# first cold retrieve :)



## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

a wood pigeon was unlucky enough to land on the roof gutter this morning and my air rifle was handy. Pigeon dispatched and wrapped in an old sock. Young Elvis got his first taste of shot game retrieving, took to it like a duck to water...good boy!


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

a little vid is needed of course 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4QmlgUkKHw&feature=youtu.be


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Hate to inform you but someone has stolen Elvis, and replaced him with a adult dog. Boy he's getting big.


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

TexasRed said:


> Hate to inform you but someone has stolen Elvis, and replaced him with a adult dog. Boy he's getting big.


just about same height as Ruby now, but his paws are about twice the size,,,gulp...
just after I posted 1st vid, I tried him with the sock off the pigeon, I think he's gonna be a good one 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEFAK9GPFUc


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

TexasRed said:


> Hate to inform you but someone has stolen Elvis, and replaced him with a adult dog. Boy he's getting big.


oh, weighed him late last week and he's up to 37lbs now, he's not got the muscle mass of Ruby yet, but yes, I reckon he's gonna be a big bruiser


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Probably around 2 or 3 he should start to fill out, but I bet he grows into those feet. How much did his parents weigh?

There are two different trains of thought on working puppies on retrieves.

One is to not let the puppy learn any bad habits. To always have them wait until sent, and to make sure they deliver to hand.
The second is not to put rules on the retrieve. Its just a fun game to build drive, and the rules are added after the pup has had birds shot over it. 

I personally think both ways can work, and it just depends on the pup.


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

TexasRed said:


> Probably around 2 or 3 he should start to fill out, but I bet he grows into those feet. How much did his parents weigh?
> 
> There are two different trains of thought on working puppies on retrieves.
> 
> ...


that's why I took Rubes out of the session, old hat to her and she started disrupting our little session by grabbing the bird and teasing young Elvis with it, big no no from me, naughty girl!,,early days yet but Elvis's steadiness seems good, he was twitching a bit on the unsocked pigeon but settled back down to "sit" on command and gave a nice soft -mouthed delivery to hand I thought


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

It sounds like Ruby got her paws from her smooth parent. Seems like smooth owners comment on the size of Scout's paws more than anything else. HWVs have bigger feet so Elvis might not end up _quite_ as big as you think! 

I'm really impressed with his retrieving. I think it took me 3 times as long to get to the same point with my slack training schedule.


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## harrigab (Aug 21, 2011)

on the flipside einspanner, I've never seen a dog "bust a gut" as much as Ruby, my dream is that Elvis will follow in her endeavours on the partridge, grouse and pheasants but retain the early promise he's showing on the retrieves, if he can do all that without me screwing it up in the meantime, what a dog he'll be


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

Har - 2 old school !!!!!! dead bird in my sock !!!!!! PLEASE ask PIKE 2 eat all of my BOOTS !!!!!!! LOL !!!!!!!


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