Game on Dog Beds

There is a bounty of healthy, happy meat around at the moment. For next to nothing you can pick up pheasants and ducks and partridges from shooting estates. So I did just that, as I was driving home from a visit to Inverness, but I had three dogs in their dog beds in the back of the pick-up and it was very crammed indeed. So I bottled out and went home first to drop the dogs off. I should really be confident with having dogs and game in the same vehicle and it does happen from time to time. I am not scared that they would start eating the game, but I have one little nagging worry about the young one: she is quite possessive over birds. IF I was going to pick the birds up with the dogs in the same car, I would have put the birds under the dog beds in a corner and it would no doubt have been fiiiiiine, but the possessiveness of the youngster might spark a fight. It is most annoying to have a dog with that character. I have found this before even walking along with a bird in my hand and the dog to heel. If another dog comes near the bird in my hand, she can show teeth and give a little snap saying this is my bird. Not good, but it happens so quick, I have never got time to stop her. It is much easier to tell a dog off that has the same possessiveness over its dog beds as it is a slower process. If one dog is on the bed and won’t let the others come near, we can intervene and as alpha dogs we can tell the pack to get on to the same bed, end of story.

Anyway, I got the birds home and started the big process of butchering and getting them all prepared for the freezer. The dogs were lying on their warm dog beds in the same room and were all very well behaved. I could have left the room without any problem, none of them would have got up to steal a bird. Once they are up on the table and obviously in the butchering process, the young dog is happy and not possessive. In fact I could see her fast asleep on her dog beds, not caring at all.

By the way, the waterproof dog beds are ideal for picking up game as you can just wipe off any blood that might get spilled. I have also had deer and other stuff chucked on the bed in the back of my car, no problem. Obviously if you do that, even if you clean everything, next time the dogs get in to the car, their extremely fine noses will tell them, through the scent of the nice cleaning agents, that there has been SOME dead thing on here and they sniff and sniff the dog beds. You can understand, when you see that behaviour, why sniffer dogs are so useful for detecting even the smallest speck of blood on a carpet years after an incident. They are amazing.