Dare is the best dog ever!

  I had some people over for training today  and then Nat brought some young ducks that hadn't really been worked. Dare worked them only a little but they weren't legged up so we could not work them much. He put them in the corner in the duck arena and one escaped thru the fence into the woods.  I thought if we made the other ducks quack he would come back but he appeared to be going the opposite way.  Now mind you there is no easy way to get into that woods from the duck arena so we didn't try(at first).  We crated the other 4 ducks and put them near the fence and that didn't work so  we let them out again to make noise and one more escaped into the woods.Great  just terrific.  I grabbed another escapee by the leg before he could hightail it into the woods with the other duck.

   We waited and they appeared to be going away from us and not toward us so I decided we had nothing to lose and I lifted the bottom of the fence and told Dare to get them.  He went out and started circling for scent and found them and the chase was on. It got so we could not hear him or them. I whistled but got no reponse and if he was able to come he would have.   I was hoping they were not in the road. Betty went down the fenceline toward the road and called out to me.  Dare had one duck and was holding him against the fenceline for us to come and get him.  I crawled down the fenceline on the opposite side of the pasture(not an easy feat)and grabbed the duck and handed it to Betty.  Next I tried to send Dare for the other duck.  He  was not going without me and I was not going into the wood. I jumped him up on a big rock and told him over and he jumped into the Pasture and I went around. 

Back to the duck arena to see if we could hear the other duck in the woods.  I could not hear it , but I sent Dare under the fence again and told him to find it.  He did fairly quickly to my amazement and brought it to the stone wall quacking all the way,  but the stupid thing got caught in the stone wall. We could see it and practically touch it but it was still too far away. So Nat got on a chair and next to the big rock and crawled over and got the duck by the neck and handed it to me and so I got Dare to come under the fence again and he immediately tried to bite it as I as holding it in the air over his head. Well, frankly it deserved a good  bite for running away.

No harm to ducks , no ducks lost and amazing duck dog proved his worth again.  It was pretty amazing.  the woods is thick and he was not in earshot some of the time.