That' s great under20!!! I hope you let her know just how excited you were about her flushing that grouse!

Sounds like you are doing the most important thing .. which is spending time in the field with your dog. I take mine when I am fishing often during the spring and summer as well. She absolutely loves the ocean when I am striper fishing. 1 thing to be careful of, especially since you said she is a little older dog, is that you maintain control of her .. even when you are fishing. That doesn' t mean she has to remain at heel the whole time you fish, but as she runs madly around every 10 or 15 minutes or so call her in to you and make her sit and stay for a couple of minutes .... praise her for listening and obeying ..then give her the reward of more play time by releasing her. It is very important that if at anytime she will not stop playing and return when she is called ... to stop whatever you are doing and regain control. Let her know that ignoring you is NOT an option. This translates into great control in the field as you have set your expectations already with your dog.

The next step I would try and do is the game " Find the Bird" . If you can get your hands on a grouse/pheasant wing .. which is easy to do if there is any game farms in your area .. freeze them and break out 1 or 2 for training .... introduce the wing to your dog and really get excited .. call it " bird" ...get your dog excited about it... then tie your dog on the leash to a tree and walk away and hide the wing .. not to hard to start. Your dog will go berserk probably since you are leaving her tied to a tree and leaving her .. but that is ok.. you want her jeeped up. Now if you have that check cord this would be a great time to attach the dog to it and hold the end of it and let your dog " Find the bird" .. you should be saying it in a voice that gets your dog excited to " find the bird" . Work your dog down wind of the wing and watch her closely .. her body language will tell you when she smells it .. and let her find it and grab it. Then really praise her for finding it .. get silly happy with her for what she found. Then get that wing back.... it helps if you have have trained a " release" command! And do it again .. and again. Keep that check cord on to keep her close .. because she' ll quickly figure out she just smells your path to the wing and run straight to it .. so walking in circles to make her key on the wing is important .. or maybe tie a weight on the wing and give it a toss so your scent isn' t right where you plant it. This type of training should be fun for you and the dog .. if she' s not getting it or your frustrated .. stop it for the day. Once she has it down .. she' ll know that when you say " Find the bird" she' s supposed to be really looking for that bird.

Since she seems to have a nose for grouse from your fishing trip story all you need to do then is take your now close working, scent hungry, grouse finding machine and practice on the real thing. If she has an ounce of good blood in her it won' t take her long to graduate from frozen wings to the real thing.

Just something to be aware of ... not all dogs are like Hank from " Hunting with Hank" , if you can keep your dog under control and she gives you an honest effort to find and flush birds... you are doing so much better than 50% of the guys who hunt/yell/scream at their wild dogs each year!