After five months of training I finally was able to get Lira out into the field today for her first controlled but real pheasant hunt.   Chris and I loaded her up this morning and did the long drive to Ellensburg where we hunted at Cooke Canyon Hunt Club, a private reserve where we would have an entire area to ourselves.  I ordered us up some hens figuring they would be easier for Lira to deal with than roosters on her first real outing, she got her first hen when she was only five months old on a training day.

The first bird encounter was a bit insane.  Lira flushed the bird, it took off, we shot and missed and the bird flew and Lira ran.  She would not stop and managed to flush another bird as she ran chasing the first one which gave her two birds to chase.   I was trying to get her to stop with her e-collar but she just was too stuck on birds so I kept cranking up the level until I got her to yelp and stop running.  While chasing her all I could think of was that Catherine was going to kill me for losing the dog on the first bird on her first hunt.  A few more jolts and blowing on the whistle and she came back, we regrouped, got a drink of water and started out again.

After that Lira did much better and Chris and I started shooting straight.  The next bird we encountered we got right up to it and flushed it, we hit the bird at least once but it kept going so we had to go try and find it.   We searched the little ridge where we thought it landed but never found it figuring we’d go back later.    The next three birds Lira did excellent.  She pointed the birds, we flushed them and this time we shot them.  When the bird dropped Lira took off after them and picked them up but really did not want to give them to me, she wanted to just eat the thing I’m pretty sure.   It only took a few “Drop” commands to get her to give them up though, she’s been improving on this front lately in the yard.

Lira and I went back to the ridge to look for that lost bird but again never found it.   She was pretty beat by then so we called it a morning and went back to the car for a drink, some food and some time for me to clean birds.

Obviously I need to work on her recall still and keep on her with the e-collar until she is 100% obedient on returning so she doesn’t just run off.  I’m definitely not ready to take her to the Western Washington areas with other dogs and hunters until she gets this taken care of.   I also need to get her to drop better but she does eventually give up the bird.  All in all I was pretty happy with her performance today, she is clearly bird happy and while a bit overly exuberant about getting out in the field that is better than not being interested in birds.  I was glad to see her pointing and not just rushing in after the first bird an praised her a ton for her pointing, whoaing her on the lead helped a lot too but definitely made shooting cumbersome.   We’ll do a few more trips to Cooke Canyon this year and maybe a few trips for wild birds in November and December, by next season I think I’ll have a pretty good bird dog if she keeps this up.