We are back from our morning of pheasant hunting, and what a morning it was!
Tito flushed 9 birds in 2 hours. What a nose this dog has, so typical of the goldens. He tracked the birds like crazy, excellent persistence, and when he was on a bird we just stood quietly and let him do his thing. It was awesome. He was giving me goosebumps he was so good at it!
The thing I didn't like was that the cover was very tall and thick, and about 90% of the time I couldn't see the dog. That's a huge leap of faith for me. I could hear his cowbell most of the time, and could sometimes see the weeds moving where he was. But it did scare me. The cover in the photo behind my friend is typical of what Tito was hunting in.
The really bad moment was when my friend missed a shot, and Tito took off after the bird. That's been my fear with him, and sure enough, he did it today. The cover is so tall and heavy that we couldn't see him AT ALL and had no idea where he had gotten to. I went into heart failure. He was gone for probably 60 seconds, which felt like a lifetime. I was calling him and whistling him in, and he came charging back from a completely different direction from the direction we had last seen him heading. So that was scary stuff. My friend said that he trusts Tito won't go anywhere, as soon as he realized he couldn't catch the bird he turned back. But still...
Anyway, we had a fabulous time. Here are a couple of photos of Tito with my good friend that took us hunting this morning.
Tito flushed 9 birds in 2 hours. What a nose this dog has, so typical of the goldens. He tracked the birds like crazy, excellent persistence, and when he was on a bird we just stood quietly and let him do his thing. It was awesome. He was giving me goosebumps he was so good at it!
The thing I didn't like was that the cover was very tall and thick, and about 90% of the time I couldn't see the dog. That's a huge leap of faith for me. I could hear his cowbell most of the time, and could sometimes see the weeds moving where he was. But it did scare me. The cover in the photo behind my friend is typical of what Tito was hunting in.
The really bad moment was when my friend missed a shot, and Tito took off after the bird. That's been my fear with him, and sure enough, he did it today. The cover is so tall and heavy that we couldn't see him AT ALL and had no idea where he had gotten to. I went into heart failure. He was gone for probably 60 seconds, which felt like a lifetime. I was calling him and whistling him in, and he came charging back from a completely different direction from the direction we had last seen him heading. So that was scary stuff. My friend said that he trusts Tito won't go anywhere, as soon as he realized he couldn't catch the bird he turned back. But still...
Anyway, we had a fabulous time. Here are a couple of photos of Tito with my good friend that took us hunting this morning.