Adventures Of Nick & Ted

Nick Ridley has some watersports planned to get Ted back to field fitness, as he dives in at the deep end with Percy in a working test

- Nick Ridley

At long last we are getting back to some kind of normality. The easing of the lockdown meant that I was able to take a long-awaited trip to Cumbria.

The trip was both for work and pleasure. I needed to get some images for Fran Ardley’s gundog training articles in Sporting Gun, but I was also keen to get a few pointers for young Percy, as I had a looming working test. I took both Ted and the young dog, and I realized how quickly Ted’s fitness had tailed off since the end of what shooting season we had. It is really hard to keep the dogs fit during the offseason and though I am keen for them, especially Ted, to have a bit of a rest, with the new season on the horizon, I need to begin to think about getting them field fit again.

Hydrotherapy

Now, with me being in my sixth decade, riding a bike with the dogs running alongside is not something that I am keen to explore, and to make matters more challenging, the roads in and around my village have more holes in them than a piece of Swiss cheese. But all is not lost. I have been speaking to a friend who runs a hydrotherapy pool for dogs and has just had a water treadmill installed, and we have been talking about creating a fitness programme for Ted. We have a meeting scheduled and I will let you know how things progress on this front.