Steve Snell’s Gundog Blog

September 19th, 2010  Sunday morning.

We took the first round with Boo and Ted’s dog Lulu.  I was real pleased with Lulu.  She’s an eight month old puppy out of Wizard and Saffron, which is the same breeding as Apple.

She runs really big, but very deliberate. She’s not just running, she’s hunting.  I like to see that in a young dog.  I think Ted’s got him a real nice one. I will enjoy seeing her progress over the next year or two.

I was a little disappointed in Boo.  She’s staying real close to me.  She made a couple of nice casts, but overall she just sort of pitter-pattered around me.  I think a different dog on the ground might help her. I think getting her into a few birds would also help.

We had some chickens get up way out in front of us. It didn’t get her attention.  It was a nice walk but it’s gotten warmer.  It’s 52 degrees and still overcast with a little moisture in the air.

It’s a nice day to run a couple of bird dogs.

We’re going to stop down the road and turn out a couple more out before I head north.

To finished up the second day, we ran four dogs on the final round.  We ran Dottie and Vegas, who belong to Ted, and then we ran Click and Sage.  I was pretty pleased with all of them.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had four dogs on the ground at the same time.  It was relatively open, hilly country, but everybody covered it pretty well.

Click had a real nice race.  He did have a point, but there was nothing there.  It was across a fence on some private ground.  I had to put my gun down and cross the fence.

Later, he got into a covey of quail but did not work them from the right side of the wind. He was down in a gully and I couldn’t see him.  I saw the birds flush and then saw him come out.  So that was disappointing, but he got around some birds, so that was good to see.

I had a good time in Kansas.  I didn’t do very well on the bird count, but that’s OK.  The weather was nice and I enjoyed seeing everybody.  Had a couple nice long walks.  I got to see a little bit from four of my dogs.

We are now headed North to Winner, South Dakota.  Mac and Apple spent a good chunk of the summer with Dan Hendrickson of Phantom Kennels in South Dakota working on Sharptails and pheasants.  To save me a trip over to Texas to pick them up, I boarded them at a local kennel.  I am going to run up there and pick them up and then make plans after that.

Right now we’re a little footloose and fancy free.  I’ve got a meeting in Flasher, North Dakota on Tuesday, but beyond that we’re open.  We’ll do a little scouting in South Dakota and see what comes up.