well the last trip of the year is in the books. We went to the Platte River in Nebraska. Haley had never seen a river before, so I was wondering how she would do. It turns out she did great. The first day a goose was sitting on the water near us & it was a big goose. Bigger than Haley. It’s not uncommon for a big goose to do some damage to a young small dog like Haley, so I watched to see what was about to happen. That big goose started fighting Haley, but she wasn’t having it. she whipped that huge goose & brought it to me. A couple hours later she swam 80 yards down the fast moving river to make a retrieve on a duck. A really good retrieve for a young dog hat had never been in a river, before. The next day she found a duck that was 150 yards away. It had sailed way behind us & fallen in a clump of sagebrush in the trees. Nobody knew where it went, so we pointed Haley in the general direction & told her to fetch it. It took a little while because it was a long ways, but she found it & brought it to me. The last day a duck had somehow fallen underneath a fallen oak tree. Haley found it but got stuck in the branches under the tree. So, she had to dig her way out, but she still had the duck & brought it to me.
After awhile she figured out that when people started blowing on heir calls, something fun was about to happen. So she’d go & stand at the door, waiting. As soon as the shooting started, she was out that door looking for birds.
She made a lot progress in her first waterfowl season this year. In September I needed to wade out to the birds & slap the water so she’d come & retrieve it. Now she gets out of the blind like a missile & finds birds that we don’t even know where they are. If I keep getting her out & on birds like this year, she’ll be something to behold in 3 years.
