Back to Work

After traveling all day Wednesday, I took Thursday off. Got back to working the dogs today. In our first cover we didn't see any birds. In the second cover we moved 2 woodcock and 2 grouse with Trash having a really nice limb find on one of the grouse.

In the last cover we ran Jack and Abbie (Dave Hawke's littermate to Tony's Frankie dog) whose with Tony for awhile in hopes of getting her going on wild birds. On the way out to the cover two Spruce Grouse were on the side of the road and Tony jumped out, slammed the door, and got Abbie out of the back of the truck. She ran right by them while the male was in full mating display -- It's no wonder they are called fool's hens. On her third pass she ran right up to them and finally realized they were there and followed in hot pursuit when they took to wing. We rounded her up and went on up the road where we ran her with Jack. In the next hour it was interesting to watch her go from relatively clueless as we led her in behind Jack to stopping on her on his fourth woodcock find. On one find we could see the woodcock sitting tight in front of Jack and brought Abbie up to get a nose full of scent. If we can keep finding birds for a couple of weeks she should be well on her way to knowing what her role in life is.