# birds of prey



## serpentseye

how old do you have to be to get a liscence for a bird of prey?
want to start saving for a harris hawk - held one once and it landed on my head - thought the leaf in my hair was food wanted one ever since


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## hawksport

You can get one at any age and unfortunately there is no licensing system.
While you are saving for the hawk don't forget to save another £500 - £600 for telemetry, £500 to build a mews, £150 for a freezer, £50 for a glove, £50 for a bow perch, £20 for a pair of bells, £20 for a couple of swivels. Leather working tools and kangeroo skin to make flying jesses, mews jesses, bewits, and anklets. A set of files and clippers to cope it's beak, a whistle and lure to call it back and a bag to carry everything.
Then you need permision to hunt over a few thousand acres of land that holds game because if you don't hunt with it it WILL scream all day. The rabbits and hares it does catch you will have to kill quickly or it will eat them alive. A couple of ferrets and all their gear will be needed because by December there aren't many rabbits sitting out in the day.
Nearly forgot, you need around 3 hours a day from September to March that you can put aside for the hawk, and if it does go missing in action you need to be able to cancel work, school and everything else so you can find it before the transmiter batteries run out. You need a car aswell because once a bird has thermaled up to 500 feet it can come down a long way away.


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## Paul Dunham

Hawksport,
I think your being a little unfair in your answer to this kid. If I've ever seen an answer to put any enthusiastic beginner off falconry it's this one.
Your listing the text book perfect way of doing everything, which you must know perfectly well many falconers do not practice. Unless a bird is undergoing intensive training, which is normal at the beginning. There are very few falconers if any which spend 3 hours every single day with their birds once their fully trained, even during the hunting season.

I didn't have any money when I first started in the early 70's. I made all of my own falconry equipment. Built my own mews. There was no telemetry which taught you to train your birds correctly. I even learned to train birds without the use of scales.
The most important thing is to have love, a passion and time for your birds. 
The rest will follow.


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## hawksport

So which peice of equipment that I listed do you think is not needed and what did you train with no scales?
The results of flying without telemetry for one month and these are just the reported ones that have been trained well enough to make it through most of the season.

Falconry equipment - falconry equipment online - cheap bird vitamins

Falconry equipment - falconry equipment online - cheap bird vitamins


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## AlexArt

I don't think Hawksports answer is unfair at all - it's called being realistic for the sake of the animal. 
A potential falconer needs to know what to expect, I would personally advise you join your local falconry group or get some lessons, as holding one once is great that it made you want to get one but they are pretty specialised animals regarding care and training and the initial start up for all the gear is pretty expensive - it's not just the cost of the bird. 

Joining a falconry group or getting lessons will let you know what to expect and have experienced back up if anything goes wrong, where to get your bird from, what to avoid when buying and the preparation you need to do before you buy. You also need a good vet that has had dealings with birds of prey - most don't so you need to check.
There are a few good books about so do as much research as possible - Jemima Parry-Jones ones are a good start, and will tell you what basics you need, she runs courses too which are supposed to be really good. You also have to think of the fact that a bird of prey can live 40 odd years!!


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## Valanita

Good advice to Serpantseye from you both, Hawksport & AlexArt. Keeping a bird of prey is not for a beginner, a person deffinately needs to learn all about falconry, how to do everything for the bird & train it etc, from an expert long before they even think of actually owning one themselves. Not to mention the expense.


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## serpentseye

i know, i am ten but i knew that by the time i had saved up everything i'll probaly be much older and have the time for one.


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## hawksport

When you think you are ready find yourself a mentor. There are lots of falconers who will help you get started the right way. You will find some helpfull info here although it is an American site and some things they do are illegal here.The Modern Apprentice - General Equipment


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## hawksport

Just to give you a bit of an idea of what a harris can do have a look at this clip, and if anyone tells you that you don't need telemetry for a harris just think how long you could spend looking in those trees for it if it made a kill.
YouTube - Harris hawk waiting on


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## Paul Dunham

This was in the early 70's when there was no quaranteen and you could buy a Lanner Falcon for £25, a Bateleur Eagle or Changeble Hawk Eagle for £70. Pallas Sea Eagle for £35 or a Tawny Eagle for £45.
Flying a bird without wieghing is just doing it the old way by regularly feeling their keel bone and accessing their condition against their eagerness. 
It's something you learn through regular contact, soon to be forgotten when you get out of practice. I'd flown most of the common stuff around in those days. Kestrels, Buzzards, Lanners, Bateleur Eagle beginning with scales and eventually doing without them and going to train a few birds using no scales at all.
I learned to fly birds before telemetry, when falconers were very careful about releasing their birds through fear of losing them. There are some falconers who think telemetry has made many falconers a little lazy and more inclined to release their birds before their birds are ready. Because of this false sense of security telemetry gives them.


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## hawksport

Telemetry shouldn't be an excuse not to train birds properly but you know as well as I do that everybody loses birds and if a bird is tagged there is much more chance of it being found quickly than just relying on field craft. There are too many people coming into falconry and buying £200 harris hawks and either killing them by using unsuitable equipment or bad weight control, or losing them, after all why spend £600 on telemetry when you can just buy a new one for £200 or swap one for a staffy. Then when somebody who actually cares about the future of falconry finds it if it does manage to survive if it can't be lured in they have to either risk using an illegal trap and all the complications that go with that or shoot it. As for my first post being unfair and putting a beginer off, if they are put of that easily then falcory is not for them and if the op had been local to me her and an adult would of been invited out for a day next season to see exactly what was involved.


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## Paul Dunham

I'm sorry but I am inclined to disagree. There are more birds lost today because of telemetry than anytime before it was introduced. Old falconers were a great deal more careful about releasing their birds than today's modern falconers. At any rate the batteries don't last five minutes and often birds released earlier than they should be are more difficult to capture.

Having trained birds both with and without telemetry, generally find I fly birds better and I'm more in tune with them without the telemetry.
Some of the best falconers I've met have had little money and little equipment
and some of the most fantastic kept birds I've ever seen. On the other hand I come across a large number of wealthy people who have everything they need, but neglect their birds instead.
Interestingly you say all falconers lose birds. I'd never lost a single bird for the first 20 years until I used telemetry. Obviously I'd lost birds for very short periods, but I always got them back.


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## hawksport

There are more birds lost today because of the sheer number of birds being flown compared to twenty years ago. It's not that long ago that harris hawks were £1000+ and they weren't lost very often. Now they are in the papers for £200 they are lost all the time. Nothing to do with telemetry, it's all down to economics. Cheap hawks bred from any two birds reared on cheap food and sold to any idiot who has the cash, no questions asked. Just the same as rescues are full of £50 Staffies and not the £800 Staffies bred from health tested parents by responsible breeders.
Interestingly of the three lost hawks I have been out to this year none of them were tagged, just like none on the IBR lost list are.

"The batteries don't last 5 minuets"? Well here's my transmiter as you can see it has a six day battery life. TX-9So if I fly 3hrs each day and change the batteries evey week that means on the last day I still have 5 days tracking left when I can get any number of falconers scanning round for me. Look on the I.F.F. on the losts, the first reply is allways "what freqency are you on"
You never lost a bird for twenty years untill you used telemetry. Now surely you are not saying you lost it because it was tagged. Maybe you flew it free too soon or took short cuts but that is down to you not the transmiter.
And lets not forget that back when there was wild take and most falconers flew indigenous hawks and falcons if one was lost it wasn't going to have the enviromental impact that a group hunting pack of non indigenous harris hawks would have.


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## Paul Dunham

Oh my god what did falconers do for all those thousands of years before we invented telemetry? How on earth could anyone with a Harris Hawk get by without it? You talk like it's an essential item. It's not. Again before telemetry falconers were better falconers, they trained their birds better. Yes I am saying I lost my first bird because it was tagged and it made me lazy. I would normally of made damn sure it was ready for release. It's a subliminal thing, false sense of security and all that.

There's a lot more birds lost today because of the sheer number of idiots who have them. What proportion of birds kept by Robin Hood falconers actually fly them? Very few is the answer and probably up to 90% of those which do, don't seems to have a clue what their doing. That's why so many birds of prey are getting loose in such numbers. Bad falconry practices.


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## hawksport

So you were lazy and didn't train your bird properly. In your own words "bad falconry practices" as practised by you.
I can't quite understand how 5 grams of electronics can control your thinking, do you also have a false sense of security when you wear a seat belt and drive up the a**e end of lories?
How are the 90% that don't have a clue coming into falconry? From watching p**s poor demonstrations of birds with smashed primaries and trains being flown with no telemetry, with mews jesses still on and being allowed to land on peoples heads by "falconers" who should be setting an example. That's how they saw it done by the "experts" so it must be the right way to do it.
I might just put up a photo of a hawk hanging in a tree dead because it was flown in jesses with slits the same as they did for thousands of years, if it was tagged it might have been found in time to save its life, but who cares the're cheap enough to buy another.


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## Paul Dunham

Well well, we are getting arsey aren't we?
So you descend into personal insults when someone disagrees with you.
You see I know I'm not perfect and in the past have made mistakes and probably will make some more. By the way I only lost the bird for one night.
I've seen those terrible displays you describe and find myself appalled by them. But I cannot understand why you keep wittering on as if I am responsible for these bad practices, or is it you just like to insult? Modern day falconers have got nothing on falconers of old, they were much more in tune with their birds than todays falconers.
Incidentally, I have a lot of experience and I am a very good falconer and my birds fly very well, better than most and I'm very funny about broken feathers. I hate them too.
I've also acheived things most falconers could only dream about and I would put the performance of my birds up against anyone I've ever met or seen at any display.


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## hawksport

I didn't make any personal insults, you were the one that said you were lazy and you were the one that blamed your lazyness on telemetry. 
There are many reasons for losing birds impatience, flying too high, fling too low, flying in unsuitable areas, flying in unsuitable weather but to say a bird is lost because it was tagged is just an excuse used by people who can't admit to making a mistake.
Were old time falconers so much better than todays? 
Possibly, but by flying wild caught hawks and falcons they had much better birds to start with. By natures natural selection they had the best 10% of birds bred from the best 10% of parent birds, the other 90% being dead by the end of their first year. A more clear point is that there wasn't the bad falconers then.
Anyway I will continue to tag my birds just incase I ever need to use it and I will recommend others do the same.
Have a good moult


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## Acacia86

I 100% agree with Hawksport. If i needed Falconry advice i would definately start with HS!!!

People in Falconry should be encouraging proper care and explaining all the con's as well as the pro's. Saying HS was harsh is explaining it all, was truly wrong. EDUCATION is one of the best things we can do when it comes to animal welfare.

Hawksport, you do this, and you do it bloody well! :thumbup:

I personally could never ever have a bird of prey, i love them, god i really do, but i know i could never have one myself. I would never be able to give them the life they need and deserve. 

Also using the ''past times'' excuses means nothing! Not a lot of animals were treated greatly in times ago! But we as humans live and learn.


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## Paul Dunham

So Hawksport, judging by your responses you have had plenty of experience losing your birds and had to fall back on telemetry to find them. No wonder you consider it to be such an essential item. Does this mean without it you would have lost your birds? My experience and hunting practices cannot be that bad if I don't need telemetry.
Obviously people who know nothing about falconry or falconers who know no different are going to support your politically correct point of view. There's always been an hypocritical elitest element in the falconry community discouraging people as if they are in possession of some ancient secret.

Your original advice to this kid was completely negative in every conceivable way. I was surprised you didn't go on and tell him falconry would probably destroy his personal life too. There was not one piece of encouragement about one of the worlds most wonderful pursuits. 

Furthermore I don't recall saying a novice should go it alone and not seek the correct advice on how to train birds of prey. I said you were going over the top.


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## hawksport

I can't see anywhere that I said I had lost any birds only that I tag birds incase I ever do need to use telemetry to find one


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## hawksport

Reading back through the whole thread your reasons for not using telemetry are
1 In the old days you didn't use it.
Well in the old days we sent children to the work house, sewed ferrets mouths shut with hot needles and cut toes off hounds to stop them catching the kings deer. I dont agree with any of those either.

2 It can give people a false sense of security.
In the same way that seat belts, air bags, crash helmets and condoms do, but apart from the pope I don't see many people saying we shouldn't be using them.

My reason for using it is
1 It can save days looking for a lost bird and can save birds lives.


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## Paul Dunham

Well Hawksport,
That was an interesting debate. I can't say I agree with all you say, but at least your prepared to defend your point of view.
I don't understand why you list the stuff about ferrets, workhouses etc, it has no more to do with what we are talking about than modern day crack houses.
I understand the false sense of security and I can understand you not wanting to spend days looking for your bird. (although I have never had to) However I still feel many falconers lose birds because of this false sense of security which telemetry gives them. I also feel you receive a great deal more pleasure from flying a bird which is completely free of modern electronics. It makes falconry less challenging. Takes the fun out of it.


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## hawksport

Well if you ask ten falconers a question we both know how many different answers you will get. All I want is for new falconers coming in to the sport is to do it to a high standard. There are enough antis already without newbies coming in and giving them more ammunition You only have to look on you tube to see where falconry is going in the UK, no respect for hawks, no respect for quarry and no respect for laws and tradition. Just throw a hawk out of a car window in asda car park and laugh while it eats it alive and then go home and put it back in the rabbit hutch untill next Sunday.
I would agree that birds are lost because of a false sense of security but that is down to peoples attitude not the technology itself. People buy telemetry put it on a bird and seem to think it is some sort of remote control, when they should be tracking hidden transmiters and learning the effeccts of hills, trees and buildings ect on the signal before it is even fitted to a bird.
Just so you know I don't put everyone off my harris is going on loan for next season to someone who was coming out with me this season and if he does a good job I might just let him keep her as payment for all the bramble beating for the last seven months. I just need to find a nice pere/saker now for persuit, with telemetry of course because those flights can end up anywhere.


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## Paul Dunham

Hi Hawksport,

I think the best way to explain the difference between old world falconry and new world is the fact that modern falconers have a much easier time because pretty much all birds of prey today are bred in captivity.
A wild bird is far more difficult to train and a completely different kettle of fish. You get it wrong and you WILL lose it.
With wild birds they already understand hunting and already possess the skills to live in the wild were they prefer to live. It takes a very skilled falconer to train a wild bird to come back after it is re-released.
With captive bred birds they know nothing else but captivity and in many cases will die if they get lose into the wild. There is already a relationship with man and they automatically look to him when they become hungry. To be honest for some falconers today&#8217;s birds are too easy and present very little in the way of a challenge.
If a modern day falconer paid the same attention to his captive bred birds which the old day falconers paid to their wild caught birds then they there would be little need for telemetry.
The fact is falconry isn't what it used to be. It's become boring. I had to leave the country and make friends with the wild birds and train them to stimulate my interest.


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## hawksport

Yes and it's the harris more than any other that has made it easy and unless we get our house in order it will be the downfall of falconry in the UK. My whole point of saying telemetry should be used is the non native and hybrids used now. If a peregrine or a spar is lost yes it might die or it might survive and breed but neither of those is as bad as having harris hawks or redtails breeding in the wild.
The way some of our native bops have made a come back there is a strong case for allowing wild take again, but with politcal correctness and all that I can't see it happening. As far as I know the procedures are still in place to apply, it's just policy to refuse applications


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## Paul Dunham

Yes I remember when Harris's appeared on the scene. They were the wonder hawk, very easily trained. In fact in the early days Harris's easy reputation put a lot of falconers off them. Me included. To me the ultimate hawk was a Goshawk and still is. Harris prices rose to £1800 for a female & £1200 for a male & the same price for Peregrines.
I think today the only justification for removing birds from the wild is either to improve the bloodlines or for a specific programme to save them from extinction.
I've already achieved what I consider to be the ultimate falconry anyway and would like to do more. I went out into the wild and made friends with a couple of pairs of the once rarest bird in the world, the Mauritius Kestrel and trained them to come down and take food from the fist. These birds were completely wild, spent no time in captivity, there was no handling, no weighing, no dieting, no touching to feel the keel. It's a wonderful feeling to have a completely wild falcon stoop from a thousand metres off a mountain onto your fist. It was pure conditioning, most of the time they really weren't all that hungry.


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## Guest

Paul Dunham said:


> I've already achieved what I consider to be the ultimate falconry anyway and would like to do more. I went out into the wild and made friends with a couple of pairs of the once rarest bird in the world, the Mauritius Kestrel and trained them to come down and take food from the fist. These birds were completely wild, spent no time in captivity, there was no handling, no weighing, no dieting, no touching to feel the keel. It's a wonderful feeling to have a completely wild falcon stoop from a thousand metres off a mountain onto your fist. It was pure conditioning, most of the time they really weren't all that hungry.


wow what a fantastic experience that must have been do you know how many Mauritius kestrels there are now in the wild and is everything being done to ensure their survival?


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## Paul Dunham

Hi Shamen,

Originally the population got down to as little as just 4 individuals comprising of just one female and three males. That was in 1974 and over the years they managed to increase the population to between 7/800 on an island which could probably only sustain about a 1000. However before I left a guy from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust told me the revised numbers have been reduced to between 5/600. Mauritius is one of the most studied ecosystems on the planet with many students mostly from the University of Reading studying them and overseen by the Mauritius Wildlife foundation and the Durrell Wildlife and Conservation Trust. With less than 2% of the native forest left all species on Mauritius remain threatened. Man has taken over 98% of the island and he is still not happy.

For all that it's great to see a success story for a change in a world where so many species are becoming extinct. It proves we're not wasting our time.


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## Guest

Paul Dunham said:


> Hi Shamen,
> 
> Originally the population got down to as little as just 4 individuals comprising of just one female and three males. That was in 1974 and over the years they managed to increase the population to between 7/800 on an island which could probably only sustain about a 1000. However before I left a guy from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust told me the revised numbers have been reduced to between 5/600. Mauritius is one of the most studied ecosystems on the planet with many students mostly from the University of Reading studying them and overseen by the Mauritius Wildlife foundation and the Durrell Wildlife and Conservation Trust. With less than 2% of the native forest left all species on Mauritius remain threatened. Man has taken over 98% of the island and he is still not happy.
> 
> For all that it's great to see a success story for a change in a world where so many species are becoming extinct. It proves we're not wasting our time.


how interesting thank you Paul i know Durrell's Trust are amazing! i bet without them the kestrel would have gone the same way as the dodo, sad to think though that man is still encroaching on whats left of a very fragile habitat.


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## Paul Dunham

Yes the Durrell Wildlife and Conservation trust has done a brilliant job. But the main driving force behind it was a Welsh biologist Dr Carl G Jones who interview me for the job in the beginning. Without him they would now be extinct along with the Dodo which I'm sure you know was also from Mauritius.
He's the guy who stayed behind and found the last remaining pair when everyone else had given up. 
I remember as a young teenager getting what was then the bible of birds of prey books, two volumes of "Eagles Hawks and Falcons of the World" by Brown and Andamon and reading that this little falcon will probably disappear into extinction with little or nothing being known about their breeding habits and thinking it was a shame nothing could be done.

Little did I know that just over thirty years later I'd be making friends with them in the wild.


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## Guest

Paul Dunham said:


> Yes the Durrell Wildlife and Conservation trust has done a brilliant job. But the main driving force behind it was a Welsh biologist Dr Carl G Jones who interview me for the job in the beginning. Without him they would now be extinct along with the Dodo which I'm sure you know was also from Mauritius.
> He's the guy who stayed behind and found the last remaining pair when everyone else had given up.
> I remember as a young teenager getting what was then the bible of birds of prey books, two volumes of "Eagles Hawks and Falcons of the World" by Brown and Andamon and reading that this little falcon will probably disappear into extinction with little or nothing being known about their breeding habits and thinking it was a shame nothing could be done.
> 
> Little did I know that just over thirty years later I'd be making friends with them in the wild.


well what an amazing man! just goes to show that one person really can make a difference when everyone else had given up hope! its a pity there arnt more out there like him with so many species now on the brink of extinction. Thanks for this Paul


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## Paul Dunham

Your Welcome.


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## eagle96

I agree with paul and hawksport, paul is right in sayin falconry has become alot more easier for handelers then the olden days and hawksport is right in saying that telemetry is a must for any falconer especially a begginer.

i went to mongolia last summer for 5 weeks to experience my grandad manning and training a berkut eagle he had captured 5 months befor. that bird was treated as a family member and did everything with my grandad. for the final step of training we hooded the eagle, attached a piece of cloth to its anklet and rode horseback for 6 hours to an destination where the eagle wasnt familiar with. and as it was hooded it didnt know where it was going or where it had ended up. when we flushed a fox we sent the eagle chasing it and then abbandoned it as we got home it was night time. after a few day i woke up and saw an eagle on the block perch, the same eagle thst had the piece of cloth attached to it. that excperience taught me how much of a bond that eagle had with my grandad, strong enough that it found its way back home


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## eagle96

heres a picture with my grandad and the eagle


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## springerpete

Hi.
I know nothing about falconry but I hope you listen to the advice given to you by Hawksport and the others,
My area lies with gundogs, I'n no professional but I have trained more than a few good 'uns over the years. So often do I see pups being bought for youngsters because they're cute and cuddly and 'Yes dad. of course I'll look after it. take it for walks in the pouring rain, train it and all the rest'
Rarely does it last. I dont mean this as a criticism of young people but they grow and their interests change and what was once a new and exciting thing can often become a chore that they have no real interest in. If I were you, young man, I'd wait a few years and see how you feel then.


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## eagle96

springerpete said:


> Hi.
> I know nothing about falconry but I hope you listen to the advice given to you by Hawksport and the others,
> My area lies with gundogs, I'n no professional but I have trained more than a few good 'uns over the years. So often do I see pups being bought for youngsters because they're cute and cuddly and 'Yes dad. of course I'll look after it. take it for walks in the pouring rain, train it and all the rest'
> Rarely does it last. I dont mean this as a criticism of young people but they grow and their interests change and what was once a new and exciting thing can often become a chore that they have no real interest in. If I were you, young man, I'd wait a few years and see how you feel then.


What does a gundog do


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