Free, Free at last!

Today Orrin was right on his projected weight. We decided to fly him free if he indicated that he was actually ready and at the right weight. First for Tami's benefit we tied the creance to his jesses.

We also took him to a new area that he wasn't familar with to see if he was actually ready to fly to her no matter where he was.

He of course flew without hesitation, so I asked her to take the creance off.

We did not fly him that much, but he did quite well. I am not sure that he actually knew that he was free, but at least he wasn't hanging up on every twig on the ground. Finally Tami took out the lure to call him, and again he was coming before she had a chance to do more than get it out of her vest.

Now if she can keep him at this weight, we will continue his basic training with out the hassle of the creance. The next step is to get him to follow and look for Tami. That will require him to go to the trees and to actually come out of one of them to the fist and the lure. Once he is adept at that we will introduce him to some Sparrows and see what his reactions are.

Josie

I have been working with Josie to try to get her to catch Mice. As you might remember this fall Curly was a life saver with his hunting abilities in countering the Pack Rat invasion. My hopes are that Josie will eventually fill the gap that his death created.  I have to admit that I am having problems with conveying that concept to Josie. After all she is a "pointing " dog. The species has been developed and bred to encourage that particular trait. The fact that the Brittney is also a great companion and house dog along with being a great hunting dog, is just icing on the cake.

My thoughts were to give her some Mice, and see what would happen, then work from there. I am catching them in the Attic in a live trap, so that was no problem.

The bath tub is the only place where I can control the situation, and keep the mice from escaping back into the house. Well as you can see, pointing is no problem.

getting her to move however was. She held this position moving nothing but her head.

I think I am going to have to do some serious work before I get a rat and mouse killer.