I walk & train two border terriers (mother & daughter) every day and I tend to vary the routine to give us both variety. Last week I decided to take them on a new route across some open fields.  I took plenty of  toys for them to chase and all was going well for a while. Their recall is usually very good to the whistle so I had no reason to suspect they would do otherwise on this particular day.
All went well for a while, lots of ball chasing and sniffing,until we came close to a fence behind which there is a mixture of  river, swampland and brambles, a perfect wildlife haven, especially rabbits. I should have known not to go too close as my springer has paid lots of attention to that particular spot. Anyway the daughter decided to go straight in there and disappear for at least half an hour. No end of whistling or calling made any difference.
Mother stayed with me all the time looking concerned until suddenly her ears pricked up and I heard a distressed yelp.
I followed the sound to see daughter apparently trapped on the wrong side of the river which I must add is nothing more than a trickle. It was obvious that she wasn't going to get across by herself so I clambered over the barbed wire fence, waded across the water and mud and grabbed her.
 Coming back my right welly decided to get stuck in thick black ooze and I started sinking fast! I quickly lobbed the daughter across to safety, freed myself and climbed back.
Just as I climbed back over the fence I saw daughter disappearing back into a thick bramble near to where I had just rescued her! Rabbits flew out in all directions and then silence for the next half an hour interspersed by some rustling.
By this time myself and mother had had enough and so we opted for the walking away approach. We sat some distance away and waited and sure enough daughter shot out of the bush looking worried and scampered over to us covered in mud and thorns. The pack instinct was still there then!
I'm not sure that there is a moral to this story apart from being aware that with working dog breeds be aware that their built-in instincts can come on very strongly and catch you unawares!

Keith Fallon Oct 2009