That's Quincy retrieving a goose (in spite of my enthusiastic overhandling).
She's never retrieved a goose before this morning, and she retrieved four out of four, all shot and lost last night on dark. All were blind retrieves (she couldn't see the bird) on cold game (scent is not so good as when freshly shot), in water, with the wind in the wrong direction for scenting (to her back - carrying any smells that might help her locate the bird away from her). Everything was against her and she found them all.
I'm so proud of that dog.
I want a bumper sticker that says "My Kid may be crap at calculus, but she can scent dead game and swim carrying a 10-pound bird in her mouth".
Canada geese weren't such a problem in Dorset, but they plague farmers in our area, eating the young maize crops. The old legal classification relating to common land grazing says is that two geese will graze as much as one sheep. We counted 40 geese lifting from the small pond this morning. The pond adjacent to a farmer's crop of maize.
There is no closed season on Canada geese. However, wild goose meat cannot be sold in England. And there is a lot of meat on a goose. Each breast is about 3/4 lb of meat. That's over ten pounds of meat from the seven geese shot last night. It wouldn't sit right with me to shoot something and waste the bounty, so the dogs are eating goose alongside their pheasant egg omelettes, and we're having goose breast schnitzel for dinner. Courtesy of my wonderful girl.
