Hunt No. 5

February 20, 2011

Jersey, GA

Last hunt of the season.

Today we had two more friends join us, Kim and Canton, making a party of 5 humans and 2 dogs. Our gunners were Chris and Canton. Kim was in charge of video and photography while Paul and I tried to keep track of our dogs.

After last week's terrible presentation at Mo's, I feared for the worst, but actually, Tessa did very well, in fact, she put on her most consistent and best performance so far. Although she crept quite a bit, she did not chase or jump any birds today. I was also able to whoa her into an honor several times, and do so from afar - her cooperation was very good.

There is always a moment in those 3 hours that is a little brighter than the others, and today it came towards the end, when she pointed a quail sitting maybe 6 feet in front of her, clearly visible to all of us. As Chris was trying to flush it, another quail flew up from behind Tessa and Chris turned and took his shot. Tessa didn't move an inch, and didn't even turn her head. She kept a close eye on the one in front of her. This is expected of a finished bird dog, but she is not finished, so I was delighted to see it. Canton, who has been hunting bird dogs for 40 years, recalled that moment later over our burgers at Checkers, and praised her for it.

These are just small steps though towards the end result, a finished dog at some point. Not much to brag about really! In fact, we've been doing things backwards a bit which will ultimately create more work for me but I can live with that. I think. Ask me again in two months!