Blogs

Fletcher's 2nd season, Ducks over water rather than Parri's over the paddock.

Out on a Goat cull with my daughter, (her first), I managed to miss place this rather large billy I dropped, Fletchers nose worked just fine, and we came up trumps in the long grass :)

Its mine and I shall sit in it when I please! This seems to be Fletchers 'thing' of the moment, cooling in off in his own tub.

Relaxed and Happy to have 6 year old cuddles from my daughter

The 2 big kids, waiting for Santa together

Maybe this year the disguise will work :)

Hunting the horuwhenua

The swans are over there mum....Fletch spotted some swans settled in the middle of this lake, and decided to take himself off for a wee swim without any encouragement from his owner. He got about 50m out when I decided that was enough excersize for the day, and turned on one whistle and swam confidently back.

It wasn't hard at all to keep Bryta under control after spotting this blue duck; a bird making such strange noises was only worth a good look she thought.

Some wonderful days camping in the Kamanawa's accompanied by Karel (D-litter) and Bryta (B-litter) Good weather, plenty deer and nice steak for tea.
Both dogs did a good job, Karel winded a stag and after waiting 30 minutes or so she started growling. The stag had walked up the ridge and was only 10 meters away behind some shrub when it showed just a little bit too much of itself...

Fletcher's getting used to his pack for our hike into the Kaimanawa's in April. He will carry in his own food supply. he is very happy to wear the pack and has learned to walk a bit wider around objects in his first outing.

I think he figured out it was a heck of a lot easier to waddle out on the jetty than push through the rushes.

Today Fletch and I went out for some pond training with good friend Gina and Blade. This was a real test for Fletch that I think he enjoyed.
The pond is 3 times the size of our local swimming hole, and twice as deep. The rushes made him work hard, and did little to curb his enthusiasm.
Along with swimming for the orange bumpers, we did some rubber decoy duck retrieves, one of my throws ended up in the thick of it (whoops), a few moments of air scenting, then litturally plowing through thick rushes resulted in a find and retrieve (Happy dog, even happier owner).

If Santa can get in, how hard can it be?

Fletcher has just started retrievals from water, and this is his first attempt at it

Jed's First Deer

Jed was 8 months old - deer was shot just on dark. Found by torchlight with Jed's assistance.

Jed's first deer back at the truck