Gravel, our much-loved Springer
Spaniel has become somewhat porky. If he was human, he might get away with
being described as cuddly, but he would definitely be a candidate for WeightWatchers. Why has
his waist expanded? It’s partly overfeeding (not massively, but steadily) and
partly lack of exercise. Gravel’s recall isn’t very good and, if he picks up a
scent, then all senses (especially hearing) are secondary to the nose.
He has been known to disappear for
half an hour and he has also been known to raid a flock of chickens. Trying to
catch a Springer Spaniel with a chicken in his mouth with an angry farmer’s
wife at your side is not an experience I want to repeat. Margaret, after a
couple of bad experiences, won’t allow him off at all.
So Gravel, an animal designed to run
for hours, has not been able to run very far at all. Even with his extending
lead extended by a lunge line, he’s not had much freedom. What’s worse, this
year, Margaret has suffered a string of injuries that have prevented her
walking the dogs. First she broke her arm, then she broke her toe and then she got
a sore Achilles tendon and foot. Not a great combination – a greedy Spaniel
with nowhere to run.
Over Christmas, everyone agreed he
was too fat, so I’ve embarked upon a dog diet and fitness training regime as
often as possible. Margaret is in charge of cutting down on the dinner and
reducing the treats and I’ll give them a good walk whenever I can.
I’ve started going up the Whittlesey
Road to the cemetery, through the corner, around Medicine Pond and along the
field edge, though a hedge and out onto the fen. It is a public footpath, but
very little used and there’s not a lot of trouble that Gravel can get into (I
hope!); and so far he hasn’t. Instead of making a circuit and coming back along
Great Knarr Fen Road and the old A47, I’ve taken to walking out into the fen
but turning back about 150 metres short of the road and retracing my steps
across the field. This gives the dogs a good hour off their leads and possibly a
10-mile run in total.
The first time I took him, it was
apparent how unfit he’d become; he soon stopped running and started lolloping,
but now he manages to keep a good pace going right through the walk. He
doesn’t cover as much ground as Holly, but he does clock up the distance.
I’m not sure why he’s so much better
off lead. He is older, of course, and perhaps not quite as manic as he used to
be; also Holly’s recall is very good and perhaps he’s influenced by or learned from
her? He’s seen her off lead and not run away, he’s worked out that she gets the
privilege because she is good and comes back, she might distract his attention
from chasing scents or the pack instinct may mean that he stays a bit closer. 
Anyway, it’s great that he can go
off lead and it has clearly made a difference. Gravel has a much better defined
waistline; his belly has shrunk and he’s definitely on the right track. It’s
also great to see to two dogs running. There is such joy in their run, such pleasure
that it makes you feel good watching them. Tom came with me at the weekend and
it was nicefor me to have some non-doggy company. He took these pictures of
Gravel and Holly in the long grass where there are so many tempting smells and
where they love to run at the start of our walk.
It was a nice cold day on Sunday,
but no biting wind and some cloud cover meant that the frost from the night
disappeared quite quickly, although the ground was hard and not muddy
underfoot. On my last few walks, I’ve seen muntjac deer, an owl, hares and
kestrels as well as the usual pigeons, rooks, jackdaws and a host of skylarks
which the dogs send shooting up into the air as they run through the grass. I
was hoping we’d see some muntjac on Sunday and at first I thought we’d be
unlucky. But as we got near a triangle of field that’s been left to grass, I
saw a large male deer standing looking at me. I told Tom and he soon saw a
couple more. As we approached, they decided to put some distance between us and
a whole lot more (10 in all) headed away across the field in the direction of
the old A47. I was a bit worried that the dogs might pick up their scent and
because they were quite hard-faced they might have even caught sight of them –
then the chase would have been on. A Spaniel wouldn’t catch a fit muntjac, but
it might run a long way before it realised.
 |
| View south across the fens on our walk from Thorney to Great Knarr Fen Road. |
Anyway, as luck would have it,
neither dog went near where the deer had been and we were upwind of them, so
they didn’t catch any air-scent. The small herd watched us for a while from
across the field and then cautiously worked their way round the field edge to
cross in front of us, leap the wide dyke like Wildebeest in a wildlife
documentary and carry on towards Thorney Dyke. I read recently that there were
about 30,000 muntjac deer living wild in eastern England. It is not a species
that’s native to Britain …
This is from Wikipedia:
The Reeves' Muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi; Chinese) is a muntjac species
found widely in south eastern China (Gansu to Yunnan) and in Taiwan. They have also been introduced in
the Netherlands, the United
Kingdom (south England the Midlands, and east
Wales) and Ireland by
2008. It feeds on herbs, blossoms, succulent shoots, grasses and nuts, and was also reported to eat trees. It takes its name from John Reeves, who was appointed Assistant Inspector of Tea for
the British East India
Company in
1812.
This muntjac
grows to 0.5m high at the shoulder, 0.95
m (37 inches) in length, and weighs between 10 and 18 kg (22-40
pounds) when fully grown. It is dog-like in appearance but has striped markings
on its face. The male has short antlers, usually four inches or less. The
Taiwanese subspecies (M.
r. micrurus), commonly known as the Formosan Reeves' Muntjac, is relatively
dark compared to the other subspecies.
The Reeves' Muntjac is also called the barking
deer, known for its distinctive bark, though
this name is also used for the other species of muntjacs.
An unspecified
species of muntjac was introduced to the grounds of Woburn Abbey in
Bedfordshire in the nineteenth century by the then Duke of Bedford. While a small number are reported as
escaping, it is extremely unlikely that they are the source of the current UK
population. Larger numbers of muntjac escaped from Whipsnade Zoo, and they are the more likely ancestors, in
addition to other releases.
Since the Wildlife and
Countryside Act 1981, it has been illegal to release the species
except where already established. Reeves' Muntjac colonies exist throughout England south of Derbyshire,
and the population continues to grow. Small groupings of muntjacs have been
seen in large urban parks in the London, cemeteries, parks and schools (Crosfields School) in the Reading area, the Headington Hill
area outside of Oxford, Letchworth in
Hertfordshire, Epping Forest in
Essex, and in Warwickshire and Birmingham.
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