The dogs are on song

It’s the wonderful memories that make shooting such a great sport and JEF Rawlins recalls four particular pheasants that he will never forget

A shooting season that leaves no vivid memories must be abnormally humdrum. Although this last one was, for me, sadly curtailed, it produced four pheasants that will linger in my mind’s eye.

The first was a hen on a dry, sunny day in late October when I was hunting a kale field with black labrador Rhuna, nearly 14, and golden retriever Lulu, not yet three. Lulu’s exotic Kennel Club name is Holway Sonata, but her arrival in the Atkinson family who bred her coincided with a Eurovision Song Contest won by a beautiful blonde called Lulu. Therefore Sonata, being both blonde and beautiful, was nicknamed Lulu. A good enough name — was it not that of Musetta’s dog in La Bohème? — and much easier to use than Sonata.

Anyway, here we were in the kale. The crop, having been choked by redleg weed, had come up sparsely, then the redleg had shrivelled. Consequently there was little cover.

Lulu put up a hen that crossed my front at 40 yards. It collapsed, not dead, but from the manner of its belly landing I judged it unlikely to travel fast or far. So when Lulu started to run-in I blew the stop whistle and surprisingly she obeyed. I say ‘surprisingly’ because, although a biddable little bitch and far less excitable than in 1970, she is still pretty hot.

She was kept waiting not more than 10 seconds, possibly less, although there seemed to be no urgency. Even if the hen had run, it could hardly escape, with the cover so meagre and Rhuna advancing to the fall from another angle.

Perplexed