Went out last night to scout/hunt a field without the pup. Took a popup blind and my bow (always wanted to shoot geese with my bow). Well we had about a 100 birds in a 1.5 acres sweet corn field but the closest bird was 62 yards. With 10 mins of hunting left I figured I would try my luck with a 62 yard shot. Let the arrow go..... and missed left by an inch or less. Dangit!!! So without spooking the birds we waited them out until they flew back to roost in hopes they would be back this morning. At 8am the first 4 flew in and never made a sound. I had Sarge out of his mutt hutt so we got busted to say the least. At 840 another batch of 7 flew in, one landed right in front of the pups blind while the other 6 circled above raising hell. Finally as they came in to land I sat up and shot the lead bird, and busted the one off the ground in flight. Never got a 3rd shot off bc a house was in line with the shot. Sarge stayed true and never left his blind, so I was very proud of him. I heeled Sarge and sent him on his first goose retrieve with HIGH expectations...... but to my surprise he busted ass out to it, tried moving it and realized how heavy it was and said FUGG this!!! Now we have a problem!!! He's never retrieved or messed with a goose so I knew not to jump balls deep in his ass to soon. I walked out, commanded "fetch" and he tried again but dropped it. After 3 sessions of "hold" and him starting to shut down I realized I had to switch gears. This pup is 9.5 months old.... time to make it fun! So instead of the stern "fetch" command I simply let him mess with his and the walked away praising him. This drove him NUTS that I was leaving him.... sure as shit he picked it up and ran all the way back to the blind with the bird. So now we still have another bird down.... I line him up and send him with tons of praise upon the arrival of the bird and finally I got him picking them up for fun now. Used the birds as training aids for the next 30 mins and with a lot of praise he had no problem bringing them back except for tripping over them a few times. Hopefully by the end of the season he'll get the point and I wont have to say a word. Here's a few pics of him today.
