Anybody getting any pheasant?

[Belgiboy]

I just came back from a great weekend chasing ringnecks around Dickinson, ND. There were a lot of birds around, together with whitetails, muleys, jackrabbits (those things are freakin' huge), coyote, partridge.... God, I love that part of the country. The pic is my dog Fiasco after chasing down a bird that hit the ground running in the CRP.

[TC95GT]

Nice. Makes me miss my dog Bucky.

[DeanC]

Friend of mine came back with a full limit from ND on Saturday.

Shhh... don't tell anyone. It's cheaper and better than SD.

[cobb]

Went out a couple of hours on Saturday and got a couple.

I was more into working the new dog then anything else, the birds were a bonus.

[lenny7]

Friend of mine came back with a full limit from ND on Saturday.

Shhh... don't tell anyone. It's cheaper and better than SD.

That all depends on where you go and who ya know.

I'll be heading out to SoDak a week from Saturday with my Dad, my brother, and my 6 month old lab. With a new dog, I'm more excited about going out this year than ever before. I took him to a game farm a couple weeks ago for some simulated hunting and he did great, retrieving every thing we knocked down, made one tough find, and had a soft mouth. He is absolutely nuts about birds!

Here's his first retrieve:

[lenny7]

I was more into working the new dog then anything else, the birds were a bonus.

That's my attitude this year. How old is your dog?

[cobb]

I was more into working the new dog then anything else, the birds were a bonus.

That's my attitude this year. How old is your dog?

That is kinda a complicated question. At this time Koda is just over 2.5 years old, but a 1 year old to me because he is, as my last lab, a rescue. My current lab is what happens when a boyfriend gives a girlfriend that lives in a restricted metro situation, a cute black puppy, it becomes a big black dog. So Koda came out of the Faribault Humane Society and I probably paid too much for him, but that is not the point. My prior lab, a dog that nobody would adopt and was facing being put down because of his age of over 2 years, because of his controlability, etc. is still my best hunting dog as far as his nose and retrieving ability goes, he had shown up a couple $600+ dogs more than once.

Koda is a rescue that I got all the papers, national champions on his father side back in the late 90's and European championships on his mother side in the early 00's, his mother/grandmother was a pointing lab.

Some give me credit for taking a chance on these rescues, which I don't deserve for several reasons, I think I know what I can do with a certain dog if I get an hour or so to play with it. Have I been wrong, yes I have, it was with a Springer Spaniel that I got over 20 years ago from family that needed to get rid of a dog that they kept locked in the basement in a portable kennel, like 2X3 feet. It did not work out very well for me, but it did for the dog, he was a lot better off in a rural setting with over 10 acres to exercise than in a transport kennel in their basement.

But for me, I prefer to not deal with a puppy that I have to train from day one, such as house training, chewing problems, disobedience problems, etc., with my 2 year old+ rescues I have not had these problems. The past two labs that I have had, I still checked their paperwork, I also personally checked them out and determined if they could work for me, even though both times I was told that they had a controlability problem, ya right. Now this was not by chance, I have checked out ads in the local paper, flyers posted at local pet stores and veterinarian clinics, internet rescue pages and of course the local humane centers and check these dogs out. Of course I have to throw in the general disclaimer that personal or individual results can vary, but for the most part the rescue path has worked for me.

I do have the luxury of private land to work with these dogs, so I buy birds from a couple local sources which is a big thing when training. If a dog has any hunting instinct at all, getting them on birds will bring this out.

So I guess I really rambled of lenny7's original question...........

How old is your dog?

Koda will be 3 in February with about 1 year of bird training under his belt.

[lenny7]

That is kinda a complicated question.

Interesting story. It's great you're able to do that with rescues but with the homework you put into it, I'm not surprised. When I got my current dog (and my first dog), Kody, I didn't know a whole hell of a lot about dogs. My cousin had his bitch bred by dog with a acronym filled pedigree and knowing that my cousin knows dogs, I jumped at the chance to get a pup. His dad just passed the Master National Hunt Test and his grand-dad was a National Field Trial Champ in '03.

Now, knowing much more about dogs and their behavior, I see that a lot of dog owners are making the mistake of treating their dogs like kids instead of dogs.

[cobb]

I see that a lot of dog owners are making the mistake of treating their dogs like kids instead of dogs.