Bird Training & Bird Intro!

This weekend was a busy one for the pups! We drove 4 hours on Saturday and 4 hours today for some quality bird training with Ken's lovely wife, Janet, from Willowynd Ranch up in Davis, CA. Not only is she a great Vizsla trainer, I also discovered she is a fellow accountant! Janet used pigeons in little velcro wraps to teach Riley to be steady on her point. She's already shown great improvement over the weekend.

Saturday Training

 

Sunday Training

Pulling the velcro on the bird wrap

Riley in full hunting mode

POINT! (Can you see the orange wrap on the bird?)

Pulling off the velcro wrap

And the bird is off!

 Cooper had some bird exposure for fun and to see his level of interest. Saturday he met some pigeons, which he was very nervous about until they flew away... then he chased them! Yesterday he got to play with a chukar on a string. As long as the chukar was running away from him, he chased. Whenever the chukar turned toward him, he ran away. He did prove to be an EXPERT butterfly hunter. ;) Janet gave us a frozen chukar to take home and Cooper was extremely interested in it. After about 10-15 minutes of showing it to him he decided it was pretty awesome and he proceeded to carry it around the yard with a little prance. We still haven't seen him point at anything other than his sister in play. He may or may not be a hunter, but I don't really care. I just want him to be happy. :)

Where'd it go?

Chase the chukar!

Ah! It's lookin' at me!

Chukar hid in the plants... that was exciting

"I'm not so sure about this *bird* thing, guys..."

Passed out after a long weekend!