Got Me a Duck Dawg!

I’ve been taking Ranger out hunting pretty steadily this year. He’s been great on doves, and quail and we’ve gone duck hunting, but until today, I was despairing of Ranger ever picking up a duck. He marked them well, and would even run to them and poke them with his nose a bunch, but he wouldn’t pick them up, let alone retrieve them. Up to this point my hunting buddy's GSP has been retrieving most of the ducks with a little help from Sue.

Today, the lights went on and Bubba was home! Of the seven ducks we hit, Ranger fetched four of them. Sue fetched one, and my hunting buddy fetched two with assistance from his GSP. I’ve been going over in my mind what was different today, and the only thing that I can come up with is that this morning most of the ducks fell in the water instead of on the bank. I could see the click in his brain. He saw the bird hit the water, and remembered fetching doves from a different pond. That’s when the light went on. He jumped in swam to the the first bird and brought it back.

It was cold enough with the wind to have icicles hanging off of the dogs’ bodies and splashed drops of water froze to the stock of my 870.

Then, it was off the pond by the river and on to the desert in search of quail, where Sue demonstrated her upland prowess while the GSP decided to be self-employed, and Ranger decided to hang at heel with me instead of wasting his energy quartering for non-existent coveys. The quail were pretty spooky and we only managed to find three coveys that just wouldn't hold together, and only got six birds despite walking for what seemed like endless miles up and down hills and washes near watering holes. All in all it was a great day’s huntin’!