The 'ol man's still got it!

[hank77]

Well. 2 months to the NH upland opener so I took "the boys" out for their first romp up north together...beautiful morning, fog along the Connecticut River and nice and bright up in the hills of Columbia.
My Yellow Lab. Tama (nearly 10) is in semi retirement due to infrequent seizures and lack of drive last year, so Neely the LLewellin Setter pup (10 weeks) is being groomed to take over.
Tama did great and Neely did his best to keep up with his little legs, all 3 of us got soaked and I used Tama to show Neely some basic commands and he caught right on.
As we were easing back towards the truck I had Tama work a small abandoned apple orchard that just screamed "partridge"...within 10 seconds, that old sumbitch punches up a partridge, right in front of Neely...old man still got it!
Great to see Neely go to where the bird was and do a flash point, he knew something was there...just gotta give him time and more work...this dog is going to be fun to hunt over...Tama doesnt want the rookie taking his job, hopefully I can get another season out of him, breaks my heart to retire him but he has given me alot of fun over the past 9 seasons...come on buddy, one more season, for both of us...
HANK

[ecgreen]

Sounds like a nice day!

[NHGriff]

Sounds like a great day! I was meeting a couple of buddies yesterday morning to train and while waiting for them I decided to work Gus a little on some heeling and retrieving drills. Suddenly he goes on point looking at a stone wall. I poked over the wall and 2 woodcock came busting out, then we found a chukar that had survived Thursdays training day.

Good luck with the upcoming season.