Finally, #2

I turned Jessie loose for the first time yesterday. I had only called her to the lure on the creance twice before, and she had looked at me as if to say- I've been doing this for 12 years, and you want to go back to basics? Which one needs training? At least it seemed so. It was quite a windy day, and Karen had gone to town by herself,  so I considered putting her back on the creance again. When she felt the wind in her face she had other ideas, and was doing her best to go fly. I took her back to her perch, and began trying to get everything in order so that I could put the Kite in the air for her.

My normal transmitter left with Lee-Zard more than a year ago, so I found a working transmitter, scrounged a 3 volt battery for it, talked Pete into securing it to her leg, without the necessity for band aids, and put the kite in the air. I only put it up so that the lure was only about 30 feet up. She hasn't flown in two years, so I expected her to be a bit flabby. I also hooded her, which surprisingly went very well.

Once I struck the hood and stuck her into the air, she quite surprisingly sat and checked her surroundings rather than bolting into the air. She took off and I considered raising the lure a bit more, but she had already turned and bound to it, just as if she had been doing it for the last two years without a break. I sat down and waited for her to finish the food on the lure and she walked up to me just like normal and got on the fist for the rest of her meal.

Since Karen wasn't home, I decided rather than risk Pete's fingers, I would wait until Karen got back to take the transmitter off of her leg. Karen got back about 3 hours later, so we went back out to remove it. The new cover that I had made for the transmitter was gone and destroyed, the battery was gone and she either ate it or buried it in the gravel to the point that we couldn't find it. The antenna was almost untwisted, but still usable. Sigh! She hasn't forgotten a thing!

I last hunted Hope on Monday, and she again didn't catch anything. I took Brick ( the male Brittney) with me in the hopes that together we could finally get back on track and catch rabbits. I had hoped that he would prove to be a distraction to the running rabbits enough that she would be able to connect. I took him because he tended to stay close to me. Josie runs way wide, and Hope does better with the close slips. Well what I found was that the rabbits were jumping well in front of us, so far that the dog had no clue that there was anything around. Hope eventually became discouraged, which led me to make a straight line to the car and home. She weighed 954 grams. Last year that was her high hunting weight.

I determined that although the dogs loved the hunt, the results were not improved with their use. Brick in spite of his best efforts did not see a single Jack as they were bolting quite a long way ahead of us.

I didn't fly her yesterday, even though it was cold enough for her to have shed considerable weight, and she begged me every time she saw me. I resolved to convince her that if she wanted to eat, it would require her to catch something.

It was again below freezing last night, and I was a bit concerned about how much weight she would have lost last night, but found that she weighed 885 grams. I felt her keel bone and realized that she was in no danger of being underweight.

Karen and the dogs came with me to Danner to see if she was going to get her act together finally. She had a couple of slips that were so close as to cause me to hold my breath listening for the scream that would indicate that she had her groove back.

She was peering down likely looking holes trying to find something to eat.

We had covered about 200 yards of cover with her having four or more slips. Karen was pacing us with the car, which apparently served as a blocker. Another Jack jumped and Hope took off over a Lava ridge and slammed down in the brush. Finally the sound of a Jack in pain drifted back to me.

This one tried to lose her in tall Sage, but it apparently wasn't thick enough to keep her from getting a clear shot at him. Notice where her feet are. She has both feet into his neck with the left hind leg over her legs. He couldn't get his feet under him so that he had any chance of escaping. I am not real sure how she grabbed him underneath like that. His head is facing the other way because I had to break his neck by twisting. She was in the way for any other method.

I gave her a chunk of meat to eat, and am waiting for her to finish that so that I can pick her up to a hind leg.

Hopefully this will be the turning point that we need. It appears that I am going to have a substantial gas bill this year.