Chapter Thirteen 2003 After Surgery

By October, I was ready for bird hunting and so was Tova. We were in the field early on opening day.
The sun was just starting to come up and the pheasants released by Fish and Game were trying to warm themselves in the sunlight around the edges of the high grass.

Tova put up her first one after only twenty minutes out there.

She was ecstatic and so was I.

As we neared the end of the first field, she is off to my right cutting her way through some high brush. Suddenly, she goes into a solid point. She is actually looking in my direction. At first I didn’t see what she was looking at.

There, nestled down, is a nice sized hen not realizing that Tova was behind her pointing her out to me. I had stopped so I could be ready when she took off. She wasn’t nervous or aware of our presence so she stayed put.

I had to move about four feet in her direction to get her to take flight. She went down with one shot. Tova was thrilled and ran to pick her up and bring her to me to place in my vest.

Now, we have our two birds and that is the legal daily limit I’ve mentioned earlier. So, I unload my shotgun and call her to head back to the car.

Are you serious? We just got here and there’s plenty of birds around from what I’m smelling.

Dogs do not understand legal limits.

Begrudgingly, she heads back to the car with me.

“Tova, we can come out tomorrow.” I say.

I don’t care about tomorrow. These birds may be gone by then.

And so it goes, with my eager dog and myself as we drive home. She’s really not mad just very determined.