Luke
I wasn’t able to train dogs today. My son, Ryan, was having some work done on his home and he needed someone to be there with the workman. I’m it.
Yesterday the counter on the blog went over 50,000. I have had the counter on it for about 9 months. That seems like a huge number to me and I want to thank each one that has clicked on my site.
I have been working Blaze, Tur Bo and Luke on being steady to wing and shot. While I owned her, Whitey was in the class. One of the reasons it is taking so long for the dogs to get this, I have let them chase after I flush the birds. Luke has four years experience chasing, Blaze and Whitey have two years and I hunted Tur Bo last year. They have all chased and saw the other dogs chase after the flush. It’s more fun to chase than stand steady to wing and shot.
I was reading some of George Hickox articles and he said that as soon as the dogs started pointing he quit letting them chase. I broke a pointer, that I tried to run field trials with, steady to wing and shot but I seldom hunted her. I have never cared if my bird dogs chase after the flush, until now. Just to see if I can and to have something to write about on the blog, I am trying.
Blaze
Tur Bo
Luke is doing pretty well on staying steady but I need to go to a game farm and shoot some birds over him. Blaze is fighting me, still, but if I shot some birds over her it might help. She may just be bored with what we are doing at this time, although she acts excited by the training. Blaze has hunted for 2 seasons and if she sees a bird drop she retrieves at a dead run so when she sees birds falling it will be hard to stop her from moving.
Tur Bo only had last season and it wasn’t a very good year so he didn’t have much to chase. He also retrieved one time. At this time, in his training, if I’m standing beside him with my hand in his collar he doesn’t move. With enough repetitions, I think he will stay steady.
I got 7 homing pigeons in May and just started using them this month but I’ve lost 2 already and the others aren’t raising young as they should be. My other pigeon house has a bunch of birds, 16 at last count, but I’m not sure if they will return home from a long distance. At this time they are coming back from about 3 miles away. They may be homers, also. I’m not sure but I haven’t lost any for a long time.
Jack
A friend of mine, Gailen Cooper, bought Jack from me and a few weeks ago brought another dog to his kennels from the south eastern U.S. The other dog was sick when he got it home and a few days later Jack was sick, also. He took him to the vet and they wound up keeping him for about 10 days. After some blood tests they determined that Jack had a parvo that the normal parvo inoculations doesn’t cover. I thought when Gailen told me about this that he had, had 3 shots but Gailen said I had given him 4 shots before he had taken him home.
Two days after bringing the dog from the south east to his kennel it was dead. He had taken him to a vet and the vet had given him some antibiotics. When Jack got sick he took him to a different vet. Dr. Becker at Independence Animal Hospital recognized the seriousness of the disease and kept Jack until he was well enough to go home.
Dr. Becker was not in the day I went to Independence Animal Hospital but I talked to Dr. Wingert who told me that this disease attacked dogs between the ages of 6 months and 18 months, mainly. There is no known vaccine for this parvo. They are seeing this in the young dogs and it is sometimes fatal.
I have friends that bring their dogs over to work them on my pigeons. I asked if I should stop letting people bring dogs by but Dr. Wingert said the disease is every where so that probably wouldn’t make much difference. This morning there was a coyote in my backyard. He could bring something, easier than someone’s dog that is up on it’s shots.
That’s it for my rambling but, please, keep an eye on your dog and if it gets sick get it to a vet right way. Again thank you for clicking on my blog. I had no idea if anyone would read this blog when I started and getting 50,000 hits in 9 months is unbelievable to me, so thanks a lot. I enjoy writing the blog and working dogs and the Lord has blessed me with good health. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.