Dove season is upon us as it opened up in WI last weekend. Having a houseful of Chesapeake’s that love to hunt we have to do the rotation schedule since there is only two of us and 5 of them. Friday night we started out with John and Glory and I had Preacher.

Glory

John and Glory did quite well as they got their limit of doves which is 15. Preacher and I on the other hand didn’t fair to well as I only got 2 for Preacher to retrieve. Preacher got lessons on being steady while listening to John shoot and learning “no bird” which is what we say when there is a shot and the dog doesn’t get to retrieve a bird. She did really well waiting and then when she got to finally retrieve.

Preacher

Preacher

Preacher got to go out again Monday morning so she got a couple more retrieves.

Preacher

Gambler got to hunt with me Saturday morning while Guilty hunted with John. I can see we are going to be fighting over Guilty this hunting season. I originally was talking to Guilty telling her she was going to hunt with me and then John goes “what! I was going to take Guilty” so I let John hunt with her and I took Gambler.  Gambler and I got 5 doves while John and Guilty got 12. This was Guilty’s first time out on a real hunt and she had to learn how to be steady and sit next to John, how to follow the gun barrel and mark birds down, how to go out and retrieve the birds and bring them back while delivering to hand. She did really well for a 7 month old pup. She marked some close birds down and retrieved them by herself and then the rest John got up and walked her over to the area and let her “hunt them up”. I was quite impressed with this young girl.

Gambler

Gambler

Gambler

Guilty

A great weekend was had by the Sand Spring Gang, the only one sad was Nellie as she didn’t get a turn this weekend but there are many more weekends to come.