"Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training." ~ Anna Freud
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
I am about to talk about a trip Rowdy and I made to train for field hunting at Coyland Creek yesterday. But before I do, a ‘trigger’ warning. If you are offended by hunting or using game farm birds for the purpose they were raised for, please just stop reading this now. It’ll go better for the both of us.
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| Rowdy and the two roosters. |
I humbly think Rowdy is a world class Gun Doodle. I’ve only heard of one other Gun Doodle, which is not the same as saying he’s not just one of hundreds…but, I think the universal pool of guys who have trained a Golden Doodle to hunt is pretty small and I think Rowdy ranks pretty high in that small pool. I recognize that reality is out there and I could be totally wrong on that.
In any case, we have spent a lot of time and effort getting Rowdy to find, flush, mark and retrieve game birds. One of the things you must do occasionally is to go to a game farm and train as closely as possible to field conditions. That’s what we did yesterday. I drove down with two goals: 1) Emphasize making Rowdy stay in close gun range – 30 yards at most. 2) If the birds held, I planned to make him sit and stay, while I walked over and flushed the bird.
I had called Mitch earlier that week and made an appointment to buy three pheasants in the 1:45 pm time frame. We arrived about 20 minutes early. The entry gate up at the top of the hill to the main complex is very pretty and the tableau as you proceed down the quarter mile driveway is compelling. Rowdy knows it well and he was up against the windshield from the right seat whining in happy anticipation as I drove down the driveway.
Mitch met me, confirmed I wanted three birds and we discussed which field to plant them in. Then he asked me if I would stay in the parking lot while he went out and planted the birds as he expected a delivery. Would I mind telling them he’d be right back? So, I took the few minutes he was gone planting the birds to gear up and try to water Rowdy, who won’t drink when he’s excited. No delivery man arrived and off we went when Mitch returned.
A quick description of the field. Coyland has a lot of acres designed to hide birds in. The East Field is roughly a mile and half from the lodge and is about ¾ of a mile long, laid out in north south oriented 100-yard-wide strips of dirty corn and long prairie grass. Our birds were in long grass and weedy cover in between two dirty corn strips. By the time I got the truck parked, Rowdy was just about to jump out of his skin he was so excited. He’d been there before. To establish obedience, I made him sit still in the front seat while I uncased the gun and got my hat. He held while I opened the door and I heeled him up. I made him ‘Get Busy’ before we heeled over to start the hunt.
It was coolishly warm. In the high 50s with a fairly low breeze out of the SE and bright direct sun. The kind of conditions where a Doodle can get hot surprisingly fast, which is why I only bought three birds planning on about a 30 – 45 minute long hunt.
I’m gonna tell you about each bird in some detail, because, frankly, I’m writing this for my memories. It won’t hurt me at all if you skim this. The first bird out was a big rooster. Mitch fooled me and planted it really close to the beginning of the strip – about 50 yards. Rowdy was staying close, quartering ok, when he stopped and stared to his left. Classic Rowdy bird pose. I sat him and told him stay. He held well. I started to walk towards where he was looking trying not to fixate on a spot and instead staying loose and trying to take it all in.
That’s when I saw the little ‘wake’ of disturbed grass out past Rowdy and behind him over to our right. The bird was running away from where Rowdy was looking. I pointed at the direction and told him “over” and he took off in the direction I wanted and spotted the running bird. The bird jinked back left and Rowdy almost caught him. That’s when he flushed and made a hard-right turn over Rowdy which made me hold my shot until it was clear of Rowdy. Then I got him, Rowdy was on him immediately and fetched him back to hand just fine. What a great start. The bird was still alive so I wrung its neck. We settled down a moment and then I sent Rowdy out again to hunt. While he was not paying attention, I tossed the carcass back into the grass near a conspicuous skinny weed stalk so we could do a blind retrieve later as we walked back to the truck.
The second bird was planted about 75 yards further south. Remember neither I nor Rowdy know exactly where they are. Rowdy stopped and ‘pointed’ again. The bird did not flush. I told him sit, stay and he held. I walked over and the hen flushed to the south east when I was about 10 yards away. I missed the first shot and hit a roughly 40 yard going away second shot which wounded this bird too and it fell near the edge of the grass and dirty corn to the east. Rowdy took off and took a good long while beating around. I walked over to look too. Finally, Rowdy turned and followed the trail back to the northwest for about 20 yards where we’d both already walked. He nabs the running hen and fetches it up very nice.
This has taken us pretty close to where Mitch had planted the third bird. Within a minute after I stowed the hen and told Rowdy to ‘hunt’ he was ‘pointed’ again. This rooster was not gonna move. I actually walked up and kicked it to get it to fly. Made another wounding shot and Rowdy was off. Now.... this bird decides it’s a runner and it is all over the place with Rowdy chasing it. The chase ended as Rowdy was about a foot behind it and it jumped in the air to try to fly again. Rowdy jumped up and grabbed the bird out of the air. This was quite simply the coolest thing I’ve ever seen Rowdy do. I was screaming in happiness. Literally screaming. Like a kid. He trotted back over to me proudly and then forgot what he was doing and dropped the bird at my feet. I made him hold it and then he heeled up and delivered it to hand.
That’s three birds so I think we are done. It’s been about 20 minutes. We are about 100 yards from where I had hidden first bird to the north. So, I heeled Rowdy up, tried to calm him down a little and scratched his ears and told him what a good dog I thought he was. Then I tried to cast him out to retrieve first bird. He took off and ran about 30 yards and then started hunting around. I told him sit and tried to cast him back. He blew me off, turned hard left and ran out into the dirty corn to the west. All I can see is his tail and it’s a ‘birdy’ tail. So, I start walking as fast as I can and get about 30 yards away when he flushes another hen out in the corn. I make the shot; he’s got it fetched and in my hand in about 30 seconds.
A side note here. I’m not sure what to think about this. This is part and parcel of why Rowdy won’t pass a test. He’s too independent. Once I sent him on that blind retrieve, he should have done that to the exclusion of all else. Yet, I have a fourth bird I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think what I have decided is that Rowdy is a pretty good hunting team mate. He pretty much always mostly does what he’s supposed to do sometimes. But he also has that streak where he’s going all Ferdinand the Bull and sniffing the flowers. Which means he and I may never pass a test. If that is the price of having him as a good hunting buddy, I reckon I’m gonna pay it. Of course, I could be just making excuses for my amateurish training effort…..
By now, Rowdy’s pretty hot and blowing hard. In fact, so I am I. However, we still gotta find that first Rooster I hid, so Rowdy and I heel another 20 yards back towards the truck and I send him again. He finds the bird after beating about because, frankly, by then I’d forgotten where I hid it. So, we got 4 birds in about 40 minutes and 5 retrieves to hand with fresh killed birds. In my mind that's a successful training episode. …and the last ‘scratch’ bird cost about half of what a bought bird does.
It was quite simply the best time I’ve every had with Rowdy and he’s given me some good times. I think we cemented a lot of training and some teamwork yesterday. I’m pretty happy.
On that happy note, I remain,
Dad/Geoff
ps, An expert reading this will have noted that Rowdy did not
hold the sit as I shot the bird all three times.
I’m not real sure I know how to train better for that nor if I’m very
worried about it. He will hold the sit when I'm not a shooter and just handling, so there's that.....
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