Awsome!Sounds like a great first duck hunt and Wood Ducks were a good choice.She would have retrieved the cripple also had you had the time.GREAT PICTURE!

WAY TO GO Pritch!!! How cool that is I get goosebumbs reading that. Charlie (boykin) will turn one on Friday. We have had the best first season, he still has work to do but it has been great. The last outing it was 8 degrees, we were shooting green heads on the colorado river the only open water. Chalie was in his vest like always and just diving in to the water after those ducks
Too bad dad can't shoot better might have limited.I thought he might not be able to handle the cold but he dosn't care if there are ducks flyin. Have a great season

way to go, pritch!

it's like watching you kid take their first steps, you don't know how you got there but ta da!

Yep, Lyn, starting a retriever pup on pheasants can be tough. Especially if it's a cripple. All those feathers coming off in their mouth is pretty distracing. Woodies would be about the ideal size for a dog Pritchard's size and age to start on. And no shedding feathers to mess it up. I'm sure if Dave had it to do over again, he'd have killed the cripple on the water (if he could). I was lucky in that my younger dog Opal's first bird (at age 3 months and 3 days) was a little hun that I dumped dead. She did very well on sharpies a few days later (see photo in my profile). They were kill shots as well. Pheasnts were too much for her and she didn't get a good retrieve until the end of the season. We lost several cripples in the meantime that simply outran the little stinker. Poor Pearl had to start here on big geese! She was finally able to drag a little Richardson's honker to me at age four months to the day. It too was dead. A big honker beat her up on the first day of season the following year and it took me a while to get her back in the groove retrieving.

I think the lesson learned is that we should try to ensure, or at least hope, that the first bird is not a cripple. Perhaps if one has the money to use live birds for training, this might be less of a problem. However, I wouldn't do that even if I could afford it. I'm not into tormenting domesticated birds simply for my own personal conveneince if there is another way. And on the job training has worked well enough for me.

Awesome Job Dave! I knew pritch would do well...........shes a Boykin. We have been hard at them this week and will be at them again next week too. Cooper my older dog has been doing Great!

Gang, Thanks for the kind words.

earlyriser81, Often I'll carry a point and shoot in the field. It's a Panasonic Lumix. Has a great lens and takes super photos for that style of camera. But when I need a special shot I go with my Digital SLR. It's a Canon Digital Rebel. Solid machine.

psedlar, 8 degrees? Charlie is hardcore.

Lyne, Ha. Sounds familiar.

Quack, Just tell me when to show up. :)

I should have added the birds have not been harnessed for a long time now we are way beyond that but the harness or sock is a great tool for the young dog starting on birds.

Great stuff. Hey David I have an issue that maybe you can help with. I have a 10 month old lab pup that retrieved wonderfully to me and then I stopped working with her on that (2-3) months ago (and I realize I created this) and moved on to other stuff thinking we had it down and now she won't bring anything back to me and it seems she wants to play with the ball/dummy/dead duck (from my freezer)rather than bring it right back to me. She is awesome in the field on pheasants already but I'm at a loss as to what to do since this is my fault for not reinforcing force fetching from time to time.