30 pounds and growing.

I'm back to report that things are going great. This hunting stuff is going to be a lot of fun. Especially with Riley. I don't know if all hunting dogs are like him, but he can sure find the birds. He's a lot of fun to play with also. We rough house for hours when the Big Guy doesn't have us on the hill. I don't know how other dogs put up with humans sometimes. Maybe because I'm young I don't quite understand what they are asking for. For two weeks I tried to please the Big Guy and played as hard as I could. Every time we'd go out he'd tell Barbara we're going to go work on his play drive so I chased Riley all over the place and play as hard as I could. Luckily Riley is a pro at reading humans and he informed me that it was prey drive, not play drive. So now when I'm not playing, I'm preying and the big guy does a lot of praying. No wonder humans are so screwed up. Any how, I'm one lean machine. I even run those geese off now. I'll give them a three or four second point before I run them off my turf. I thought geese were big, but Conner brought home a turkey the other day and man, it was all I could do to drag it around the yard by the head. But I showed everybody how big I am getting when they gave me one of the turkey wings. I could run around strutting it without even tripping over the wing. The Big Guy has been taking Riley and I out in search of quail so I can work my nose. I think we're actually chasing quail instead of chukars because the Big Guy isn't as lean of a machine as I am. Just the other day, we were on a chukar hill when I came running down hill and ran into him. He flopped around on the hill after I knocked him down and said some more words I didn't understand. The Big Guy has a lot of different nick names for me. I know I can handle chukars, because when he throws them for me I pick them up and sometimes even take them back to him. Riley takes the bird back every time but he doesn't have to work his neck muscles. I feel my muscles starting to bulge every time I run laps around the Big Guy while he keeps repeating "bring the bird to me". I'm figuring this pointing stuff out pretty well, so Riley says. Just today, I pointed some quail and the Big Guy flushed them. He said we're going to work on your style a little. Heck, who cares what it looked like, the birds were there and Riley says that's all that matters. I tend to listen to Riley more than the Big Guy because it's obvious he knows more about bird hunting. I do as Riley says, "just humor the old guy". As I said, Riley is a hunting machine, so it's been real easy honoring his points. He's very intense so I just follow his lead. I was real proud this morning when Riley came face to face with me as I was pointing a quail and he honored me. After the birds flew, he gave me a low five with the paw as we headed back to the truck. I get my final shots in two weeks and hopefully I'll be reporting back more good new in the future. Just let it be known that I now know where the saying "living the life of Riley" comes from.