We spent a couple of days in Oregon at Highland Hills Ranch.  Never have we seen so many birds!  They have huge fields planted with milo and corn just to feed the birds, and some natural cover areas, too.  Pheasant, chukkar, huns, bobwhites and valley quail.  The birds are everywhere-by the cabins, in the roads and driveways, on the lawn-you practically trip over them. 

Our guide had shorthairs, was completely agreeable to us bringing the pup along, and was impressed enough with Churchill after the first hunt that he brought his two year old field trial dog to find the birds, and let Churchill have almost all the retrieves.

I could not be happier with this pup!  Running around loose wasn't the way to go-he got self-employed almost immediately, so I kept him on a check cord for the majority of the time.  He did point a few birds, and got to retrieve them when they were shot, and he honored the shorthair's point once when they were both free.

What was truly amazing was his marking ability!  He did some long blind retrieves-over 100 yards away with the bird landing out of sight over a hill or on the other side of a stream, or in the thick crop fields.  His first retrieve-on a hun he pointed-was through a short field, down a bank, across a stream, up an almost vertical 8 foot bank, and through some bushes.  He pointed a chukkar, and Bob shot it, but it wasn't dead.  The bird flew a LONG way, out of sight down the mountain.  I sent Churchill (praying he would come back without me having to go find him and tug the cord, which I had to do sometimes to get him to come all the way back with the bird)-and a few minutes later he ran up and delivered the bird to hand.  He brought all of them to me from then on, and always had a very soft mouth.

When we went out into the milo, I couldn't let him hunt-it was too thick, impossible with the cord, and he was just too wild to listen.  So, he did the retrieving.  He would watch the bird fall, and plunge through the 4 foot tall plants and come back with his tail wagging.  He had about 25 retrieves in two days.

If you haven't gotten on the list for the next breeding-hurry up! Churchill is only 6 months and 10 days old and I'm pretty new at this dog training stuff.  We've done "the walk", some hand thrown bumpers, two sessions with the retrieve-r-trainer, and some basic OB.  If this isn't proof of good genetics, I don't know what is!