i have had labs, beagles, fiests, and some other mutts. This little one is different. 8 weeks old and has that chessie attitude already.
I had mine play fetching by 10 weeks, at 6 months I took him to the field to try ranging, teach him to pay attention to me and when I turn he keeps track and automatically adjusts... took 2 tweets on the whistle and he was on it...
by 8 months we started water training... shot 2 pigeons off my buds barn, tried to get him to fetch them on land, nope he'd run up and go on point... throw the training dummy and he'd fetch slick as a whistle, wouldn't pick up the birds... thought maybe he didn't like feathers...
was getting real frustrated, took him a walk to the pond to cool off and start over again... got to the pond and threw his dummy, off he went and fetched right up... at least that was still working... figured I'd throw the birds in for the turtles to eat... well they no sooner hit the water and he was off and fetched both up as nicely as could be, right back to heel and dropped to hand... WTF... sat him threw the bird again, another flawless retrieve... we played that game for a while, never bit a bird, very soft mouth... finally I had my bud take him down over the bank so he couldn't see where I threw the birds, blind retrieve, worked great...
then I tried to slick one past him with all this fun and games, I threw one to water and one to land... sent him to water first, then down the pond bank for the land retrieve, again, water went fine, land point and wait...
well to make a long story short I hunted him for 8 years, he never did pick up a bird on land, and he only ever lost one bird on the water... he'd always find them, and point, never lost one on land, guess he figured if he had to get in the water I could grab the ones on land... I just had to live with it...
