07-29-18
I like to think of a puppy the same way as a fuse box for a new home. First you have to run all the wires. To Gracie that is hold, fetch, sit, heel and find dead. This is the wiring we are working on. Soon all these lessons will be hardwired and we can turn the juice on (hunting season).
How many of you remember the movie Marley? I bet if I go back a ways in her breeding I'll find him. LOL! Gracie is a strong willed lab. She can test our resolve at home.
But having her in the field and watching what good breeding can produce, I am so looking forward to hunting behind this dog.
Gracie turned seven months on the 28th. You can see her confirmation coming together. She is a very good looking field lab. It was a good Sunday morning training with Steve. I use bumpers at home. He uses birds and Gracie loves it.
We started with hold training, then retrieving, later some quartering drills and lastly Steve planted two dead chukka's and a live one. We worked her first on the two dead ones which she found using the wind. When she put the live bird to flight Steve held off just a bit at the shot so she had a good look at and line the bird was flying. The bird dropped dead after the shot and Gracie retrieved. It was a morning running the wires which will soon be connected to the fuse box.
On the way home I stopped at a friend's house that has a river in his backyard. Gracie has had swimming lessons in a neighbor's pool but each time we approached water in the wild she was hesitant. Well not any more. Now she knows what those webbed feet can do. I stayed over an hour. She was in the water constantly.
Thankfully another wire that will soon be connected to the box.
I read a thread on Upland Journal on Maine Flush Rates and I can tell you that each of my older labs had a chance as pups to hunt Maine. Belle was fresh from Irishwhistler's Summer Camp for Gun Dogs when she took her first trip to Maine in 2014. I told the landowner that trip made that dog a grouse hunter. We had a few days of over 25 flushes or what I call encounters. Bay was even luckier in 2011 and especially in 2012. We had one day of over 50 encounters in which I walked 8 miles that day.
Gracie is up next!