Are they any good at catching rats Schady ? dd2 has a spaniel she's very lovely but is she hard work !!!! She's vaguely thinking about letting her have pups (she's one yr.) Her dh won't let her because he fears there''ll be 3 spaniels in the flat (it has a biggish garden but still) I'm on the fence about it.!
Ours have caught mice and rabbits - we have only once, this last week, had a rat encounter, and they weren't quite quick enough (there was too much cover lying about, in the form of piles of roof slates etc, that Mr Schaden will never use but cannot bear to part with - we have Had Words about this - these Words have become increasingly short-and-four-lettered since RatGate!
As you know - I sprayed your spray and Little Sally Whiskers dd not make another appearance. The yesterday, as I went to stick some peeling in the compost bin, I noticed what had to be a rat tunnel - the bugger had ripped the door off the bin and dug its way in. The spray just seemed to be discouraging it from coming into the other part of the garden (compost bin is behind an area fenced off to stop dogs going in and getting up to compost-related mischief - there's horse poo in there.
So I got the dogs, and a shovel, and went to dig the bugger out - bloody hell - the size of it! Not little Sally at all, but a real, Beatrix Potter cat-killing size Samuel Whiskers!
Our boy cocker had found a tennis ball, so was joyfully peeling that and took no notice - the girls were on it like a shot. I dived behind the piles of shite that Mr S insist are much-needed building material, but not before I managed to crack it one with the edge of the shovel. TBH, I thought I'd missed, because it didn't squeak or anything.
When Mr S came back in we moved all of the stuff and found it - dead, thank God, but with a huge gash in its side - it had managed to crawl into a nook under the stuff and had died there. I have to admit I did feel a bit guilty, but rats is rats! They're destructive and they carry a LOT of very nasty diseases.
I think it's because we've had so much rain - it's sweeping them out of the drains.
it's the intelligence that's so amazing.
Spaniels ARE intelligent - too clever for their own good. I must be honest, I wouldn't have a litter (and in fact had my noir;s spayed so that I couldn't be tempted (because I love baby things, and would just surround myself with puppies and kittens if I could).
Phoebe was from a litter of 11, Jacob from a litter of 9. (Only 4 in Pippi's litter though) That's LOT of puppies to find good, loving permanent homes for - and it's a lot of puppies to risk being left with if you can't / don't like the look the people who want to buy them.And I know from experience from the one litter we had (westie - 5 pups, kept 2) you just don't want to part with ANY of them