Chasing Hares (NHB Modern Plays)

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The two actors – seen jointly to superb effect in the 2019 Bush Theatre premiere of Bijan Sheibani’s The Arrival – constitute a memorable double-act once more, Karim as sinewy and steely as Shamji is graceful and understated: one only wishes the larger-framed actor’s weight wasn’t used quite so conspicuously for comic effect. I have a ten month old Collie/lurcher who has just started chasing any small dog that we come across on walks.It is really difficult and I am worried that she will actually hurt one soon. Those responsible are often involved in other criminal activities – including drugs and firearms offences. I have been a longstanding supporter for essential reforms to our laws to stop hare coursing which is why we will act to prevent more people from suffering as a result of the actions of a law-breaking minority. She has shown increasing predatory chase behaviour over the past month or so. She managed to bring down and kill a deer and since then has turned full throttle and now sees our cats as targets. I am keeping her muzzled and away from the cats at the moment. At home in the garden her frizbee is focus, perhaps I will try taking it to the woods with me where the cyclists are present and see if there is improvement,

Hare hunting was made illegal in 2004 under the Hunting Act however it still takes place illegally in many counties. Then you can start to introduce toy-play. Yes, some dogs are more difficult to introduce to toys than others, but you need to work at that too. Be inventive and start in a place with NO distractions (indoors). If he likes to chase, he will chase toys. You just need to find the toy and method that tugs his rug. He is about 18 months old, we’ve had him for a year from a rescue centre and took him to puppy classes for socialisation and training for recall. He is a cross breed, but clearly has whippet and some sort of terrier in him, and probably sheepdog too judging by the way he crouches and crawls while approaching his “subject of interest”. Because of where we live we have to go in the car to get anywhere so denying her being in the car for a while is also impossible. would it be better to accept that he will sometimes see sheep, expose him to sheep all the time so it’s the norm, or rehome him for a few months (not really considering this but hypothetically)?Secondly, yes, there could be an element of territoriality or even breed specific herding behaviour – growling suggests that she is communicating with the dogs she chases, which is not something you do with prey. Yesterday we were walking in loggerheads in Wales and the first hour in the woods was fine and we were using the 2 ball method until she lost one. When I throw only one ball she knows she can posses it and then the chase begins as she is in control and can choose to retrieve or posses. Whilst possessing, she saw a squirrel and instantly chased in warp facto 11 and did not return for some 10 minutes. Enjoyed ready your interesting article. I have a 16mth old Labrador bitch who has respiratory fed well to all training aspects, including elementary gun dog training. Is, by & large, very good with recall both verbal & whistle. How er, her (well, mostly mine!) is chasing other dogs. Has been getting much better & with a lot of dogs will just sniff m, say hello & come away. BUT a little dog who runs & yaps is game to her. She is relentless! Always ends in the little dog being frightened as my dog is big, strong & very excitable. Invariably I get shouted at by the dog’s owner (quite right). My dog doesn’t chase anything else but is so excitable around like minded dogs . I am trying hard with toys etc to hold her attention to me but if I take my ‘eye off the ball’ she’ll chase if opportunity arises. Never runs off out of sight. Is this puppy excitement that will diminish or something I can train out of her. Such a darling dog apart from this. with just one ball for our beach walks where we always take a ball and ball launcher aka “the rod of power”…at the beach she is perfect because her ball is her 100% focus and much more interesting than anything else, she totally ignores people and other dogs with barely a lapse! There are persistent groups who illegally perpetuate hare coursing creating challenges for the police.

Also, walking her off lead when she can become aggressive towards other dogs and has a poor recall in the face of distractions is asking too much of her. She needs some serious guidance, which you are not in a position to provide. He also tries to chase these noisy vehicles, lorries, buses, when we walk in town, but he is on leash then, and I manage to calm him down by taking him to the side and giving him a treat as the lorry passes. A contemporary delivery driver, Amba (Saroja-Lily Ratnavel), is relating life on the front line of the gig economy in England only for the focus to shift for the bulk of the play to her gently radical father, Prab (Irfan Shamji), and his anxieties as a machinist in a clothing factory in India who is seen struggling to make ends meet for his growing family: wife Kajol (Zainab Hasan) and their baby, Amba. Politics are key to their work. “I’ve been involved in political activism since I was a teenager,” Bhattacharyya says, “but it’s more recently that I’ve seen a really tangible connection between my work as a writer and my activism. I think it’s because things got harder, and it feels self-indulgent to keep them separate.”You have no enticement for them to abandon the behaviour, therefore there will always be the risk of performing it as it is under their own control. Your article really confirms what I thought about my dog’s chase instinct, and I will try what you suggest. My 15 month old Male Lab cross is well socialised and not anxious about anything, although he hates being on the lead, and this can lead to aggressive barking and pulling towards other dogs. This largely disappears if off the lead and allowed to approach, sniff and play.

His brother, is catching on, on his ‘games’ but is not quite as athletic so can’t keep up. Nonetheless, the two of them will go mad at the lawn mower, or at kids on skateboards, or any other moving object (it’s not even a chase, it’s a bark like mad, and if off-leash, sprint and sniff the scared skateboarders). My one-year-old Mini Australian Shepherd is OBSESSED with chasing cars. He can sense them coming from down the street and prepares himself to lunge and bark at them. I was able to control him slightly by offering a treat, but this doesn’t seem to work all the time and if i don’t have a treat on me then I can forget about it. The other aspect of this is that you are fostering, so I guess you haven’t had him very long. If he is to heed your request not to chase your cat you have to have control of him. Control is based on your relationship and can take many months to establish. If he’s not getting off lead he’s also probably looking for opportunities to chase (as he has been encouraged to do so previously). There are many things that can be done, but it’ll be a long haul – all the explanations and techniques are in the book. On several occasions, the action shifts rather awkwardly so as to engage the audience in a call-and-response, which might deliver more organically if such erosions of the fourth wall were part of the enduring fabric of the play. An exuberant, warm-hearted, socially motivated new play... Bhattacharyya's writing is driven by the uncynical hope that we can put ourselves in each other's shoes and make the world a fairer place' ObserverThere are alternatives for ‘disruption’ behaviours such as cardboard boxes with treats inside, but I’d be worried about encouraging a dog to destroy all cardboard boxes. Do not allow access to your dog’s favourite toy at any other time. Keep it special and always retain it when the game finishes. Your dog will be quite keen to play with the new toy so long as there are no rabbits about. Hare coursing is an illegal activity - where dogs are used to chase, catch and kill hares - and is a serious problem in some rural areas. Not only does hare coursing involve cruelty to wild animals, it is also associated with a range of other criminal activities, including theft, criminal damage, violence and intimidation. Now introduce your recall command. Call, “toy!” in a bright and breezy voice every time you throw the toy for your dog. Pretty soon your dog will associate the word with the unconditional arrival of the toy. Start to use it when your dog is not expecting it. Call, “toy!” and as soon as your dog looks, throw it behind you. The word becomes predictive that there is a game on offer. With its energetic arguments, moments of great charm, gritty humour, and mix of filth and idealism, this story of resistance and dignity in the face of dreadful global exploitation is both relevant and contemporary' Arts Desk

You first need to control her whilst you build up a relationship in which she considers your advice worth taking. If that means restricting her to lead walking in the meantime, then so be it. My book Guide & Control will give you some idea of how to do that, and I appreciate that a ball might not tug her rug – so you need to find something that does, as she obviously likes chasing things! If passion and commitment were everything, the excitingly, if rather cryptically, titled Chasing Hares would leave its competition in the dust. Instead, Sonali Bhattacharyya’s play is ambitious in its conception but only fitfully successful in performance – this notwithstanding a production from the fast-rising director Milli Bhatia that throws all sorts of bells and whistles at the text to keep the playwright’s (metaphorical) call to arms on course. I can see where your problem lies, but not where it originates. This is important in how you would seek to resolve it. I’m afraid we would need a full behaviour consult to work through the whole issue and develop a programme for change and unfortunately that is not something I can offer at the current time. The ‘toy’ idea is good, but I can see where it would be compromised by the cats being in the house. From your description of your dog’s behaviour any programme will be time consuming and lengthy, so sometimes re-homing might be a preferred option. After all it could solve the problem immediately with little or no distress to the animals (and humans) involved. Mr Johnson is a very effusive man with a loud voice; he gesticulates a lot when talking and gets quite excitable. Mrs Johnson is calm and controlled, she does all of the walking and feeding; Mr Johnson plays ball in the garden with the dogs most days.

start a hare

I wanted to write about 'jatra' or Bengali folk theatre, as an art form that has developed from dramatisations of religious stories from the Mahabharata to plays that reflect the lives of real people and events. Now, jatra is struggling to compete with Hindi cinema and cable TV, so I see the persistent love for jatra from the characters in Chasing Hares as a leap of faith. A leap of faith similar to that needed to believe things can change, and to act on that belief. If your dog is of a breed that was originally bred to chase it’s a safe bet they have the genetic hard wiring in their brain that makes it so enjoyable, but it’s also possible to ‘accidentally’ inherit a strong chase tendency in exactly the same way some pups inherit too long or short legs for their breed.