , no stopping her now!!

 

[bardmand]

Well done, Nana!

Oh, how I wish we could work our whippets in Norway. No bunnies here I'm afraid, and I doubt any dog would stand a chance against the hares in our hilly countryside - and then there is legislation...

Nevertheless, my Gullet has proven her passion for the chase ( ) - which might be part of the reason why she has shown very little interest in the lure so far.

Nana is beautiful, btw. Both my two first whippets were whites. I have later been told that they are not favoured by Brits working their whippets because they have "bad feet" - is that still the case?