Island Life June July 2015 June July 2015 | Page 54

COUNTRY LIFE

In the
Country

Sam's tip for the countryside!

Beware laminitis

by Sam Biles
Sam Biles is Managing Director
of country Estate Agents:
www.bilesandco.co.uk

T

he spring and early summer are a prime time for
laminitis in horses and ponies – the early, rich spring
grass in excess is too much for them and causes potentially
terminal lameness when the membranes (laminae) lining
the inside of the hooves become acidified and inflamed.
Great care needs to be taken by horse and pony owners to
ensure that their charges do not overeat at this time of year.

Dogs in the countryside
Sam Biles looks at the benefits and problems

D

ogs have been domesticated in
Britain since at least the Iron Age
and hunting dogs were reported
in Roman times.
Over the centuries dogs - hounds - have
been used for hunting - to catch foxes,
hares and rabbits for sport and for the
pot as well as to flush game, including
deer and game-birds for humans to
shoot. There are dogs such as spaniels
which flush birds from cover, others such
as pointers which go ‘on point’ to indicate
where birds are hiding and others such
as Labradors which retrieve birds which
have been shot.
There are police dogs to catch criminals,
guard dogs to guard property and sniffer
dogs which search out drugs. Rescue
dogs find people in the mountains or in
collapsed buildings after earthquakes.
Only a hundred years ago dogs were
used to pull carts and huskies still pull
sleds in colder climates. The Island has its

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share of working dogs - primarily in the
shooting field or on farms as sheep dogs.
Anyone who has seen sheepdogs
working, whether on the television on
‘One Man & His Dog’ ; on a farm or at
a show or sheep trial cannot help but
marvel how the abilities of shepherd, and
dog are married to bring out the best of
the abilities of both. The instincts of the
dog to herd sheep needs to be brought
out and nurtured, through hours of
training, yet curbed enough to ensure
that herding does not turn into chasing
or ‘worrying’.
In the countryside domestic dogs off
the lead will often run towards sheep and
the sheep will run away - this brings the
dog’s hunting instincts to the fore and
can have disastrous results especially if
the dogs taste or smell blood. Few pet
owners will believe any ill of their beloved
pooch but the most placid dog can kill
when its ‘blood is up’. Farmers protecting

their livestock may consider shooting
dogs which are worrying or killing their
stock and this can be a reasonable course
of action, but it is a complex area of law
involving several statutes; dog owners
should ensure their pets are under control
at all times particularly near livestock.
Dog mess is revolting. It can cause
illness and there is little more unpleasant
than to find it embedded in the tread of
a shoe. In certain areas there are dog bins
and it is an offence to foul the footpath/
highway. Some maintain that it is natural
for dogs to ‘do their business’ in the open
countryside and that it is acceptable to
flick this into a hedge to rot naturally.
What is more difficult to understand
is those people who go to the effort of
picking up the offending substance in
a bag, knotting it and then bizarrely
hanging it in a bush where it will neither
rot nor be removed but will hang like a
strange and odious decoration.