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.