The biggest difference between dogs like Wild Apple Jack and Stokely Ginger B and the rest of the dogs on the truck is their overwhelming desire to find birds. When they aren‘t in the places where we normally find them the dogs like these dig in and find them someplace else. That was the case this morning as the birds had moved around and were hard to find. We got 3/4 of the way around with Jack and “The Missile” before he started finding birds and then finished the brace with three finds. Ginger dug out 2 woodcock again in places where they hadn’t been recently. We brought Trip in on both for backs and you could see the light bulb go off when she found one on her own, pointed it and then bumped it. We were going towards why the bird pop — it flew right towards us and Tony could have reached out and grabbed it as it fluttered back down into the cover.
Mariah got her third session on the rope. When Tony let her go she came to me so fast that I did have time to reel her in nor did he hit the button. We did it again and she slowed slightly and got a little tickle. We then thought she was ready to go free dragging the checkcord. She stayed right next to me for a few moments and then her desire to see the country started to kick in. When she got a couple of checkcord lengths away I called her back and she turned, saw me, and came straight back. Then we made a mistake. Instead of staying out in the open we turned into one of our trails. and she soon wanted to go hunting. When I called her she wasn’t sure where I was and went in the wrong direction and it took quite a bit to get her coming back. So two steps forward — one back.