[densa44]

This is about a 3 person group who all had a dog with them. We had just driven 23 hours non stop to get from Hamilton to the interlake district of Manitoba. We saw a small flock of geese flying into a strong wind parallel to the road. The land was on a gentle slope going up hill. That meant that the birds were getting lower as they travelled.
We were able to get ahead of them and hid in an old fence line with lots of high vegetation.
As the flock passed over we got a few but this is about one cripple that fell behind us into a patch of grass about 20 feet by 20 feet blowen near flat by the north wind.
It should be mentioned here that my friends purchased their dogs on their reputation (well earned) but thought that training was unnecessary. So the first dog a versatile, was lead up to the small plot of grass and she didn't find the bird, the second dog a big retriever was lead up to the nearly flattened grass and he couldn't find the goose. Now it was my dog's turn. A 2 year old BLF who was field trailed every weekend and trained with birds very day. She had been watching all the proceedings from her wire kennel from the station wagon. Now it was her turn, she went straight to the downed bird and brought it back to me.
The rest of the trip was not very pleasant, we all hunted solo, and never went anywhere together again. I didn't name the other breeds because if my dog hadn't been trained she would have blinked the bird too.
The moral of this unhappy story is that if you have a dog you need to train her.