It’s Follow-up Friday.  The blog hop that:

Let’s you wrap up your week and leads you right into the weekend.

Thank you to Jodi from Heart Like A Dog and co-host Donna and the Dogs for hosting the hop!

Follow-up Friday is a chance to follow-up on posts and answer questions from the previous week.

Fun Pheasant Hunt

Jessica  commented:  Oh, that’s the point of using honor dogs at the trials, huh?

Yes, and I am sure you can imagine that in a duck blind or boat it is even more important because you can’t have all the dogs charging out the minute a shot goes off.  With pheasant hunting, both dogs are hopefully working together and don’t charge over to snatch a bird from the other.

Donna and the Dogs asked:  Stupid question, but do you all hunt at the same time or take turns? If you hunt at the same time, are there any safety concerns you have to worry about, or problems with scaring each others birds off?

Definitely not a stupid question.  The way we did it, the two hunters walked spaced apart and parallel to one another with the dogs out in front.

I was either between them or parallel to them to one side.  I tried to stay a bit behind or way far away off to the side.  Generally the hunters agree who will take the first shot, or they may agree who shoots based on which direction the bird flushes.

The idea is to all work together as a team, especially in a field that was as large as the one we hunted.

There are definite safety concerns.  You do not want to shoot a low flying bird because you do not want to risk hitting a dog or a person.

You hope the bird flushes away from you, but that is not something anyone can control.  One bird flushed directly at hubby and kind of hit his knee, then it changed direction and flew up where he got a clear shot at it.  Another bird flushed directly over my head.  That was a no shot for safety reasons.

These birds were pretty active and when they flushed, they tended to really move.

The dogs flushed many wabbits out of that field.  At times, I think it threw them off.  Our pal Emmadog would have had a grand time.

Wordless Wednesday–Escape

Jodi asked:  I see them, what do I win?

The satisfaction of knowing that you spotted them.  😉

But seriously, I am glad most of you were able to spot Storm and the bird.  I would have liked to get the shot of her flushing the bird, but I was not fast enough.  I only got a picture of her turning as she flushed that bird and a picture of her in hot pursuit.

The thing about upland hunting, it doesn’t reinforce a dog being steady.  Some hunters require the dogs to sit or stand in place when the bird flushes, but others (like us), prefer the dog to get to the bird as quickly as possible.  Sometimes if the bird is only winged, it will run and in that thick cover, it can be hard to find them.

Thunder was upland hunting since he was a puppy and he is nice and steady when he needs to be, so hopefully the concept will translate for Freighter.  Storm?  Well Storm is Storm.

This ‘N That Thursday–Happy Birthday Freighter

Freighter had a great birthday.  He got his nails trimmed.  🙂

I know.  He did get to chomp on a couple of Jones Natural Chews rabbit jerky strips that we won from FleaByte when she had a give away.  They work the best because it takes him a bit to break a piece off and he doesn’t chomp on my fingers so much.  🙂  My supply is low.  I ordered more.

FleaByte asked:  What do you do with all those pheasant feathers?

We had the farm clean our birds so we could have them whole.  I am not sure if they do anything with the feathers.

I plan to roast the birds.  Probably for New Years.

And that’s it for this week’s TNT.

Don’t forget that next week, we will be having a special Thanksgiving Edition of This ‘N That Thursday and my co-host Ruckus the Eskie is planning a giveaway.  Now don’t worry if you are busy celebrating, the linky will be open until at least Saturday.  🙂

Thanks again to Jodi from Heart Like A Dog and co-host Donna and the Dogs for hosting the hop!

Have a nice weekend!

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