Big Day!

A huge day for Cutter yesterday. We set up at the mouth of a channel down stream from Craig on the Missouri and about five minutes into it, just after getting settled, a couple ducks set their wings and dropped into the decoys. The first green head splashed hard with shot number one and then I let two more shots go at the second one. Before I knew it, Cutter was swimming out after the first.

This was a big moment since up until last week he would lay down whenever he heard a shot go off. I finally broke him of that on Huns but part of it was because we were shooting lighter loads and part of it was the fact that he was usually 30 yards away from the gun when it went off. Regardless, he's made progress and the last couple Huns he actually went out looking for instead of laying down and even found a couple that had dropped but he didn't retrieve them. This was his first official retrieve. It was pretty exciting.

The duck wasn't completely dead either and was kicking a bit as Cutter got to him. He didn't really know what to do so he turned to swim back. "Fetch 'em up Cutter!" I yelled and he immediately turned back and clamped down on the big drake. "Good Boy!!" I yelled and he worked his way back through the decoys to shore. His first retrieve at one year, one month and ten days. Nice work Cutter.

Keep 'em where they live....