Good Boy Otter!!!

Phil Nowack

Phil Nowack

Well-known member
Otter and I went out to a pond complex that I discovered 2 years ago. This is the first time I have every duck hunted it. I have pheasant hunted it before. Public ground. I am sure NO ONE has duck hunted this. Shoulder high weeds... and trees that are impossible to get through. Many small ponds, and streams.. but no game trails to even follow.

BTW- HOW IN THE bleep DO you get all of the burrs out of your dogs coat???? grrrr? never have this problem when I hunt the river and don't walk 1/2 mile each way through upland areas!

After 45 minutes ... we found a pond... the beavers had been there. with Otter being only 7.5 months... he had no desire to sit still. Before too long a long hen Woodie came in. 1 shot, she was on the water. 1 more shot, to make sure she stayed there. Otter really didn't get what was going on... as he had been engrossed in chewing on a stick. Since I haven't put all that much time into training Otter to hunt, I wanted to make sure I did not set Otter up to fail. We moved along side of the pond until we were about 20 yards from the downed bird. Otter didn't see the bird, so I threw a shell in the vicinity of the Woodie. I sent him, he saw her, picked her up, and brought her back to me, depositing her at my feet. I was pretty pleased!!!!
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Always a special moment on that first dead bird retrieve and you,ll look back on that pic when otter has aged and smile.
 
Yaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy Otter!!!!!!

And Phil.....no way to get them out that I have had good luck with except pulling them out one by one. B had to endure daily de-burring torture this trip when we stopped in Nebraska. More sandspurs than I could imagine were even on this planet. And with her silky long fine hair, she would come back and be covered in them all over. Drake didn't suffer as bad except in his feet. He loves the checking over process though (except for his feet) little love slut that he is. But the sandspurs pretty much had to be pulled out of B one at a time.
 
Good job Phil, you got him started right.

Except for burdock I've never had much of a problem with burrs on my chessies. My old Golden was another story, every hour in the field was an hour picking burrs. One product that helped was No More Tangles marketed for little kids. Used a whole bottle on Zack one time. Cooking spray might work too but never tried it.
 
Otter still has his soft puppy coat, and not much of the wire like guard hair. I do think that is part of it.
 
Very nice! My boy Coot's first duck retrieve was much the same. It was my son's first wood duck and taken on a beaver pond.
 
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