My Hunting Buddy

          I have always been a big duck hunter.  Over the years my friends and I have chased waterfowl all over the southeast.  It is one of my favorite kinds of hunting there is.  We always have pretty good luck, but the only thing is, our swamps around here are full of really thick mud. The thick mud makes it hard to get around in, and sometimes when you shoot ducks the fall far from where you are sitting. We’ll I finally came up with a solution to this problem, I needed me a retriever. I started calling around and talking to some guys I knew and finally got some good news. Two of my friends from high school had bred their labs and were going to be having pups. I told them immediately that I wanted a male out of the bunch.  A few months later I got a phone call while I was in school, it was my friend Josh letting me know that I could come pick up my puppy.  So as soon as I got out of class my girlfriend and I went straight to his house to pick up my new little guy. When we pulled up and walked down to the pen where the pups were, I fell in love as soon as I saw him. He was six weeks old and fit in the palm of my hand. He was a solid black lab with very high blood lines. His name was going to be Ace.  I knew the training process would have to begin immediately. I decided to train him myself just because it can get very expensive to send dogs off to trainers, and I also knew I could build a better bond with him. During the first week I had him fetching a pair of balled up socks. He would go get the socks and bring them back to me immediately, I knew then it was in his blood to be a retriever. I worked with him hard every single day, doing obedience training, blind training, commands, etc. He caught on very quick. I finally got him trained enough to where I thought it was time to take him hunting. He was a little under a year and a half old when this past duck season opened. The season started out wonderful as we shot seven ducks on opening morning and he retrieved every one of them, it seemed as if he had been doing it for years. The whole season was a success with very few miscues and I am very proud of my little hunting buddy. I can’t wait for another hunting season with him.