Pixel and Widget 6 month old birthday!

Over the past 6 weeks or so I have been doing just some basics with the girls as seen in the last post on video.  I work them for very short periods of time a couple times a week. Today is there 6 month birthday and they have been going nuts around the pigeon coops the past few weeks so I figured between their increased bird instinct development and the little bit of command education they’ve received in the past month and a half that today was a good day to go for a hunt!! The weather here is sunny and 55 degrees today! I’d take this weather year round!!

I took two birds for Widget and went out to the back brush fields to plant the launchers and the birds. I covered them very well with vegetation. If I plant birds, then I always make sure to do a few decoy locations with just earth disturbance and me rubbing some vegetation with my hands. This just gives me an idea of how fixated the dogs are on my odor versus the bird odor. It’s actually quite fun to watch them think they are on to something then say to themselves, “nope! just dad!”

They both did very well today. Both had wonderful scent points (as opposed to sight points) from decent distances considering very little wind and very short time for the birds to be setting out there. These kids were born for this occupation and I just love watching them do their thing. I have benefited much from the obedience training (would have always liked to do a little more…) with their responsiveness in the field. Don’t get me wrong they have a very long way to go to being primo but no doubt that’s their destination.

Here are some photos of them working today. Click on them to enter the slide show. Enjoy!