The Tick Retriever

Calhoun and Sogn have been out hunting a few times this year. Thanks to Calhoun's graduate student schedule he can go spend weekdays hunting with Sogn which greatly reduces my fear that my darling dog is going to be shot by some crazy weekend hunter.

Every day they go they seem to get closer and closer to retriever success. Today Calhoun sent me this picture of Sogn, standing over a bird and a gun:

Success! Or so I thought...

When Calhoun finally got home he told me about his success at shooting the first grouse of the season, and how Sogn stepped on it.

Then, Calhoun told me about the second bird, which Sogn picked up but didn't bring all the way back.

Sogn did apparently track a few birds into the brush and flush them, and to be fair, Sogn has not been formally educated in retrieving. He's still young and we have been assured by many a casual Minnesota hunters that he'll learn and that the first year is really about Sogn enjoying being out and learning about the woods and the gun and all of that good stuff.

Although there have been minor successes, I am still eagerly waiting for the day when he retrieves a bird without hesitation.

In the meantime, I will have to learn to deal with the aftermath of a long hunting day - which apparently means ticks by the dozen! I'm pretty sure ticks just crawling out of the curly apricot hair of my sweet puppy is something this Minnesota wife is never going to learn to handle well. ICK!