Old Dogs -- Ya Gotta Love 'Em
 

Old dogs ---- Gotta love 'em and respect their wisdom.
Last year and this year, we've been letting young (3 y/o) Tucker do all of the difficult retrieves and have had Casey (age nearly 12) do the easy retrieves.
Two weekends ago, a group of 5 Mallards came in to our pond. We knocked two of them down. One was DOA in the pond the other one only had a broken wing. The one with the broken wing was swimming, quacking, diving and looking for a hiding spot. My old Casey boy was watching and started trembling from excitement --- then he looked up at me with those big brown eyes like, "Please Dad -- let me get this one".................. So I sent him. He swam to the bird, it swam all over the pond with Casey in hot pursuit, it dived under -- Casey treaded water in circles. After the ducks 3rd dive, it came up right in front of Casey and he grabbed it......... Swam to shore, came to heel and delivered to hand. He (and I) were extremely proud. He is a very cool old man for sure. Needless to say, he was really tired out that night -- and i could see by his actions during his dreams that he was reliving the hunt.
I'll keep on hunting him until he either can't or doesen't want to do it any more. It would be really cool that when he dies, it's during a retrieve like this one.
Here's a pic of Tucker and Casey holding their birds. There are three on the ground in front of them.




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