We got up at 6 a.m on Sunday, March 13th. It being the first day of daylight savings time, our bodies thought it was really 5 a.m. We got up so early because we were taking Lucy down to Albuquerque to visit her Facebook friend, a German Shorthair named Hunter. Hunter really does have her own FB page where you can see what hijinks she and her German Shorthair siblings have been up to (search Hunter Thegsp on Facebook). It's kind of like this blog, in a way, I guess.
Hunter's owner, Dave, took us out into public lands west of ABQ to give his dogs some training with some live Chukar Partridges. Dave buys the birds, let's them loose, and then uses the birds as a sort of live-action training aid for the dogs. It's not hunting in any pure sense, but it is good work for the dogs in a place where there are not that many wild birds to use for training. It's extremely fun and interesting to watch the dogs do the thing that their genetic lineage compels them to do. These animals were made to find birds. It was our great luck and privilege to tag along.
The process is as follows: Dave lets the dogs run around for a bit to burn off some steam. After that, he locks up the dogs and gets a bird ready to let loose. He puts the bird out and then starts working the dogs. For the first bird, he did some training for one of his dogs, Luna, I think. Luna is referred to as the "genetically engineered dog" on Hunter's FB page. Luna is more of a show dog than a pure hunter compared to Dave's other two dogs. For training (and to show me how to do it) Luna was on a long lead. We worked our way up to the planted bird. Luna points. Dave shoots. Luna retrieves the bird. It was pretty simple.
For Lucy's first run, we did more or less the same thing as we did with Luna. Lucy was on a long lead to help contain her exuberance when the time came to point. At some point, we let her loose but still on the lead. This was a mistake. In the picture below, Lucy is still on the lead, but no longer restrained by me (click on the picture to see all the details). She's just a few feet short of the bird. She should've stopped and pointed. Instead she just grabbed the bird. So much for shooting the bird.
On the bright side, Lucy brought the bird more or less back to me without too much struggle and relinquished it without much fuss. The bird was still alive, but not for much longer. Dave rapped it's head on his gun a few times and wrung its neck. All in all, this is a bit better than my old Brittany, Sandy, did many years ago when she retrieved her first bird. When Sandy got her first pheasant, she ran around with it for an hour with it in her mouth still alive, flapping in her mouth while evading my every effort to grab her.
In this picture, all three of Dave's dogs are closing in on a bird. Lucy is on a firm lead to try to learn something.
Two of Dave's dogs are pointing the bird.
Seconds after the bird is flushed, Dave shoots and his dogs go get it.
A bit later, Dave's dogs Pepper and Hunter work a ridge, holding their point of a partridge that is just out of sight. Lucy had graduated to being off lead on this run, but she was running around a quarter mile away at this crucial moment.
Here's Lucy's last victim, moments before release.
On her last run, Lucy was allowed off leash again. She and Pepper chased the bird down, but instead of holding her point, Lucy just ran up and grabbed it off the ground. The bird was not feisty enough to take flight. I'm sure Lucy thought this was the whole point to begin with. Just run up and grab it! Now that's hunting! Again, she gave me the bird with little fuss, which I find a bit hard to believe.
If we ever get the chance to go again, I'm sure we'll have to keep Lucy on the lead a bit more to help her learn a bit better. Happily, Dave saved a couple of wings for us to use at home to help her learn how to point and hold her point. We'll keep her on a lead and dangle the wing behind a bush while we restrain her.
Big thanks to Dave, Hunter, Pepper, and Luna for letting us join them!
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