This week Travis and I went on a little run with the dogs. Jake and Abby did fairly well until we surprised a large herd of Mule Deer. Abby decided she would try to herd them into the next County. Needless to say, Abby was long gone. It took Travis, Jake and I about an hour and a half to finally find Abby. She was tired and thirsty after chasing all those deer. Now we have to learn how to curb her appetite for deer. We are hoping to teach her this without the use of a shock collar. As always we are open to suggestions from the pros.

We went to visit my neighbor and Max had to say hi and pet all the guide dogs at the pheasant farm. Since my neighbor is all but done with pheasants I thought I would hit him up for some leftover feed. My laying hens are eating quite a bit and the bags of laying pellets from the local feed store is getting expensive at $16.00 for a 50lb bag. The stuff Russ is feeding his pheasants is a pretty high protein mix that he buys in bulk from our neighbor who mixes his own hog feed. I wanted to see how my chickens liked it before I comitted to buying a ton of this homemade feed. So far the chickens seem to love it.

Max loves to go with me to do chores and run errands. He wears his cowboy boots everywhere and is contantly tasting new rocks and dirt. Russ let Max help feed the horses which he talked about for hours. He will be two years old in April but is already quite a handful. He especially loves animals and has them broke down into three categories. All livestock are considered “Moos”, all dogs are called “puppies” and anything with wings is a “Chickie”. After gathering the eggs I had to drag Max inside because he didn’t want to stop shoveling manure in the barn. Russ is trying to talk me into rasing 500 Chukar Partridge to compliment his pheasant farm operation. It could work out well for me to have access to birds for dog training.

Annie is just over four months old now and seems to be doing well with her training. She is having a fun time at her trainers house and loves to be involved as part of the family pack. She is well-fed and seems to have grown a few inches every time we see her. She is kept on a lead when they take her in the backyard as she likes to wander off and explore the world. I think it is good that she is both brave and curious enough to venture out. She likes to go on runs with the other dogs but mostly she likes people. She will sit still for anyone to scratch her ears or pet her. Chris did get her out on some wild chukar before the season ended and she did well with introduction to gun fire. I am sure that obedience training will be the focus for the next little while.

Only on a pheasant farm can you enjoy pheasant hunting this late (early?) in the season. My friends from Viewpoint Engineering came up for a business meeting with UDOT and we were able to squeeze in one last hunt at our local Utah Pheasant Hunting Farm. It was fun to bat cleanup for the many corporate clients that miss many birds. We bagged eight birds in all and the only one that got away was a big rooster that I missed. My friend holding the shotgun in the picture above was perfect on six birds. Then he got feeling guilty and let me bag one or two. I left my dogs at home in the interest of time and I must say it was fun to watch the game farm dogs do their work. Jakes littermate “Biff” was along for the ride and did well to watch and learn from the pro dogs. I thought the birds would run a lot harder than they did, but they were darn right agreeable. It helped considerably to have the owner personally guide us into all the right spots. He sure knows where they hold up after a few weeks of freedom. With any luck we can go work our dogs a few more times before the farm closes their season at the end of the month.