Lurchers on Teesside

My truck chugged its way up and down the dale until we met the tarmac of the motorway and on to the venue, the reason for it all. Basking in the sunshine, a Jurassic rock moorland framed its impeccably managed landscape, teeming with a rich and diverse collection of flora, fauna and wildlife, including rabbits. The reason for being 300 miles away was simple: it was an opportunity to have a good old-fashioned rake about the moor with old friends and our dogs.
Craig “Macca” McMillan has been wearing his boots out on this heather moorland for decades, usually accompanied by a brace of lurchers and his son, Craig McCann-McMillan. Young Craig, 21, is a talented lad. This was obvious because when he was 10 years old, he was doing things with a camera that were beyond his tender years. This was when he got his first DLSR, a Canon 300D. Years later, he has taken many shots, honing his eye and the knack for instinctively taking a photograph that will forever capture a tiny moment of history. He started taking photographs to catalogue his life with his father and dogs.
Macca’s gift for producing lurchers consistently over 40 years has enabled him to work them in a different environment than most. When rabbiting, he uses no nets, just a brace of lurchers and, if he’s unlucky, a ferret. These fit and athletic dogs are also used on the beating lines of local grouse shoots throughout the season until the pheasants take over, then it’s on to the pheasant shoots.

[@duncanscott2781]

Beautiful lurchers.

[@bobsandison5202]

Fantastic video, what really stood out is how the dogs didn't give the deer a second look! Very impressive!

[@oldgroot4826]

The best fieldsports video I have ever seen on KZbin. ...... by a country mile!!!! And I'm a dyed in the wool Shooting and Gundog man!. Well done and thank you.

[@sherbert500]

plenty better on here, that's why you aint seen em!

[@MrStavross30]

Love this vid, been aTeesside lad myself it's good to see people are still working there dogs in our area, I look forward to my one night a week out lamping with a good mate and the saluki cross, she's a little missile

[@Nottinghamstaffy]

Really enjoyed watching this . I wished my dogs were more alike these 👍

[@boholmes4921]

Great video and story the music I could do without

[@69cookieboy1]

the fawn dog is a spit of my 3/4 collie grey that I lost this summer at 10 year old. miss the ole boy, so lovelyto see a good dog doing its trade.. . . . love to see the collie brain working well. he trained me well !

[@BarryWell]

In the spring on the river tees i think we had a chat but if it wos not you must say you no wot you are doing proper job mint thanks

[@mrmushyboy]

Spot on lads love bolting to a dog it takes a good fit dog to go all day 👍🏻

[@anfieldarcher8545]

I love see the muscle and the power in good lurcher photo

[@robbray3967]

great video. dogs really know their job!

[@atenas5016]

Awesome video, I love Tawny 💪🔥⚡

[@danram69]

beautiful dog mate

[@Twonkadoodle]

Crap music spoils it

[@davt8615]

Brilliant

[@sabarita9679]

magnificos lebreles a disfrutar

[@johnsmethurst2081]

liked following your posts over the years on moochers I take it lurcher kid is referring to Panhandle with regards learning his skills and passion in photography young lurched kid is very talented no doubting that what's your plans with future breeding plans are you going to keep the collie blood influence in your dogs.

[@ferretWhitehead]

Maybe slow it down a notch...

[@johnsmethurst2081]

Simon Whitehead that's just my preference

[@peteacher52]

A well presented interesting and informative video. A pity you spoiled it with that repetitive braying in between your narrative.

[@moucheroutdoors]

👍

[@richardash6340]

What crosses are your dogs please mate

[@johnechols3074]

ShootingTimesUK what is the yellow hand held device you are using to locate some of the rabbits

[@barbedstar6480]

John E It is to locate the ferrets when underground. That is why the ferrets have collars on. Some times they will hole up with a rabbit they caught and won't come out. So the locator tells the hunter where to did to get to and to retrieve the ferret.

[@happy11111100]

The ferret has a collar like a dog has a collar There is a transmitter on collar The ferret sometimes gets a rabbit in a dead end and stays with rabbit underground The yellow box picks up signal from ferret and digs down to exact location

[@atishsingh6426]

Which breed

[@mohanedzinoun6273]

What,s thé name of this dog

[@jonjorichardson3605]

Need some new video never seen any for a couple of years

[@owlan99]

What breeds are involved in this?

[@H18136]

Lurchers - sighthounds if you want to look them up om Wikipedia. Fantastic dogs, whether you hunt with them or not.

[@owlan99]

Steve Flynn yeah but which sighthoubds were used and what were they crossed with?

[@andymac2999]

The ones in the video were lurcher to lurcher breeding, consisting of collie whippet greyhound some distant deerhound if i remember rightly

[@johnsmethurst2081]

Good little video I believe Moormans dogs go back to Aubrey Fryers lines so there's Deerhound blood way back in them saying that there decent dogs Dan is the sire to my dog the dam I bred myself my dogs lines go back to Typp Ratchers old lines straight collie greyhounds I prefer collie saturated dogs has they havei more brains and don't tend to get knocked up has a greyhound saturated dog has you can tell I'm a collie greyhound fan.

[@craigmccann-mcmillan2683]

You're not far off the mark, John, however, through the 60's & most of the 70's it was just collie/greyhound x deerhound/greyhound crosses, then in late 70's put to an Aubrey Fryer bitch (don't think his had any deerhound in them). Typp Ratcher's lines are also in these through Brian Ellis's 'Fly', which was put to Nixon's 'Drum', the dog pup from that was used in the line. Since then, it has been predominantly collie x's to the present day.

[@Nottinghamstaffy]

But they are only patterdales ha ha

[@jameshouston3589]

harecoursing is the ever j

[@extremfacts]

The music sucks!!

[@terryhardaker3979]

bad taking lame dogs hunting no compassion for the dog

[@motomeadyhuntingndmotocros6147]

Brilliant