all I could do to break the canoe through the shell ice 10 feet from shore and it was deceiving as in the cattails and closer to the edge it was slushy with a bit of thin shell ice the puppy had no problem breaking through. Tried to keep her as dry as possible until the need came but very difficult to keep a bird dog dry.
She had tufts of hair that looked like it was matted behind both ears with icicles and her feathers on hind quarters also had ice tips at -4 this morning. A trio of swans caught her attention from the canoe once we hid in some cat tails. My partner who had my 2 year old Mako because his Candi was still recuperating from 3 days at Taber fired the opening volley at some low flying gadwalls. From that point on the sky had a lot of ducks in the air that must have been hiding in the canal or reeds keeping the water open but nothing close enough to me to drop in front of a young pup. Then it happened and I heard the faint sound of geese coming towards us from the north and keeping my head down I could see they were heading straight for me. At 30 yards I broke the wing of the lead goose that did a whirly bird descent that the pup could not miss. Unsnapping her choker from the lead tied firmly to the canoe strut she jumped into the water. Broke some ice and then found the channel made by the canoe which took her diagonally away from the dieing goose. She tried and tried to break the ice in a direct line toward the goose but the closest she could get is still 20 feet away. I paddled the canoe out to her and got sopping wet myself hauling a sponge of a dog into the canoe. Last five to ten feet the shell ice was probably 3/8 of an inch or better thick so pushing bow of canoe up on it did result in carving a channel to the goose. Rain from the bow had been waiting to get close enough to the biggest bird she had ever seen. Once along side the goose she reached over grabbing and tried to pull the heavy bird into the canoe. She had head and chest out of water but it wasnt going to happen without some assistance so I grabbed the free wing and pulled her reward into the canoe.
Dale came over to see us with Mako when we landed the canoe back at the launch and Rain growled at Mako to warn him it was her goose. He honored knowing it best not to argue with a little lady with big ambitions.
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Big reward for a cold wet puppy
a hunting we will go!!!!!!
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