First duck

birdies first duck retrieve



a bonus moorhen that swam too close to the blind

birdie's first duck hunt

birdie went on her first duck hunt this morning. it is the early season so you can only shoot teal and wood ducks. we managed one hen wood duck. it was a long shot and she did not see the bird go down. i pulled out of the duck blind within birdies retrieving range. i sent her out on a "blind" retrieve and she found the duck. i missed my second woodie but shot a moorhen from the duck blind to give her another retrieve. she marked it and brought it back to hand like a pro. i will post videos of the retrieves later. congrats on your first duck birdie girl!

quail again

went out to train birdie again today over quail. she did great! she picks sent up so fast. shes holding point and whoaing much better than last time. spent most of the day with her on the check cord to hold on wing and shot. she also backed ritter for about 5 birds. she found one bird that had snuck out on us. we turned around and saw birdie on point about 20 feet away. ritter picked up and backed birdie. that was very cool! she does a great job retrieving to hand. my favorite of the day was when she marked a bird that flew off next to a pond and pointed it with half her body in the water and half out.

retrieve from friday

more moorhen

friday i took a former student to shoot moorhen. he has been asking for years to go hunting with me. he is now in college and finally got his hunter safety and hunting license. i told him that moorhens were not very sporting but he still wanted to go. he plans to go duck hunting with me this season. he shot 13 moorhen with one really nice shot on the wing. birdie did great. my highlight of the morning was when she marked a bird down jumped in without a push and retrieved the bird. last time i had to show her where the birds were and give her an extra push out of the boat. seems she is putting together gun shot with bird down. she made two retrieves like that and several more that i tossed for her. she loves watching all the birds fly in the morning.

videos from toho

birdie on toho

waiting for the action to start








birdie checking out a purple gallinule and wondering why we cant shoot it


taken with my canon camera after my dive in the lake


birdie looking at me as if im crazy


took birdie out to toho this morning to watch and listen to birds. she did great. her eyes were almost always on the sky which is a good thing. she sat still (for the most part) and didnt whine (until i t was time to get in the water). it is moorhen season which i usually do not hunt for but i thought it would be a good waterfowl intro for birdie. after sitting for about an hour i decided to shoot a few to see if birdie would retrieve it. she is not comfortable with jumping out of the boat yet even though she loves to swim. the next moorhen that came by died and i polled over to show it to birdie. she wanted it but was unwilling to jump. i picked it up and showed it to her then tossed it back out. she whined and paced the boat but would not go in. when she started pawing at the water i decided to give her a little help into the water. she swam straight to the bird and retrieved to hand. we did this about 4 times. i polled around looking for a few more birds to take and use for training at home. somehow during this i lost my balance and fell into the water, lost my glasses and submerged my iphone that was in my pocket. since i was already wet i decided to take the opportunity to cox birdie into a few jumps on her own. after the first one i began to throw the moorhen for her to fetch and she jumped of her own will and retrieved to hand about 6 more times. i decided to pack it up and call it a day. in spite of the accident we had a great morning that turned out to be another good training session. i took my phone apart and dried everything off and it seems to be working fine.

birdie on quail

the video as promised. it is in chronological order. you can see her get better as they go along. i missed a few good points but got a good amount of footage. she is 4 months old now.

first live birds

took birdie out today with a friend (clay wilson) that also has and trains gsp for quail hunting. birdie had so much fun. she did great with her first live birds. she found all the ones we placed out for her and pointed and whoaed great for a 4 month old. clay was especially impressed by her nose and ability to fetch birds and deliver to hand. i didnt get a lot of pics while training because i was busy with birdie but here are a few pics of her pointing and playing with his two dogs (ritter and lexi). i have a few videos that i will be posting soon.