Say hi to Haley

[follow maggie]

First day retrieving from the water today. She took to it well,  boat wakes didn’t bother at all. She’s starting to find the aggression/we’re not screwing around switch when we’re training & it’s fun to watch.

[huntnfmly]

Very cool👍 Thank you for sharing
How long did it take for her to jump right in like that?
Was it right away or did you have to ease into it?

[follow maggie]

I started off just tossing he dummy in ankle deep. The first toss she was too excited & couldn’t stop fast enough so she fell into the deeper water where she had to swim. 2 more tosses I think 5-8’ of shore and then she was all about it. Had some throws about 40’ from shore & she brought them all back. At the end of the hour session she was jumping off the dock to fetch the dummy.

[huntnfmly]

Nice 👍

[follow maggie]

Had Haley out fir her first session of being broken in to gunfire today. We walked around tossing her training dummy with her on a 30’ check cord. When I tossed the dummy I’d shoot the training pistol. Did the first couple shots inside the bird pocket of my hunting vest to muffle it & got pretty quickly to shooting it almost right over her. She never seemed to even notice the shots, so I think the session went well. I felt kind of bad though, because I forgot her biscuits for the reward,

[huntnfmly]

That’s sounds like a good session
I’m going to be doing that with my Britt soon

[rainshadow1]

Had Haley out fir her first session of being broken in to gunfire today. We walked around tossing her training dummy with her on a 30’ check cord. When I tossed the dummy I’d shoot the training pistol. Did the first couple shots inside the bird pocket of my hunting vest to muffle it & got pretty quickly to shooting it almost right over her. She never seemed to even notice the shots, so I think the session went well. I felt kind of bad though, because I forgot her biscuits for the reward,

 

[follow maggie]

I’d forgotten how loud primers are by themselves. I’ll bring ear muffs next time,

[huntnfmly]

I’d forgotten how loud primers are by themselves. I’ll bring ear muffs next time,

👍

[follow maggie]

Today we introduced Haley to live birds for the first time. She’ll be 8 months next week. We went to a hunting preserve and used chukars & a bird launcher. We started off with a training bumper in the launcher hid in some tall grass. When she would get close to the launcher we’d set it off to kick up the bumper & shoot the starter pistol. After about 1/2 hour of that we moved on to chukars & shotguns. She found that pretty exciting & was super aggressive about getting after them when she saw them. One bird didn’t fly so she chased it down, pounced on it & brought it straight back. She retrieved all of them to hand. I was pretty pleased, I don’t think I could have expected as good a showing as she gave this morning.

[huntnfmly]

Very cool thanks for sharing

[follow maggie]

Had Haley out for our second session with live birds today & here’s her take for the day. We put out 10 chukar & she found 9. She used her nose all morning, she tracked one for 150 yards before it flew. She dug up one that burrowed almost 2’ into the bottom of the reeds & grass & brought it back w/o tearing it up. She caught 2 birds that were flying- one got to the end of the hedgerow & started to fly, she got it @ 2’ off the ground, the other was flying by & she pounced on it & brought it back. 8 months old.

[huntnfmly]

Awesome

[follow maggie]

Haley was 9 months old on Friday & Saturday we had her out for her first duck hunt. First hunt with wild birds, first time she’d seen a duck, first time hunting from a boat and she did well. In the pre dawn dark, when we were throwing decoys out of the boat, she felt like she needed to get out of the boat to bring the decoys back, so she did! After the first volley she knew if we got up to look to the sky for ducks, and if the guns went boom, she would move around to see past the cattails & look for the splash on the water. For the day she made 2 retrieves from the boat back to the boat & 2 from shore. All in all, a good outing for a puppy‘s first time. All those hours of work in the back yard & tips from people on here are paying off!

[huntnfmly]

Very cool thank you for posting her progress 👍