My OH is training our cocker spaniel puppy to kill flies.

[adoggymama]

Literally just as the title says really I'm sure catching all these flies isn't good for him- he's been doing some bad stinkers lately.

He's quite good at catching butterflies in the fields too...

Mine is an expert in catching and eating flies.

He likes to stalk bees but fortunately hasn't caught any yet. God help us when the wasps come out

@BiteyShark Colby (the puppy) learnt a hard lesson whilst trying to catch wasps the other week! 2 swollen ears from wasp stings had to ice them for 2 days to make it go down!

Send him round to mine , there's loads of the buggers

@Oddcat will do!

adoggymama that sounds awful

Mine concern would be that the puppy wouldn't be able to differentiate between flies, and every other flying creature and catching a wasp or bee in it's mouth could prove painful and possibly dangerous.

My brave boy saved me from a horsefly this week

Our garden is full of plants that attract bees so we have no chance of stopping him stalking them. Fortunately bees seem to be quite smart and are always one step ahead of him so he does this token sniff and snap and the bee just goes off to the next flower .

Bees are less likely to sting, I would imagine but wasp have no such compunction and it's not unknown for dogs to be stung and hurt.

No one can stop a dog catching these things, but it's not something I'd actively encourage my dog to do.

Our command for fly catching is "fly patrol" and it's bloody effective. Luckily we get hardly any wasps in our house/garden and he will often respond to "leave it" when he spots a bee.