Good lookin' pup, but at this stage one with zero wild bird experience...

Boot Camp

With Wehle’s words “he (Elhew Damascus) didn’t come to his training properly...Has something of a stubborn streak...” ringing in my ears, haunting my dreams...Like what if Mags is too stubborn for me to handle?

Soon after Mags arrived, I got a lucky break when my friend, Buck Koritko, Lion Country Supply owner, sponsored a Rick Smith training seminar which was to be held at the Spruce Creek Rod & Gun Club where I was employed as its Riverkeeper.  The day before Buck called and said “If you want to meet Rick and Delmar come on over this afternoon.” I didn’t know much about son, Rick, at the time but I sure as hell knew a lot about Delmar. For years I been reading Bill Tarrant’s glowing articles featuring Delmar. So naturally I headed to the store like pronto.

We hit it off almost from the get go and Rick invited me to attend the seminar though entering Mags was out the question as she was way too young.

Up to then with the exception of Bess who was essentially trained-up by the breeder (see Part 1 of this drama) I had “trained”—and I use the term loosely—those followed. My training program was of course cobbled up in bits and pieces I'd read and some of which I made up as went along. With all the ups and downs I'd had with the setters Ginny and Patch it began to dawn I needed a better program. 

Inspired by the Smiths I vowed to stick to their Silent Command program--train-up Mags to their high standard come hell or high water. Still pretty young some days the yard training went south in a hurry, other days she did pretty well. Far from finished when that first season opened she was reasonably reliant at coming to voice and whistle. But as Delmar pointed out, "Ya can start her and stop her, take her huntin'...

Sounded like a plan.

Birdy as they come,  she pointed and chased anything moved—mouse, grasshopper, tweety bird, butterfly, rabbit, you name it. Deer? She wasn’t quite sure what... But after a short chase, with me yelling NO! LEAVE IT!  she’d eventually turn back, usually hide behind me and bark foolishly until finally shutting up and Hi-On. 

In late summer, she ran into a hen grouse with several half-grown chicks. Suddenly, she got birdy as hell, flash-pointed a couple times and...CHARGE! Birds went every which way, most ended up clinging to a handy limb, while Ms. Grouse flapped about wildly, clucking furiously at the now totally insane Pup.  I ran in and grabbed the check cord, tried to calm her and make her stand. No dice. Defeated, I dragged her kicking, howling and barking pathetically out the woods where I finally got her under semi-control and back to the truck.

All the way home in the backseat she bounced window to window, whining and howling pathetically, certain those damn birds were out there somewhere.

Oh well...Onward and upward, after all she at least had a wild bird contact under her belt...

But that was about it for the season. Grouse in our neck of woods that year had hit rock bottom—even with the big dogs on the ground we went days and weeks with nary a bird contact. At times we considered maybe like Pennsylvania’s wild ringnecks, grouse were all but goners. The woodcock flight, for whatever reasons, fizzled as well.

For the first and only time in my life we spent the winter gunning released pen raised quail and roosters.

Not what I had in mind, but a bird dog needs dead birds...Right