100 percent

No I'm not talking about the dog's performances this morning, although they were pretty darn good considering the conditions.  Last week we had two mornings in the high 30s and it was great for working dogs.  This morning as I loaded up before 6:00 the temperature was already pushing 60 and the humidity was reported at 100%.  I was soaked by the dew on the raspberry canes and had sweated through my shirt before we had climbed up to the top of the first cover.  Lucy and Will were up first and were on a mission despite the stillness of the air, Lucy had 4 perfect woodcock finds and one stop to flush on a relocation while Will had two grouse and two woodcock contacts.  In the next cover we ran Little Thudd and Max.  They make quite a pair with both of them running big powerful races.  We didn't have any bird work going up the mountain although I had one grouse flush out of a tree right over my head.  Back near the truck Max had a really nice limb find at 138 yards away according to my Alpha.  He was in pretty heavy cover and it took me a while to get to him.  He was still high and tight when I got there and the woodcock flushed right between us.  I fired and he never moved until I led him out by the collar.  Thuddy had one woodcock in the cover we ran in and then crossed the road and had another below the trucks.  We hadn't run on that side of the road yet this summer as it appeared to drop off pretty fast.  With our curiosity piqued Tony and I threw Ruby and G III in there.  I walked up a woodcock and G III pointed one.  Ruby came in and pointed where I had just flushed the bird.  What was really amazing was how little the density of the cover or the steepness of the terrain deter Ruby.  She might be the lightest in stature of the puppies here this summer but her heart and desire to hunt matches any of them. No Fear!

Ruby in the birdfield earlier this summer.