There’s a pretty good snow day forming outside today and I figure it might be the smart thing to just stay home and enjoy it.
Who knows what I could hurt going out and playing around in 6 inches of new snow here and probably 4 or 5 more than that in the mountains.
So, instead of playing in the snow, I figured I’d post a video of Greg Allen’s GSP’s, Trudy and Katie two years ago. Like me, he doesn’t quit taking the dogs out at the end of the season. This video was taken with his phone on an exercising trip a couple weeks after the close of the chukar season. It’s great video, not only because of the good dog work, but because you can see the chukar feeding and hiding while the dogs point.
It makes me wonder how much animals detect human emotions. Since Greg was just filming and not getting excited about being ready to shoot, were the birds also a little calmer. I know I’ve seen big game animals act that way. This is a small herd of elk on the mountain a few years back when Jake, Grady and I were trying to find some birds.
People ask me how I can take time to take pictures and still get some shooting in. I truly believe that when I’m taking pictures I slow down and take my time, creating a more calm period. I may be wrong but it works for me.
Greg and I have been hunting chukars together now for close to 40 years. We usually split up and go our own way once we get to our location but spend a lot of time talking about our dogs and the hunts. We have traveled a lot of miles together and he has given me some great tips and advice over the years. Here is his video. I hope you can enjoy the dogs work as much as I do.
The Reigning Chukar Champions 
Larry— Enjoyed these videos. Those elk sure were curious. Nice to see that Jake and Grady didn’t harass them. Did you have to call them off or do they just naturally leave big game alone? That was really nice dog work by Greg’s dogs and fun to watch. When hiking in bird country in the off season are you doing any formal training with your dogs? Do you typically let them point and then you move in to flush the birds, similar to if you were hunting? Do you see any positive or negative impact of doing this without a gun when hunting season comes around? Thanks!
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Tim, I’ve been lucky and all my dogs have avoided big game, horses, cows and all those big four legged animals. In fact they come and hide by me if a cow starts towards them. I do a lot of formal dog training while hiking and treat a point just like a hunting situation. I use to worry about how it might affect the dogs but have finally realized that they understand the difference. I also work whoa when I’m hiking. I whoa them once in a while for no reason just to make sure they remember it means stop and don’t move.
The curiosity of the elk and other animals always amazes me. I’ve had deer, coyotes and antelope do the same thing. I had a big ram run one of my past dogs back towards me on a November hunt when we got to close to his ewe’s. Luckily he stopped the chase about 25 yards from me because he could have done some big damage to me.
I try to do everything I can with the dogs outdoors. We understand each other better that way.
Good Luck in the outdoors this spring.
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