I parked at the meeting house and Larsen and I walked to the field behind the west barn, which was always a nice field. Unhappily, that field has been totally neglected and is shoulder-high brambles and deep weeds with no real pathways. I picked up our equipment and packed back to field house and then down to the east barn. We walked along the dirt road around the bend and set up camp in the shade of the trees that overhang the dry creek.
I took Larsen for three turns, and we sat in the shade and reflected upon the day while he cooled off between turns. The day was cloudless, hot, and humid so I kept Larsen soaking wet and iced down and waited until his tongue returned to normal size before heading into the field with him for his second and third turns.
On each turn, I heeled him to the line (heel, sit, heel, sit). I quartered him with decreasing success, because he recognized that I had a quail in my pocket. I periodically shot my blank pistol and commanded him to sit.
These sits were not perfect, and in retrospect I erred severely in not making corrections on the spot and sometimes giving the command twice. As the saying goes: practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
On two of his turns, I released a quail and shot the starter pistol. He sat both times, and I pipped him in. I quartered him after those releases, making sure that I started him in the direction opposite the bird's flight so that he understood that he was to resume hunting and not retrieving. He was reluctant, but he obeyed.
We did three hunt deads of the type where I would drop a bird as we walked back to camp, and then I would turn and send him. On one of the turns, I had to handle him (push him back) and he understood and obeyed immediately. His retrieves were quite good, but they generally are on hunt deads.
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