Well now that our waterfowl season is over up here, I wanted to take a look back at the progression of our little "project"

The last weekend of April "Addi" the BLF was ready to come home from Maine, my 11 year old daughter and I skipped youth turkey weekend and made the 14 hour round trip. We kind of forgot how much work and effort goes into having a puppy around, as our last chocolate is now 10.....but it quickly came back to us.

First days home



Not quite sure what to make of this



A few weeks later, getting a little bigger






Later on in the summer a little socialization with all the people at one of my daughter's horse shows



An artsy fartsy shot after doing some water work




We sent her away for 5 weeks near the end of summer to a friend who is a pro trainer. He FF and CC her along with finishing up on her obedience.

Most of September is our early goose season, we put her right in the mix making easy retrieves on water, which she took to right away. You have to remember that she is now 7 months old and might be 40 pounds dripping wet, water was easy but she had a little trouble on land retrieves........getting her mouth around the big honkers and short legs didnt help

First of 3 September bands for her



Nice shoot with a couple of friends



She ended up with about 60 retrieves in the early goose season. The last weekend of Sept. was our youth waterfowl weekend, it was slow because of the warm weather and all the high water but we made the best of it.

My daughter








October moved into our regular duck season and opening day



I went to Sasketchewan for a week and came back to a open goose season and went out with my daughter after school one day, first snow for both of them.



Now here is a progression of pictures from the rest of the season. You will see many are in kind of the same pose as she runs off the back deck of my boat, and likes to stand up and look around when things are slow, giving me a perfect opportunity to snap a few pictures.

First duck band (she picked up 4 banded mallards total)







Another band



And finished. She did a great job this fall, a little timid of the real cold water the last week or so.......but I can't blame her, she is still only about 47 pounds without an ounce of fat on her. A definate fun work in progress.

Looks good, we had to get rid of our 4yr old chocolate male due to aggression issues, but my new Fox red female is at the trainers now getting FF in anticipation of a late march duck trip.

Gorgeous dog!

Getting me psyched to get training my black lab!

She's only 3 months right now.

Good looking dog man. Great job training her on your own too. Did you follow a certain program, or just improvise different methods?

This is a damn good thread.

I will add a couple more summer pictures, because the goose hunting is REALLY SLOW right now and there is not alot to take pictures of.

She has picked up a few geese so far this year and has a much better attitude about the whole thing, even though she is still little and land birds are kind of a pain in her butt.


A couple of big leaps off our ski boat and a neat under water picture taken by our daughter.

Quite the band collector.

This is way cool.

I wish I would've trained my lab when she was younger.

Be glad you have a lab. I had a Golden Retriever. They are burr magnets. Thanks again for the additional pics. Vermont is a beautiful state.

Great pics!

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.

He looks like he needs a vacation. Maybe have the cat fetch some birds for him.

Down for the count for 10 days..........she was spayed yesterday. And the cat turns into an Obama voter in the winter....just sits around all day mooching off "the man" and complaining.





Thanks