This morning we did a little training session on some live birds with my friends French Brittany Spaniel puppy named Opey. We had our two german shorthairs along for the ride also, Jake and Biff, which are littermates. The weather was perfect and the pheasants mostly cooperated with our efforrts. Opey had a great time chewing up a live pheasant that he found in the alfalfa field. Since Opey is barely 12 weeks old we just wanted him to get excited about birds and learn what they smell like. We just basically let Opey tag along and see what the big german shorthairs were up to. Jake and Biff each pointed and flushed a bird, and my friend was able to shoot one of them.

It wasn’t a very serious training session. Mostly we just let the dogs run and get the stink off of them. They chased a few tweety birds, sparrows I think. Then when they got into a few pheasants they really had a great time. Opey, the french brittany spaniel seemed to be the most interested in the bird we shot while Jake and Biff were more interested in finding some more birds. I like to work Jake by himself, so we took turns helping each other train. It makes things go a lot smoother when dog training if you have an extra set of hands. A good friend to train with is truly invaluable.