Winnie lookin' for chukar

[EddieF]

My local bird place was out of quail so I got a couple chukar to work with Winnie, my wirehaired Vizsla pup today.

At about 16 weeks, she's only been around birds a couple times before. And while she's not particularly aggressive in her search or stylish in her points, I can confidently say that her excitement level has increased each time I've had her around birds. And today was a big leap in excitement over last time. In the past if she came across the scent she would follow it to the bird, as if she was going along with her instincts but didn't quite know why, but today I really got the sense that she really wanted to find a bird, you know? She ranged out a bit further and really seemed to have a blast. I'm getting used to letting her do that, and she's getting used to the check cord. That thing is great, by the way, she'd circle around the same tight spot and wrap the cord around some brush and it always comes loose. Cool.

Anyway, I took some video too but have to edit that down. Here are some pics from today...

[GSPVIZ]

She's looking good Eddie. Keep it up.

[snips]

She is TOO CUTE!!!

[muckmuck]

That is one beautiful dog! Is she chasin when the birds fly?

Max

[EddieF]

That is one beautiful dog! Is she chasin when the birds fly?

Max

Thanks very much. She does chase when they fly. The second bird took she found took off and she ran after it quite a ways.

Here's some video from yesterday if I can get this link to work here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4D5D4qr4LU

[Killer Instinct]

She's a cutie....

[wems2371]

Good video. At first I thought the cover might be awfully tall, but it looks like the taller stuff is fairly sporadic and thin. I really like the good retrieve to hand, at the end. I wish I'd had gotten birds to work retrieves with mine, when she was littler. Looks good, and it looks like you're keeping her busy with birds. Denise

[EddieF]

Good video. At first I thought the cover might be awfully tall, but it looks like the taller stuff is fairly sporadic and thin. I really like the good retrieve to hand, at the end. I wish I'd had gotten birds to work retrieves with mine, when she was littler. Looks good, and it looks like you're keeping her busy with birds. Denise

Thank you! That cover is pretty tall in places. This is an area that is staked out for development, but they built one house and the other ten or so are probably on long term hold. But there are little driveways cut through, just wide paths really, and I tried to hide the birds in heavier cover just off the side of the path. I didn't anticipate that she would be running around in the very heavy stuff looking for the birds, but she isn't frustrated by it. And, big bonus, it's great exercise for her, she was tired after this!

She's really good at retrieving the dummy and holding it over my hand and dropping it when I say drop it. She dropped this bird on the ground, but she likes to retrieve and I think she'll be good at that part of it.

But thanks for the compliments, they mean a lot because I really have NO idea what I'm doing, just trying to keep it fun for her while I'm learning.