The first was with a brace of seasoned dogs. He ran with them on the first jumped rabbit until it went to a hole, but did not open. He ran about 20 yards on the second jump. That rabbit headed to a large pile of pushed out trees. When we got to the trees he joined in on the rummaging through the pile. When then moved to a different woods. He stayed at my feet the rest of the day, and he did not flinch when I shot with him at my feet.
The second time out was a solo trip. Hunted a small barn lot that was baack of the road a bit. Jumped up a bunny 5 feet from the truck. Monroe did not see it, but I was able to get him to walk ans smell up the line as far as I had seen the rabbit run. Jumped a second rabbit that hopped right in front of his nose on it's way to clear running up the edge of the field until it popped under the tool shed, Monroe went wild and sight chased. I was pumped!
Did not get anything else up in the barnlot so I took him across the field to the woods. Walked around a bit and Monroe started opening a little. I watched him for a few minutes and then he started chopping hard and heavy. Ran about 3/4 circle before he lost it. We walked around the check a litle and he would open for 5~10 feet then nothing. Did this a couple times. He eventually came back to me and stayed. The third trip was again solo back to the barn lot. This time it was after a good hard snow. No bunny tracks anywhere but right up against the tool shed. Covered the entire area and couldn't get anything moving, so we moved to the woods again. Lots of tracks. Monroe was opening and running really sporadicly. I finally determined that it was a combination of dog/coyote and squirrel. Finally caught him running "tree rat" and gave the appropriate "no. bad dog" stuff and quickly left the woods as I had not seen any sign of rabbit. At this point I was very concerned about what he had run on trip two.
Fouth time out was with the dogs from trip one. He only showed minor interest for the most of the day. He did go nose down in quite a few deer track. He opened on one squirell and was quickly corrected. By days end he was showing more interest in bunny track with some encouragment from me pointing him in the right direction. He never opend on the deer tracks and was also given a mild "bad dog" when he showed noticeable excitemnt on a fresh deer track though he never opened on it.
Now that you have the background if any of you are still reading this novel. Do I have anything to be worried about? What do guys suggest to help further his education?
Thanks for sticking with this to the end!
