Here is my 9 month old pup Kimber after her first hunt. We went to a hunt club called Steel Fork Pheasants east of Colorado Springs. Nice place.



We had 5 guys and 3 dogs. At first she was so excited to be around all those dogs and people she ran back and forth to the two furthest guys in our line. Once she realized that she was going to die of exhaustion she started hunting in front of me and the guys on either side of me.

After the other two dogs flushed a couple birds she made the connection that the sound of a gunshot meant it was time to look up and retrieve. She only flushed 3 birds but the first she flushed was a hen that didn't get enough altitude so Kimber just snatched it out of the air. Her nose needs some work, she was great at finding piles of feathers where coyotes had eaten a pheasant...makes me think the training I did with pheasant wings worked so good she didn't know to look for the live ones.

But she was a retrieving fool. She retrieved 6 of the 12 birds we got (only two were mine and she would have had more if I didn't make her honor the other dogs a few times). Her first retrieve was the first real bird she had ever had in her mouth and it took her a minute to figure out what to do with it. But the 5 after that she was the first to the bird, picked it up immediately, came directly back to me without stopping and without dropping the birds once. Brought them back to hand. I had her honor the other dogs a couple times which she did well unless the other dogs procrastinated too much. She didn't have much patience if they didn't pick the bird up quickly or played with it too much.

All in all I am very happy with her. Not too bad for my first dog, that came from a rescue and that only gets training in my small back yard in the burbs. Can't wait to get her out on some more birds. We'll have to hit up some of the walk-in access land this month to see how she does.