Iowa: Day Two (more pictures!)

In order to set the stage for today’s hunt I think it would be best to give a little background information about myself. When I was about seven years old, my family moved from town out to the country to the place where my parents still live. When I was nine years old, my parents let me buy my first shotgun, a H&R singleshot 20ga. I have a brother who is a year older than me and he got his first shotgun at the same time. We started pheasant hunting that fall, and I was able to bag a few birds, although I missed a LOT of birds that year. After that fall, I was hooked for life! In the subsequent years, my brother and I hunted pheasants at least five or six days per week during the season. We were relentless in our pursuit, and we killed a lot of birds. We also learned a lot about how to hunt pheasants in the Midwest. My dad took us hunting a lot those first few years, but we eventually took our toll on him. Every single day, as soon as he pulled in the driveway after work, we would greet him with his gun, his hunting vest, and his dog. After a few years of doing this, he started to get burned out; but my brother and I were still going strong. By the time I was 12 or 13 years old, it was just my brother and I hitting the fields, while Dad stayed home. He still hunted with us some, but the frequency went way down. Unfortunately, he never really recovered and no longer has a strong desire to hunt. He will still make it out occasionally, but it’s more about spending time with his boys than the hunt.

I have a brother who is ten years younger than me and still living at home that likes to hunt, but he recently broke his wrist and has a full cast on that arm. As a result, he can’t hold a shotgun and is out for the season. To top it off, my older brother, who still lives in the area, has to work through Thursday of this week, so he he can’t hunt till Friday. So, that’s the long story of why I am hunting by myself this week. It’s definitely fun to have have human company while I’m hunting, but there’s also something relaxing about it being just me and the dog. I like the quietness of the hunt, the ability to make decisions that are uncontested, and just watching the dog work. Surprisingly, I also seem to have better success hunting by myself rather than by hunting with other people.

Today I had my younger brother drop my off at a waterway about a mile from the house. The waterway ties into the field that I hunted yesterday, so my plan was to walk that waterway and then spend a little time hunting the field. Rocky was my dog of choice for the this hunt. As I feared, it was difficult keeping him in a good working range while hunting the waterway. There wasn’t a lot of cover to slow him down, so he tended to hunt out further than he should have. I felt that I was constantly calling him back in closer. He responded well to the commands, but it was a struggle to consistently keep him in close with the scarce cover. We scared up one hen on that waterway and found a couple of sets of tracks, but both sets of tracks ended with wing marks from a bird taking flight.

I’ve often wondered where the Cocker heritage the black and tan coloration came from, and today I think I might have found out its origination—either a Black and Tan Coonhound or a Bloodhound! When I entered the field, the wind was blowing from slightly behind me and to my left. It wasn’t great wind direction but at least it was better than a tailwind. About 80 yards into the field Rocky was working off to my right and up ahead a bit. He suddenly whipped around with his nose to the air and started heading to my left. I turned and took two steps and a hen exploded from the cover about 15 yards in front of me. Rocky hit the scent cone from the hen at about 25-30 yards from the bird. I was impressed, and hence my surmising that there’s some hound in his heritage!  We continued walking through the field, following the same stream that I had followed the previous day, although this time headed in the opposite direction. After a bit Rocky started to get really excited and acted like he smelled something on the other side of the stream. I crossed over it with him, but there was nothing there. We crossed back to the original side, but Rocky still acted like he could smell something. 40 yards further up the stream he started burrowing into clumps of cover with obvious excitement, so I stopped to let him work it out. After about 30 seconds a rooster came cackling out of one of the clumps! I dropped it with the first shots, but it hit the ground running, so I finished it with my second barrel. Rocky was inside of the clump of cover when the rooster came out, so he had no idea where it fell. When he came out of the cover, he immediately started running in the opposite direction of where the bird hard fallen! I called him back and was able to send him in the correct direction where. He quickly found where the bird had originally hit the ground and then took off on it’s trail. It took a little bit of time to get him on the bird, so I made to take out the camera in time to snap some pics. He looked extremely proud bringing that bird back!

I’m not sure where he learned it, but Rocky often retrieves pheasants by gripping them from the back, between the wings. I actually like this hold because it prevents the bird from spurring him and beating him with its wings. You’ll see in the pic what I’m talking about.

After that bird was in the bag, we made the long walk back to the house. This snow is absolutely exhausting! I’m really wishing I had some snowshoes right now! I went out for an evening hunt with Macy, but only flushed one hen. I’m planning on making it out again tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens!

Iowa Ringnecks!

Yesterday I spent 14 hours on the road with my seven months pregnant wife, my 16 month old daughter, and both of my Cockers. It was a LONG day, but also very satisfying to put my head on the pillow once I made it to my parent’s! Due to the long day yesterday, I decided to sleep in today and do a late morning hunt. When I woke up, the snow was coming down hard, and there was already about nine or ten inches on the ground already; a combination of previous snow and new snow.  It was always fairly windy, so the conditions were perfect for sneaking up on some ol’ long tails! In the late 90’s this area was loaded with birds. In fact, the year before I went to college, my dad, my brother and I shot over 70 birds out of the field that I decided to hunt today. Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, there are not many birds left on this side of the state. I was still optimistic about getting a bird by the end of the day in spite of the poor bird population.

Rocky got the nod for the morning hunt. I feel that his long-term potential is higher than Macy’s, so I generally try to give him the greater advantage to get experience. We hunted for about an hour and a half, but only saw one bird. It was a lone rooster that flushed extremely wild, and I lost sight of it’s flight path when it went behind some trees. Rocky and I tried to find where it had landed, but came up empty handed. In spite of the lack of birds, Rocky performed nearly flawlessly on this particular hunt. I gave him two whistles the entire time, he hunted in good range, quartered better than could be expected in the deep snow, and used the wind extremely well. I was very pleased with his performance on the day, regardless of the fruits of our labor. I did my best to get some pics when he wasn’t submerged in the snow:

At one point during the hunt, Rocky went through some water, and as a result the snow really started to ball up on his underside. In case you think Cockers aren’t tough, I dare you to try hunting under the conditions he was enduring!

After Rocky and I struck out on birds, I walked back home (ya, it’s rough…I grew up within walking distance of some awesome pheasant hunting!) and had lunch and socialized with the family. Around 3:30 I headed out for a late afternoon hunt. I went to the same area I’d gone with Rocky because I’d seen some old pheasant tracks when I’d been out in the morning, and I was hoping the creators of those tracks would come back to that area at the end of the day. Macy worked hard and broke through some really deep snow. Her legs aren’t as long as Rocky’s, so she had a little harder time of it, but she still got the job done. At one point she got really birdy and started working a small area very hard. I stopped walking and let her work it out, and a moment later she flushed two hens. I gave her a little more time to work the area, but nothing else came out. We proceeded further into the field, following a small stream that goes through the field. Again Macy got birdy and I stopped to let her work. Because of the deep snow, the grass and weeds have fallen over and created a canopy of sorts underneath. When the birds go underneath those canopies, it takes a lot of work for the dogs to root them out. While Macy was still working the cover, a rooster exploded from the cover. I dropped him on the second shot, and Macy made the retrieve. I’m not sure what happened with the first shot, but it’s still a bird in the bag! It was almost comical to watch Macy retrieve the bird. The snow was particularly deep in that area, so she was doing her best to hold the bird high enough that it wouldn’t drag in the snow. It wasn’t a picture perfect retrieve, but she got it done.

After I had that bird in the bag, I decided to cut my hunt short and work back toward the road. It was only about 3:45 PM at that time, but I have several days of hunting left and kind of want to spread the birds out a little bit. I decided to hit a small patch of willows on my way out, and headed across a relatively open piece of field to get there. There happened to be one tree in that open piece of field, and you guessed it, Macy flushed a rooster right at the base of the tree. Borrowing a trick from it’s upland buddy, the quail, the rooster flew directly away from me with the tree in-between us. I took a few side-steps to the right to get the tree out of the way and threw a couple of long shots after the bird, but he didn’t even flinch at the shots. I watched the general area that he landed and headed that direction. He flushed wild as I approached, but landed in the field I was hunting. This time I saw the exact spot that he landed, and he could only escape me for so long! Macy made the retrieve again on this bird, and we headed home. I checked my watch and it was 4:12 PM. Not a bad start to my vacation!

On a side note, I experimented with rubbing vegetable oil on Macy’s feet and stomach for this hunt. I’m hearing from my UK friends that this helps stop the snow from balling up on the dogs. The verdict is still out, but I think that it helped a lot with Macy. I’ll try it again tomorrow with Rocky and make a final decision.

Christmas in the Midwest!

Sunday I’m headed to Iowa and Minnesota where I’ll spend the next ten or so days enjoying family, eating food, and getting endless opportunities to train and hunt with my Cockers! The bird population in Eastern Iowa is dwindling, but there are still a few pockets of birds where I should be able to find enough to keep things interesting. I’ll be spending a few days with my wife’s family in Southern Minnesota, and the drive down to the Iowa border will only be about 15 minutes. The bird hunting up there is supposed to be MUCH better than around my folk’s place, so I’m hoping to really get some dog work in up there! I plan on posting  on here while on vacation, but they may be a little less frequent than they are right now. However, I expect the quality to go up as well with the number of hunts I’ll be going on.

Here’s a picture from last year. A brace of hard-earned Eastern Iowa Ringnecks. The Cocker on the left is Macy (with yours truly holding her), the ginormous Lab belongs to my brother on the right, and the Cocker he is holding is Mia, the “family” dog at my parent’s house. My brother in the middle is a stick in the mud and doesn’t own a dog…he just mooches off the rest of us. In case you can’t tell, it’s pretty hard to get those Cocker’s to look at the camera!

Urban Gundogs: Training Flushing Dogs for Home & Field

Immediately prior to my purchase of Macy I stumbled across this book written by Tony Roettger and Ben Schleider III. What intrigued me most about this book was that it was written by guys who train Cockers, and it was written for guys living in town (like me). In my juvenile dog training state, I figured that reading a book written by Cocker guys would make sense. It turned out to be a very beneficial purchase for my particular situation. In the introduction chapter, Ben gives the objective for the book quite well when he says, “this book is written primarily for the novice gun dog owner who is a working stiff.”

The book is written in a very readable style, and follows a logical progression the entire way through. It has has lots of high quality pictures in it of different dogs; the pictures obviously don’t help with the training, but it makes the book more entertaining. I especially appreciated the portions of the book that discuss preparing for competitions, and avoiding pitfalls. It was also beneficial that this was written urban dog owners. The authors don’t assume that you have lots of land at your disposal, so they mostly cover training methods that you can use with limited space.

While there is no earth-shattering material in the book, it is a good solid read. In fact, I picked it up last night to skim through it again (I’ve already read it a couple of times) and picked up on a few things that I’d like to start incorporating into my training. I would also recommend that anyone who is looking to get their first Cocker buy this book prior to getting their puppy. It has good information about choosing the right breed, finding quality puppies, etc. I am sure there are books out there that are more comprehensive, or that are stronger in particular areas, but overall I don’t think you can go wrong with this book if you are new to gundog training, or if you’ve been training for a while but want some new ideas.

Training at the Lake

I went out duck hunting with a couple of friends today, and although I didn’t shoot any ducks, I was able to bring one home with me for use with the dogs. Both of my friends have Labs, and it was their lease, so the Cockers stayed home for this hunt. Once we were at the lake, when Rocky and Macy discovered I had a duck in my bag, their demeanors changed instantly. They no longer wanted to hunt around;  instead they wanted that duck! I have both Rocky and Macy relatively steady to bumpers, but the duck brought out the worst in them. Even Macy, who is generally extremely steady, had problems with running in on the duck when I threw it in the lake. She did it two times, and both time I called her back short of the duck and then punished her by sending Rocky for the retrieve. I thought she’d get the message the first time, but apparently she didn’t. The duck is in the freezer wrapped in a few paper towels, waiting to be taken out for another training sometime in the near future. As frustrating as it was to have the dogs misbehaving, it was also a great learning opportunity for them. The more distractors and “accelerants” I can have in training, the better, because the more similar it becomes to a hunting situation.

Here’s a short video from their water retrieves, and a few pictures that my wife snapped. I think you’ll enjoy Macy’s water entrance.

What about all that hair?!

One of the most common things I hear from people when they meet my Cockers is, “that’s a really cool dog, but I don’t think I could handle cleaning picking all of the burrs off of them when I got done hunting!” So, I thought I’d take a post to discuss how I maintain their coats and the amount of trouble their long hair is after a hunt.

I’ll never forget the first time Macy really got into the burrs. I took her for a walk down a local trail and let her off lead. When she came out of the brush she was absolutely COVERED in burrs. They were the small kind, the ones that are about half the size of a pea (I have no idea what their technical name is), and her ears were almost green from the sheer amount of burrs they contained. She also had them on other parts of her body, but the ears were by far the worst. I tried picking them out with my hands, but it only caused pain for her, and I was getting them out at a rate of about one every ten seconds. At that rate, it literally would have been a two hour job getting her de-burred! Her ears were so thickly matted I didn’t think there was anyway that a comb would do any good, but my wife (I have to give her the credit) suggested I try it anyway. I started running the comb over her at a rapid pace, without trying to dig the comb into her hair, and the burrs started flying. It turned a two hour job into a ten minute job, and although Macy came out of it with some pretty bushy looking ears, all of the burrs were gone. I’m now an avid user of the comb!

While the comb is certainly the most effective tool that I have discovered for removing burrs, there are a couple of other preventative measures that I use to minimize the amount of burrs they bring home with them in the first place. First, I keep their hair trimmed. While I refuse to take my Cockers to a groomer, if I keep their hair trimmed they look nicer and pick up fewer burrs. I pay particular attention to their ears, but also trim the feathering behind their legs. While I wouldn’t enter them in a show contest after one of my “home cuttings” I also haven’t had anyone criticize my work either. I would caution against using a clipper to cut their hair.  I have never used a clipper on either of my Cockers, but I have known others who clipped their Spaniel’s hair and it came back as a big, puffy, mess. While it was great when it was trimmed, when it grew back they were absolute burr magnets. You’d be much better off just using scissors and only trimming the long areas (legs and ears).

Second, I have discovered a product call Show Sheen that does an excellent job helping their coats repel burrs. You can find it in about any farm store, or just order it online. It’s original purpose was to make horses look shiny in the show ring, but it works great for Cockers too. Follow the directions on the bottle, but you essentially just spray them down and comb it through their hair, then let it dry. It leaves their coats feeling extremely soft and silky, and my experience has been that they don’t pick up as many burrs, and the burrs that they do pick up are removed relatively easily. I generally apply Show Sheen on a weekly basis so that they are always ready to get in the field.

Third, the healthier you keep your Cocker’s coat, the more naturally resistant they will be to burrs. I feed them a high-protein food, and regularly add eggs to their diet. This makes their hair naturally shiny and soft. I’m sure that feeding fish oil would have the same effect as eggs, but I find one or two eggs per weeks does the trick and they are cheap if you buy them on sale. Besides, my dogs absolutely LOVE eating them!

Lastly, regardless of what you do, the coat on a Cocker will always be higher maintenance than a short-haired dog. There is no way around that. However, I don’t hold it against them at all. In fact, I kind of like the “mandatory socialization” that I get with my Cockers after a hunt. It gives me a chance to praise them for their hard work, helps them trust me as I pull out burrs in painful locations (like in an armpit—err legpit), and gives me a chance to look for any injuries incurred in the field. It also helps to keep in mind that it ain’t easy lookin’ that purty!

To Kansas with Cockers Part 2

After the miserable night in the tent, it felt good to be on my feet, put my boots and coat on, and load up to head out to the fields. I brought both Macy and Rocky on this trip, anticipating swapping them in and out at each field. The first field was a large piece of CRP, and I decided Macy would get first honors since she does have seniority. As we walked away from the truck, I could hear Rocky howling in protest. By the second day of hunting I think he had finally figured out the route and quite complaining when left in the truck, but he was sure unhappy about it that first time!

Macy was pretty excited in that first field, but I managed to channel her energy into a pretty effective quartering pattern across the field. In that field she managed to flush two roosters. One was promptly double shot by me and another hunter, and the retrieve was subsequently stolen from Macy by a Drathaar. The second rooster I managed to completely miss, even though it should have been a “gimme” shot. In my defense, my joints were still so cold I felt like I was having difficulty moving my shotgun with any sort of fluidness. Unfortunately, that was probably the most successful field that I hunted the enter trip.

Taking a shortcut across a cut Wheat field:

Later on in the morning I was hunting with Rocky and a rooster flushed to my right. Rocky was on the bird immediately, but again had it stolen from him by a Drathaar, this time a different one. While we managed to make it work hunting my flushers with a bunch of pointers, I can’t say that it was as enjoyable as it could have been. While my dogs are quick, it’s about impossible for them to beat a long legged pointing dog to a retrieve. In addition, many times I had pointing dogs ranging out in front of me at about 50 yards. This made it more difficult for me to keep my dogs in the range I wanted them, and also meant that the ground in front of me had already been covered.

In order to compensate for the pointing dogs, generally I would try to make sure that I was on one of the “wings” anytime we covered a field, that way I could swing wide and kind of separate my Cockers from the other dogs. This made it much easier to handle my dogs, but also made us less successful, I think. In one field, while working the “wing” Rocky got really birdy and wanted to head further out from the other guys. I decided to follow him and forget about everyone else. He continued quartering back and forth feverishly, and at the end of the field he burrowed into a clump of brush and flushed a rooster. I hit the rooster and it seemed to drop hard. Rocky was at the sight of the fall immediately, but instead of picking up a dead rooster, he began to quarter back and forth. When I went to investigate, I found a bunch of feathers where the bird had hit, but he was gone. Rocky kept hunting, making wider circles, but he was never able to locate that bird. I’m chalking it up to inexperience as Macy or any other more experienced dog would have immediately started trailing that rooster. Instead, Rocky got confused by all of the scent but no bird and started randomly hunting for it. More time in the field should resolve that problem.

On Saturday of the trip (day three), we hunted a cut Milo field that had quite a few birds in it. I made a long crossing shot on a rooster and winged it. I could see it running down one of the rows, so I got Rocky in the generally vicinity. When he hit the trail, he did a sharp 90 degree turn and was on the rooster within seconds. After that retrieve he was a different dog. I think his energy level at least doubled, and I had a terrible time keeping him in range. I kept him quartering hard, but even then he was covering ground so fast he had a tendency to get out  too far. Obviously I need to get him on more birds as that rooster brought out some of his immaturity.

Headed back to the truck after a long day, but guns still ready just in case!

I shot somewhere around six roosters and a couple of quail on the hunt. I was hoping to maybe shoot a few more, but at least there were enough to keep it interesting. I also have to blame myself for the number not being a little higher…I missed a few shots that I definitely should have made! I suppose that comes from not getting out in the field as much this year with a gun. The birds in the walk in land (WIHA) were very wary, and it was difficult to in them down so they’d flush. I know many just kept running and never flushed. More hunters might have made the hunting more effective, but it was also enjoyable having a smaller group of guys.

Rocky and Macy performed as well as I could expect. Rocky had tremendous energy throughout the entire trip. He would hunt hard all day long and then still be a cheerful, energetic dog around the campsite in the evening, while all of the other dogs slept soundly. It was definitely a maturing experience for him, and he was slowly starting to learn the game by the end of the trip. He was able to make a few retrieves, and a number of flushes, so the experience was good for him.

Rocky showing off the energy!

Macy hunted hard the entire trip but slept hard as well! She just can’t compete with Rocky for energy. She also took a bit of a beating on the trip. On day one of the trip she got a 1.25” long gash on the inside of one of her ears. I sealed it up with some EMT gel and she was good to go. On day two she got a 1/2” long cut on the side of one of her pads. I spotted it due to the bloody foot. Once again I sealed it up with EMT gel and then I booted that foot. She continued hunting the rest of the trip with that boot on and didn’t seem to be adversely affected by the boot or the cut. She handled very well in the field and was responsive to my commands. Overall I was very pleased with her.

Highs from the trip were probably watching the dogs work, seeing Rocky retrieve his first wild birds, watching Macy do her thing, and hanging out with fellow hunters and dog lovers. Lows from the trip were the absence of flushers and the presence of pointers, freezing in my sleeping bag at night, not seeing as many birds as I’d hoped, and getting aches in my knees from walking too much and sleeping on the cold ground!

A rather pathetic picture after one of the days (can you spot Rocky??):