Chukar Anyone???

I am always thrilled by the wonderful people, dogs in general and my foster dogs in particular, lead me to. We had a prospective adopter inquire if we thought Sidney has potential as a hunter. I pondered several ways to find answers to this question. In the end, I contacted a local hunt club (okay, local as in a hour away) and kennel for assistance.

Trent Leichleiter, of Pheasant Bonanza in Tekamah, NE agreed to help us field test Sidney. The plan was to plant a chukar for Sidney to point, then to shoot to see his response. And that we did. Sidney and I worked the field. Well, I worked at not getting tangled in the check cord, and Sidney worked fairly well out in front of me. The planted bird ran off without us ever finding it. It's out there in the field snickering at us right now. Trent did fire the gun to see Sidney's response. He startled visibly, as I expected, but didn't bolt. Atta boy Sidney.

Next we went back to the farm to expose him to some birds directly to see if he would point. We did get a sight point out of him at a couple roosters that were about 5 ft away from him. In all honesty, Sidney was just as interested in a lab puppy in a run about 5 ft away from him in the opposite direction. He did point though, although his tail clearly didn't understand the position it should have been in. It was neither straight out, nor straight up, rather half mast. It's ok Sidney, we still love you.

Even a temporarily immobilized pheasant didn't stir him into a hunting frenzy. So I'm thinking he is not a hunting prodigy undiscovered (much like the chukar out there). In all, he was exposed to three gun shots, and several live birds. Not counting the chuckling chukar somewhere in the grass.

We did come home with a pheasant wing to work with him on, and a wonderful new understanding of him. I probably wouldn't recommend a hunting home for him, but I don't doubt that the right person, with patient training couldn't gently lead him into the hunting mode. After all, in rescue, I've seen what miracles love and patient training can do.

It was a wonderful experience for us, and hopefully for Sidney too. We made some new friends at Pheasant Bonanza, as they did with Pointer Rescue. Bottom line this will help us find the perfect home for Sidney. And, if you ever get a chance to hunt at Pheasant Bonanza - just tell them Sidney sent you.