well congrats on the new poppy, few things in life IMO are as much fun as getting a new one and then watching them grow an mature into the best friends a person can have
as for grouse and woodcock
I used to love hunting them from a kid up, I lived in a area that had high populations and dozens of flushes a day was the norm
then about late 90's populations dropped like mad, to the point, a flush a week is about what you get with a GOOD dog, and they have never bounced back like so many claim, swing deals in them
its been 20 yrs and populations are near NON, habitat is growing well, due to timbering and other things, so its NOT just bad habitat
the four or five other places thru out the state of PA, where I also logged a lot of hours in hunting them over the decades, are the same, very low numbers, flushes super rare anymore!
got to the point in about mid 2000's I quit shooting them when I had the chance, was worried I might be killing the last one !
what a shame, but seems to be a common issue with many upland bird species in PA (used to be a top 5 pheasant state at one time)
Turkeys took over IMO
but if your still lucky to have some good spots, good for you, I am stuck with just good memories now LOL
please post a few pic's of the pup too, sure more than me would enjoy seeing them here!
most of my hunting camp members all were Britt owners, and I sure , spent a LOT of time with them dogs over my yrs too, , some super funny stories as well with some
I'll share a few if you don';t mind, meant in fun, some of them were just amazingly talented bird dogs too!
one guys dog would find a downed bird faster than the other down and run off and bury it, then making a whole new hunting challenge to recover with other dogs, did this mostly on pheasants , and he paid a lot of money for that one too, we gave him a l flack on that
I also recall another one that loved to wait till everyone went to sleep and then would go and pee in all our boots, we kept in the mud room!
took a long time to figure out WHO"S dog it was too,a s we normally had like 3-6 dogs in camp
had to pretend we were sleeping to catch it in the act LOL
good times, I guess to a real dog owner, who can enjoy this stuff,!