The brown dawgs wrote their letter to Santa.  Every year their letter is the same:

This past Saturday Santa came a little early because the brown dawgs got out for a pheasant hunt at Tails A Waggin’ Acres, a pheasant preserve not too far from our cabin.

We were unsure whether we would cancel this hunt because there had been so much snow in that area and it is difficult to hunt those fields if the snow is deep.  Lucky for us they got a warm up and all the snow melted.  Saturday turned out to be a perfect morning for a hunt.  The temperature was right around freezing and there was no wind.

Thunder was the first to work the field, then Freighter, then Storm.  I will have Thunder and Storm’s portion of the hunt on Friday.

Normally when we work a field we section it off in our heads and let each dog work that section, but we figured out that the birds were running rather than sitting in the cover, so we let the dogs follow their noses and we followed them.

We had the preserve put out ten birds in the 75 acre field.  We allow each dog to get three birds and then we put them up and take out the next dog.  That way hopefully each dog gets a chance at birds.

Freighter got three birds very quickly.  He is really coming along nicely as an upland dog.  When he was younger he tended to hunt and if he didn’t get a bird right away, he would lose interest and start messing around.  But on our hunt last month and this hunt, Freighter was all business.  You don’t have to remind him to “find the birds”.  He also hunts nice and close and if he does get a bit far out, simply saying his name will get him to turn and come right back.

This hen was only winged and ended up going around that stand of trees into some heavy cover.  Freighter took off after the bird, but when he got around the corner, he seemed unsure whether he was really supposed to go that far or not.  We simply walked a bit closer and told him to find the bird.

What a trooper.  He hunted all through the heavy cover, in and out until he found that bird which was in fact only winged.  One thing you want a young bird dog to understand is that they must bring cripple birds back as well as the dead ones.  Freighter had a harder time holding this bird, but hold it he did.

Normally hubby puts the birds in a pouch at the back of my vest.  I can attest that this bird was a strong cripple because it kept flapping even in the pouch.

We hunted over to an area with a blind and a small stand of trees at the edge of our field.

Freighter worked and worked that area.  He must know something.

After his three birds, it was back to the truck for Freighter.  Of course he would have rather stayed out to hunt more.  We could not have been happier with Freighter, he really did an excellent job.

We always pose the dogs with all the birds.  It is not exactly a group effort, but they all worked to get them so they all get to pose with them.