Tough training year

Less then a month of summer, according to the calender, and I still haven’t had a point by Layne on a scented upland game bird. She’s pointed many by sight. Both game birds and every other bird imaginable. She lets me walk in front and do the flushing, and then goes on looking for the next bird, but does so by sight. She has a beautiful point, and does so several times a day right here at the house.

Her new thing is pointing flying grasshoppers. She’ll point them and wait for me to flush them and then chase them until they land and lock on point again. If I’m not there to flush, she’ll wait a while and slowly creep until the hopper flys and then go through the routine again. It keeps her in good shape. It’s starting to look like I’ll be doing some training during the hunting season.

My bird report tells the story of why I haven’t gotten a scent point from Layne yet. We’ve been out several times, mostly in places closer to home because of the fires. The places we’ve been hiking through, usually has fair numbers of chukars and huns. But this year we are seeing fewer coveys than the past. I believe the birds are there but with the over abundance of cover and the very dry conditions, they are hard for the dogs to find.

The conditions are so bad that the dogs are fighting facefulls of dust and pollen of the grasses, weeds and bushes. I have gottrn a few points by Grady, but that’s because he is moving a little slower now and is a lot smarter. The good news from that is, Layne is honoring him. I’m pretty sure Layne knows what she is looking for out there by her composure when we jump of covey of huns or chukars. I’ve never had these kind of conditions for training in so I’ll just have to wait until conditions are better. I’ll just be doing less shooting at first, which will be a disappointment to Grady.

We’re seeing a few more coveys of birds from the road on our drives to our training areas and while hiking. But not as many as I’m used to. My optimistic attitude tells me that they are out there. The conditions are just plane tough right now, but when the cooler and wetter weather comes, it’s going to be just fine.

There’s still enough birds to make a trip over here in Idaho and Oregon, to hunt chukars, exciting.

One last thing. I don’t see a lot of rattler’s while chukar so I don’t worry about them that much. But I had an encounter with one on my last outing that might ease some’s mind. It was one of those 100 degree days and I was out early in the morning. I would guess the temperature about 70 degrees when we had our encounter. There is so much cover this year, many times it is easier to walk a game trail than to bust through the waist high cover. Both dogs came out of the thick stuff and started walking down the trail. I saw a rattlesnake about twenty feet up the trail but before I could stop the dogs, they had both walked right over the top of it. No reaction. Just a steady pace right over it. I took a picture of it and tried to torment it a little to see it strike, but it just stayed in it’s position not feeling threatened.

It never rattled, but was content to lay on the trail and warm some. This encounter might ease a few minds. Snakes aren’t out to get us and unless they are threatened, they just want to be left alone. Thus, the reason behind snake avoidance training. Take the curiosity of snakes away from the dog. Make it so they don’t stick their nose up to the strange object to see what it is and then get bitten on the nose, which is where most dogs are bitten.

Just less than a month until chukar hunting in Idaho and a week for grouse. Good luck.