The Story of Bacchus

 At the time I was living in the Cotswolds (Central England) running a small hotel/restaurant. Bacchus was a black Labrador trained as a gun dog and sold to a local gentleman farmer. The farmer kept him in a small kennel with no real space and I suspect did not take him for decent walks. Also living in the farmhouse was a dachshund who was allowed to run free. I visited on one occasion and was surprised to see the dachshund just outside Bacchus's kennel - at the time I thought the dachshund was at best laughing at Bacchus but what do I know. Then I heard a story that Bacchus had bitten somebody in the farmyard, and before long he had bitten another. I went to see him and he was very angry in his little cage and the dachshund was still apparently winding him up

Finally the farmer announced he would have him destroyed as he was unsafe. I was unhappy about this because I knew Bacchus and believed he was not fundamentally a bad dog. In any event I already had two dogs and a large building I could use as a kennel so I said I would take him.

He immediately settled down and, although everybody was wary of him, he never even looked like biting anybody. I started taking him out shooting with Sam and he was always getting into fights with other dogs.

On one occasion I was staying in Wales for a couple of days and was allowed to walk a grouse moor - that is hard work as the heather is difficult to walk though and for the dogs - who are not used to it - it is even more difficult as they go over the heather - the motion is rather like riding a rough sea. I saw no grouse but a rescue helicopter seemed to be using me as a practice point and they kept going away and then coming back. A nice quiet relaxing stroll on a moor is not improved by a dirty great helicopter hovering at 100 feet overhead - on the third run I pointed my gun in their general direction and got a cheery wave as they flew away - not to return. The next thing that happened was quite frightening. It was a sunny day in late September so a pleasant walking temperature, I was above the tree line and surrounded by hills and had clear bearings until suddenly a hill disappeared and then another and in minutes I was in cloud and hail: visibility was reduced to yards. I decided I had had enough of blundering around on a Grouseless moor and walked down to the tree line thus back to my car with no drama - but it would have been no fun if I had been deep in the hills with no compass. I had lunch in a pub and returned to my hotel for an afternoon deck head inspection. 

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