Sablan

After spending some time earlier in the day on de-cheating (water) singles, we later worked on water blinds. It's interesting watching and seeing how the dogs learn various disciplines.

In preparation for Tater's first #HRC Season Test, we thought we'd test her on practicing for a walkup or diversion bird by having her sit on the whistle while a bird was thrown.

First day really working with Tater on not running the bank on water marks and blinds. It's great to see her pick up on this concept so quickly.

First day training with Tater to not run the bank on water marks and return through the water in a more direct line. This was her first run this day.

Had an awesome New Year's Day pheasant shoot with old friends and new at the Spivey Family Farm by Dublin, GA. It was a great opportunity to get Tater some experience with pheasants and working with multiple other people and dogs around. Everyone had a lot of fun and got some good work in with their dogs. Big THANKS to Justin Hergert, owner of Southern Way Retrievers, and Leah Spivey for putting the event together. It's a lot of hard work! Looking forward to next year's event.

Continued to work around the back pond to clear more trees and brush on the other side. It was a lot of work and will be even more work to start cleaning up all the debris. Not sure how long it will take to get everything the way we envision it but we're looking forward to seeing the progress through the journey. One of the goals for this back pond is to turn it into a technical pond to use for training hunting dogs. We'll eventually do some dirt work to restructure the pond itself once we clean up all the debris and the water is low. It's been such a great help that Justin Hergert is not only the owner of JDH Equipment Rental & Services, but is also a Professional dog trainer and owner of Southern Way Retrievers. His experience and insight has been invaluable for this back pond project.

It's my birthday...!

We're working on clearing and re-working the back pond on our property. The goal is to make it more conducive for hunting dog training and hunting in general. We did do some preliminary clearing of some trees and bushes around the dam area when we first bought the property but we definitely needed to call in the professionals to help with more of the major clearing and thinning of the pines. Eventually we may also do some dirt work to turn the pond into a tech pond for training gun dogs. It's been great that Justin Hergert, owner of JDH Equipment Rental & Services, along with his awesome crew, are very knowledgeable about what our vision is for the property. Justin is also the owner of Southern Way Retrievers, and is a very prominent hunting dog trainer in Georgia. Phase 2 just started so stay tuned!!... JDH Equipment Rental & Services - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083534253826 Southern Way Retrievers - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063837211282

Tater loves hanging out at the pond and will try to chase the various birds that are around. Gotta give it to her here, she chased this particular bird for a while. Maybe the bird liked playing with her... ? LOL.

Tater loves Ohio State Football.

This was taken a few days after picking up Tater from Mossy Oak Kennels and took her to Lake Cumberland for several days. We wanted to test her out on riding in the boat, using the new Pup Plank, and being able to retrieve from the boat. She did great on the boat and had no issues at all. It did take a few days to get her adjusted to the Pup Plank so she was able to get off and on the boat by herself but she ended up doing great. Very pleased at how quickly she learned.

Wanted to see what Tater would do on a shore retrieve. We'll have to work on getting her to not cheat the bank and return on the same line.

Continued to work with Tater on retrieving from the boat and getting comfortable using the PupPlank.

Tyler working with Tater on lengthening out distance control and beginning to work on hand signals. Also a good opportunity to continue work on holding and delivery.

One of monthly visits to check on Tater's progress at Mossy Oaks. Bailey was continuing to work on her hold conditioning and some Marks. He also got to use the "hunt here" whistle a little. Was pretty pleased with her continued progress after recently coming through the illness from being stung or bit by something and being on antibiotics for a couple of weeks.

Tater back out in the field for the first time after getting off the antibiotics. She was down for a couple of weeks or so after getting bit or stung by something that caused a lot of swelling in her throat. This session was just to see how she was feeling and what she remembered from her hold conditioning sessions before she became ill.

Pretty cool to see the transformation of the look of the main pond after cutting out a bunch of trees and vines! We can now see the barn which we're looking to convert into an outdoor party pavilion. Things are really starting to take shape.

Continuation of our clearing around our main pond. The mulcher is awesome and helped save us a lot of time and effort to clear the area around the pond where we cut out quite a lot of trees. It really made a huge difference. We're excited at how things are coming together and improving the property! A big THANKS to John Stonecypher and Justin Hergert with JDH Equipment Rental & Services for their hard work and equipment! Awesome guys to work with!

My channel to document various projects around the house. We excavated to help divert water away from the field to help it dry out faster after it rains. Once we get the field to dry out, we could start the Barn project.

First time Tater started working on the wingers picking up Quail. This was after several retrieves so she slowed down a little on this particular one. She still had good speed and excitement. She was marking very well across a few barriers and hunted a tight area very fast. She's progressing really well.

Dozer and Tater passing time during a hunt test training session.

Tater decided that she could walk herself.

What is it about the toilet brush that she doesn't like?

We recently took our first trip back to Mississippi to check on the training progress with our new Lab puppy, Tater. We had taken her back to Mossy Oak Kennels in West Point, MS about 4 weeks previous to start her initial training. Our goal is to not only hunt with her but also run her in AKC and HRC hunt tests like we did with our previous lab, Jetta. It had been a while since we done any work with handling a dog in a hunt test situation so it may be a little bit to get back in the swing of things. Mossy Oak also has a little different training style than we had been accustomed to so we'll have to work on adjusting to some of the new commands, etc. Looking forward to the journey again!

Fun fishing at home. Snagged another big Bass but he slipped away before we brought it up.