Grouse and woodcock open next Thursday -
it has been a slow summer for training - hot and dry, and the shooting preserve i used to belong to to train dogs went out of business and for some reason there has been no pigeons available to trap around here. Even the grain elevators down the road have no birds around.
But whining aside - I did get to use some of a friend's quail around his recall pens. And a couple weeks ago I found a bunch of barn pigeons available a ways away on Craigslist, so I made the drive to get them.
yesterday was quite warm and windy but we took Tweed out for a session using the four last pigeons I had available. There was a cross wind in the field we use, which gave us the chance to have him run into a narrow stream of scent as he zig zagged up the field rather than follow it up the field as it got stronger.
He hit the first bird's scent stream at about 30' from the bird - he was so sure there was a bird that I kicked around in front of him to make sure there wasn't a left over quail hiding there but no-
he found the other three at varying distances but all where found and pointed.
so it was time to put the pieces together before Opening Day-
I flushed the last bird and shot when it was about 15-20 yards out - i told him fetch ( he has fetched dummies and toys but no feathers up to now). Tweed was on it in a wink and brought it right back, we made a big fuss over him. I did throw it out again and he went right to it and did a rather fanciful victory lap of the field and an end zone dance
but he passed the test and gets to move on to the next grade-
my hands were full but my wife did manage to capture part of the day in photos
