Hunting Dogs!!! Post your pics & stories!!!

I had Pearl out again on Saturday. We worked hard for them - flushing bits and pieces of at least one young covey that has not yet moulted - hard to tell the roosters from the hen so we let them all go. Good training for Pearl. I was rewarded for my patience finally with a limit of nice roosters. Second one got itself buried into some long grass and died and she had a hard time finding him because the area was flooded with hot scent. I we dug around and she finally rooted him out. We need to work on finding cripples and downed birds in heavy cover and also with delivery to hand. But we're having fun, she's learning every day (and so am I). So great to be hunting over a dog of my own again. I shot plenty of roosters over friends' dogs over the past two years, but it's just not the same thing as working with your own partner...
 
A week up North for grouse... mixed bags of ruffed, spruce and sharptail. Lexie did a great job all week.

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Nice! A mixed bag indeed! Pearl did some nice work this morning to get me an easy shot on a ruffie. Then she pushed a rooster out the backside of a strip of trees and I heard him going along the far side of the screen - cackling as he gained speed. Luckily, he decided to come my way rather than looping out for the field, so I tracked him and made the best wingshot of my life as he flashed into view passing through a gap in the trees at full speed (everyone's a hero on the Internet! LOL). His momentum carried him deep into some rough cover, and Pearl did a nice job finding him. Still need to work on delivery to hand, but as long as she flushes them and finds them, I'm pretty happy with that for now! She also flushed a woodcock, but he fluttered along very low above her head, then turned and flew about 2 feet above MY head. As much as I would have liked to score a Nova Scotia Grand Slam I opted NOT to give him a 3" load of #5 through an IC choke at 24"... I did try to bat him down with the muzzle, but missed!
 
Pearl and her buddy Tori rousted this one out of a deep ditch alongside some corn before he could slip through into the cornstalks. First of many that these young dogs will bring to hand working together.
 
All of Nova Scotia is now open for pheasants as of last Sunday. Still lots of standing corn, and the weekend was busy, but we're still managing to scratch some down here and there. They're still picking apples in some places too, so permission on some of my usual spots is going to be delayed. A few pics
Pearl with a single this morning


When I was setting up for the picture above, Pearl grabbed the bird out of the fork in the tree and brought it to me - GOOD GIRL (even though your ruined the photo op!).


A rainy day double.


Pearl's buddy Tori retrieved this fat mallard for me.
 

Picked up one more this morning before the little frigger took off on me after a running rooster. Her prey drive is a sight to behold, but is a little much to contain sometimes. She scared the #### out of me when she didn't come back for what felt like a long time. Visions of coyote snares and busy road at the top of the hill were in my head while I whistled and called like crazy, the a flood of relieve when we reconnected. Time to step up her collar conditioning to further tighten up her recall and whistle sits!
 
Another good hunt today. Pearl's responsiveness to whistle sits and recall was better, but she still chased hens and got out of range a few times.
 
I use an Australian shepherd for a tracking dog, after the shot, when archery hunting. I've recently got a Cairn Terrier puppy. At 12 weeks the Cairn puppy followed the Aussie on a blood trail 200 yards to the deer. Not earth shaking, but puppy was eager, and happy.
 
I use an Australian shepherd for a tracking dog, after the shot, when archery hunting. I've recently got a Cairn Terrier puppy. At 12 weeks the Cairn puppy followed the Aussie on a blood trail 200 yards to the deer. Not earth shaking, but puppy was eager, and happy.

Nice work! Like I tell the wife, 'it doesn't ALWAYS have to be earth shaking to be fun, does it?'��
Nothing like a pup learning from a senior pack member. I always wished my current dog could have overlapped by a few years of my last dogs glory days - I think it would have made my training regimen a lot simpler!
 
I took Bug , my 1 year old Britt out for his first solo hunt as my wife had my old guy in Brandon for an obedience trial. He did well finding a cripple and retrieving to hand although I haven't yet started his forced retrieving training yet. He was steady to the point and wing and broke only once on the shot overall a very satisfying day.

 
Not sure what went south there but I will try again. Season just finished yesterday on a good note. Harley finished strong but started with a major issue. Started puking at 02:00 on opening day and had his stomach opened up. Rested him until October. Did not get out as much as I wanted but what else is new? The last week had light snow which was a major bonus as I could see the tracks when Harley was working a bird. Harley had given me quite a bit of trouble early on in the season bumping birds. My guess is he got anxious when they started to move. He would give me a solid point and then not give me time to get into position before moving in. He settled down after a while and we finished the season in good form. Most memorable bird of the last week was a solid initial point, I got off my ATV, loaded up and walked over. He waited until I was in position and then started working. We travelled well over 100 yards through heavy cover and Harley ended with a solid point. I blew the shot which was unfortunate as Harley did not get his reward for a job well done. Very pleasing year after a rocky start.
 
Beautiful frosty morning for pheasant hunting. Lots of scent around, but the birds seem to have already earned their PhDs! So we got skunked as it turned out, flushing one hen and one unsure (right into the sun but it didn't cackle). But still a helluva nice way to walk the dog before work!
 
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I rescued this 4 year old GSP a couple weeks ago, I had him fixed and all his shots,have not let his off leash yet as I'm pretty sure he's a runner......lol, he's a little aggressive by time with other dogs and I also have a aggressive boxer so it's a work in progress, they have been very good together so far.i can't wait to take him hunting
 
My Black Lab Pup "Gunner" he is just shy of 4 months old today and is coming along...Have been shooting over his head since he was 10 weeks old and never has so much as flinched when shooting around him. Started at a 100 yards and just walked him up to it and he has been good since. He is coming along in his retrieving so I have hopes he may do ok for me.









Jim
 
Here's my hunting dog Bender. I got him from the Rez when he was just a pup and ever since he's been the best hunting dog ever!
He fetches ducks, prairie chickens, he tree'd bears, loves swimming and can even drag beaver! LOL
Sorry for the crap pics.






Oh btw here's my wife's hunting dog.(lol)
He's actually a good chicken dog! His name is Rambo but I just call him Ram.

 
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I got out the other day with a bigger group than my usual solo ways - four guns, Pearl, a one year old black lab female - Tori, a 6 year old female GSP - Tessa, and a 6 year old Golden Retreiver - Ginger. We were in a big cover but it was almost too many dogs - hard to know who to watch! In the end I watched Pearl and Ginger mostly, because Pearl is mine and I know Ginger and her signals well. I tag-teamed a rooster over a steep bank and it got hung up in a tree, so I had to scramble down to help the dogs to get it. That was a good start. Then I got a very easy single that had to flutter around a bit to get free of the brambles, so I had lots of time to get ready - just had to let it climb to a safe height to shoot. We got four birds between the four of us that day - encountering some sparse numbers later in the day on some covers that would normally be very good. Here's the one I scrambled down for.

This weekend is shaping up to busy at home, and I've had a hard time getting onto covers on Saturdays, so I thought I'd give it a miss this weekend and go sit in my deerstand instead. So of course, I figured I'd slip out this morning before the rain to a little cover close to home. It's a field that extends out into a horseshoe bend in the river, and the wind was blowing straight down into the open end of the horseshoe. One side of the cover is very much better than the other, so I walked downwind on the less good side. Pearl was skipping along having a nice morning when all of a sudden she turned into the wind and started across the field. I stopped her and she sat to the whistle, but didn't look back at me for instructions. I wanted to take her right to the bottom of the horseshoe to be able to push the good cover in one full pass, so I whistled her in. She came, but immediately turned and nosed into the wind again. This time, when she sat, she gathered her muscular haunches under her and her tail was ramrod straight out behind her - evenly 2" over the short grass. She was basically quivering to be let go. I thought back to my wise old Ruby, and how often over the 9 short years that I had her that she tought me that I was nearly always wrong and she was nearly always right. Sure, Pearl is just a youngster, but looking at her I became increasingly convinced that she had a snootful of somethign worth investigating. I walked up to her and put my hand out in her 'steady' signal as I walked away. It was about 100 yards to the alders and hawthorn at the edge of the river, which was running quite fast today due to fall rains. I got to about 30 yards from the river and released her. She was up to me and past me INSTANTLY, and charged up to the bank a lot faster than I thought she would. I kinda figured I'd close another 15 yards before she caught up. Nope! I took a few giant strides and she lit up, birdy as hell, and had just enough time to plant my feet as she flushed a rooster from behind a thick hawthorne tree. He flew straight away, so I hammered a 3" load of #5s at him in a shower of splinters and berries. Before I could see if he faltered another rooster flushed from the same spot, opting to ride the wind in the other direction, and I picked him out of an opening between alders. He dropped in the river and Pearl went after him. While she was after that one in the fast current I stood on a fencerail and looked downstream - there was the first rooster thrashing in the current as he died, then drifted off quickly downstream. Pearl got back with the first rooster and we jogged down along the fast current to get near the bird, then I cast her blind to the river with a 'back' command and she ploughed through the grass and got to the bank close enough to spot the rooster spinning through the current, and retrieved that one.
That completed a two-bird limit for this part of the world, so I dropped some bismuth into the chambers and we walked the shore hoping to jump a stubborn woodduck that might still be around, or a bigger puddleduck that might be resting along the shoreline. We got neither, but the main point of that final walk was to give her some exercise before we headed to work for the day.

I am so pleased with this dog - really coming into her own and becoming a joy to hunt over, as well as being very effective. And I was particularily pleased to have the priviledge of relearning the lesson from a dog so young: "Dad, you're a nice guy, but when it comes to this stuff, I'm usually right, and you're usually wrong. Just watch me, keep up, and shoot straight". Works for me! :)
-Dave
 
Pearl and I tagged a real long-tail today! She worked hard for him - as you can see from the "hurry up and take this f*cking picture so I can go to my pillow!" look!


 
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