Originally Posted by battue
Great post and tribute to your friends. Well done. grin

How close do they range? Flushers I'm guessing, if so do they bore into the scent with a hard charge? Natural retrievers?

Home bodies or do you have to make sure they don't head for the hills?


Back in his day his ranging was just where I wanted. He reached his best about 3 years ago when he was age 10. He would stay within a reasonable distance, flushed well but he would honor another dogs point. He always retrieves the birds. Now at age 13 his hearing is starting to fail and he hunts just by his nose if the pup isn�t there to help him. We�ve learned to work the edges and corners to compensate for that.
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I never intended any of them to be hunting dogs - just dogs, but this breed seeks work to do. In his early years I tried to make him into a waterfowl retriever because that is what the other heeler excelled at. I gave up, brought him on some elk hunts instead. It wasn�t until he was 6 or 7 that I discovered that he was pretty good at finding roosters.
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Helping to pack out some elk loins

What little bit I know about dog training is only what I had to learn on the fly with the old white dog. There was a point where she was advancing fast. Who knows how good she might have become if she�d had a better trainer/handler.
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I don�t push the puppy to be a gun dog. If she wants to then that is fine. She is interested in ducks and especially pheasants, but if she goes another way it is fine.
The furthest mine roam is to molest barn cats.
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The puppy makes off with a duck. Still looking for her place and purpose.