Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Fuller
I look at Greg's Setter photo and think of the animal rights people who believe gun dogs are forced into service (yes, we have them here in Oregon) and I laugh out loud.
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Haven't heard of that before but I'll join in with a hearty chuckle. Dogs are predators and the hunt is a natural expression of a deep instinct. I have proven that with four dogs from two off-beat breeds (off-beat in the sense that no one would think of them as gun dogs). The first two were a pair of Shetland sheep dogs (shelties) and the last two were miniature American Eskimos (eskies). There was no intensive training involved. Each one took to pheasant hunting like they had been doing it all their life. The latest is KYRA. She is a 6 year old surrendered little princess house dog. The best she saw of the great outdoors was at the end of the leash on a neighborhood stroll. I took her out for the last days of the 2009 season. Her first trip into the habitat saw her flushing birds within the first ten minutes and she wouldn't stop sniffing them out for the next couple hours. The only thing I did to force this pampered pup to become a gun dog was to let her out of the car in bird country. On our exercise hikes she catches and kills gophers and mice, yet in a previous life, I understand she ate pizza and other human fodder.
Here she is, all 14 pounds of her. The second pic is her predecessor FOXY on one of many days afield over a decade of great hunting.
