I spent the last week driving out to California to pick up my new hunting partner. It was a good trip for both of us. The pics are pretty self explanatory.







Now class begins.

Looks good Brent. What's his name?

Congratulations. I myself am getting acquainted with a 9 week old Pudelpointer puppy. Her 3 year old kennel mate does not appear as sanguine as yours with the new addition. But, things are getting better every day.

Bruce

Great looking pup Brent, tons of new adventures await I'm sure. Best of luck with your new partner!

Cute pup. Looks as he's fitting right in.

Beautiful young dog.
They hold such promise.
I hope he turns out to be everything you hope for.

He is cute if a little overweight. Part of being in a litter of just 4. He got a lot of exposure to novel things from the first day. Today, he met two more dogs; one he will hunt with this summer and fall. He also took a swim on his own initiative. Now, we have to do town things. Post office, auto insurance, etc.

His name is Dusty, for now. I am not wild about it, but Tuco, Hank, and Roy did not fly with anyone but me.

Howse Gus with the pup? The puppy pass is good for about 6 months. Then the old dog doesn't tolerate the pup. Willa was Snap's play buddy now Abby has taken the role. I see where the pup has started the Big Chew...nice looking pup...Gil

Careful with the typo, Gil, lest Stan gets after you like he does me....

Gus gets along okay, as long as we are not in tight quarters in the house or around food. Dusty is learning those boundaries now. Fynn, the shepherd, is a bigger work in progress.

The crate will be Gus's and the shepherd's best friend. That is when Dusty is his crate. To preserve everyone's sanity and things wanted unchewed, in the crate when your eyes aren't on him. But you probably already knew that. Gil

Absolutely. We have more crates than dogs.

I had a cat named Roy. Great cat. Stray street cat from Mexico. Got him when he was still a kitten. The cat could hunt! Full grown mallards, ground hogs. Fearless. Watched him attack Canada geese. Only thing I ever saw scare him was a bald eagle. His best friend was a rottweiler. Ran my two setters.

Dig in your heels. Roy is a great name!

Nice looking pup Brent! How was the drive back from CA?

Ken

LONG. On the way out, I hit a few interesting spots like Colorado National Monument and Joshua Tree NP. But on the way back I visited shooting and hunting partners with dogs for him to meet. That worked really well. In between he road like a champ but I was grinding down. Almost 4000 miles. I thought we would bond well vs doing the plane ride thing, as I have done before. That is exactly what happened.

We got to La Junta, CO just in time for the second half of the Superbowl, which he enjoyed. I think it was pulling for the 9es since he is a California lad.

Wow…I use to do some hunting around La Junta. He might been able to find ducks along the Arkansas.

I drove to eastern Oregon to pickup my last pup in May 2020. An interesting trip with Covid lockdowns being taken down. The previous pup we had flown in from MN and I didn’t want to do that again.

Ken

We saw lots of waterfowl wherever we saw some water. Snow geese in Nebraska were thicker than storm clouds. Lots of ducks in Kansas, again, where there was water. It is an uncomfortably early spring.

It takes a lot to get me on an airplane these days. Even w/o a dog.

Golden retriever?

Yup. A special one, of course. He has mighty big boots to fill next fall. If he becomes half of what Gus was, he will be an excellent hunter. But he will also become a much better companion dog for going around town. That was not Gus's strong suite though he did a bit of it. I doubt he will be quite as handsome as Gus too, but only time can tell. Today, Dusty was in the State Farm Insurance Office wrestling with their resident golden, Lola - an absolute sweetheart that rolled Dusty over and over. He just came back for more.

I believe Mark Twain once wrote that every person has one great dog in his life. I thought I had had that dog when I left home for University. But I was wrong. The next golden (grad school) was that dog. Then the NEXT golden that I gave my wife-to-be was that dog, and the flat coated after that, and then Gus. In the end, when I have thought I had seen all the great goldens that I could reasonably hope for in my lifetime, one more amazing dog comes along. There is no reason to doubt Dusty can be that next best dog. It will be a fun journey.

Wow!! What a beautiful pup!! I'll bet that he'll be a world of fun. Good luck with him. He is really great!!

Merci. First glance, thought he was a Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever. I dog-sat for one of those for a week when its owners went on vacation, ages ago. Similar paint scheme. And then I saw the pictures of what I must assume is his mother.... Nope!


How about Nugget? Or Walter Huston? (Thinking of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre', because, you know, well, gold.)

Well Walter was on my list but never got very high. I suppose McKenna could be on the list the same way. Dutch for the Lost Dutchman Mine (with or without 's, is a great gold mine legend). The breeders choose a theme for each litter and their registered names have to follow that theme. In this case the theme was Western Outlaws. Hence, the call name Tuco was very high on my list. But no high on my wife's list. In Gus's case, it was Independence day (born on the 4th of July). So, Dusty's registered name is Topmast The Good, The Bad, and The Outlaw Golden. Gus's is Gaylan's Give me Liberty. But call names are what matter to me.

But Dusty for now and most probably forever. I'll get used to it.

Call names. I hadn't known the term, but somehow figured the concept existed. Encore une fois, merci. (I know even less about pure-bred and hunting dogs than I do about double-barrelled shotguns. This place continues to educate me.)

How about Syd ,Syd Barret,or Syd vicious

Interesting how you guys track my list. Sydney was in the top 5-6 names, either sex.

That's a great looking puppy

Thanks. It is hard to believe this ball of fluff will grow into a good bird dog, but I've been through this 5 or 6 times now, so I suspect we can do it once more.

We had a good time with the State Farm office dog, Lola, yesterday.

I have never posted an Imgur video. This link may not work https://imgur.com/LSjfXIN

Our old neighbours opposite had a dog they called “Chase”.

I guess they never considered how they would sound if it took off after a cat in the Park.

Dusty's mother is named Chase and I know of two other prominent goldens with that name. I like the cat scenario. Never thought of that, but we have some neighbor's barn cats that need the chasing.

The last time we had a pup in the house with an older dog, she deviled the heck out of the senior citizen. We referred to him as her uncle. He was amazingly patient with her. But there were times when he lost patience. That's when it's time to put the pup in his crate.

Same here. Mostly Dusty is in the shop with me. But crates are used multiple times per day and at night, at least for now.

What a sweet little guy! Enjoy his company.

How's Syd doing?

Syd's pretty fine. He thinks he is a tree rat now.




He also got in a wrestling match with Lola up in town at the State Farm Agent Office. Lola has a mean right cross, and rolled him good. He loved it.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/LSjfXIN.mp4[/img]

I think both Syd and Dusty are pretty lame names for this new pup. Since the Nutty Professor has lectured us so often about how Anthropogenic Climate Change is going to destroy the planet, I think a more appropriate name would be "Carbon".

That's because the Nutty Professor made a 4000 mile round trip in a gas guzzling truck to pick him up from Kalifornia. So this puppy already has a Carbon Footprint greater than most third world humans do for an entire year. I'm surprised there are no Golden Retriever puppies closer to Iowa. Maybe they just aren't breeding in Iowa due to global warming (or lead shot or some other scary thing).

Another choice would be to do like King Brown, and name the pup Gus, same as the older dog that is being replaced early. I wonder if old Gus knows he is being replaced. I think dogs are often smart enough to understand things like that. Old Gus looks pretty forlorn in the pics with his replacement. Just look at his sad eyes and how low his tail is. King told us he named all of his Labs Jake. I think there were at least 8 or 9 Jakes. Of course he could also name this pup Carbon Jake, since King isn't using that name anymore.

The best dog name I ever heard was the name a high school buddy gave to his very large German Shepherd. He named it "Kitty". It was hilarious to see him yell, "Here Kitty Kitty", and have this huge German Shepherd come running to him.

So Keith,what's it like decending into a personal hell.

Achieved....total a$$hole status. You are a winner indeed billie, a winner of the biggest turd present award.

I wouldn't know mc.

Why don't you ask that question of the guys and gals who do Free Advertising of their business ventures in their Tagline, and then willfully neglect to pay Dave the customary $12.00 fee for sales of those goods and services?

You could also ask that question of those who feel it is OK for them to dishonestly pretend to be interested in the guns Ed advertises in the For Sale forum, and then crudely insult him and attack his integrity...in an attempt to disrupt his sales, and subsequently screw Dave out of the resulting $12.00 fees he might have gotten. That would require asking both yourself, and the Nutty Professor.

You know mc, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

BTW, how do you think old Gus felt about being left behind when his replacement pup got to go for a ride to town to play with Lola, and out for a frolic in the woods?

Dogs aren't stupid. He knows.

A guy would have to be a miserable turd to find fault with a beautiful pup like that.
“Mooch” would pretty much fit any dog I’ve ever known.

I looked through this whole thread, and the only person who found fault with the puppy said it was a little overweight. Are you calling your doxxing buddy a "miserable turd" Bob? Or are you still trying to work through your reading comprehension problems?


"Mooch" would also be a good name for those who do continual Free Advertising of business ventures in their taglines, and then refuse to pay Dave the customary $12.00 fee for things and services they sell here. Do you think those DoubleGunShop Freeloaders are "miserable turds" too?

"Mooch" does roll off the tongue better than "Freeloader".

A real shame you failed out of rent-a-cop school billie. Lucky for us, your on the job as advertisement cop here, what a putz you are, really. It's hard to imagine someone being a bigger a$$ than you are. The funny thing is, you work at it and pride yourself upon it. Total D-bag material.....

Today was the first day that I could take Dusty to the range. He has had some exposure to gunfire before I got him, but I did not know the details, so we stayed fairly conservative. We played with sticks and leaves in the parking lot and then maybe 20 yds behind the line. He was interested in where the noise was coming from at first and then ceased to care after about 10 minutes. However, once he got bored with the sticks and leaves, he decided to check out the skeet shooting. I would not let him get closer than about 10 yds in this video, but I found it interesting how he approached on his own accord and then sat and studied the process. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dJPtyoAYl5s

Hey Professor, consider yourself very lucky re avoiding gunshyness in a pup showing up at a gun club. Many people only introduce the gun while a pup is chasing game and then they hopefully don't even hear or don't care due to the game interest when ONE single gunshot goes off. Some pups are way more prone to gunshyness than your dog. It appears you lucked out because usually an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure when it comes to bird dogs and avoiding gunshyness.

T'was no luck at all. Just lots of experience and training.

Haha

I always figured any dog is going to be gun shy. My last two dogs were both gun shy at first. This last one, my present one, a Springer Spaniel was scared to death. I just took her out to my club on a day when they were having a trap tournament held her on a leash behind the pads, walked her around and let her get used to it. She was terrified of the noise. But she got over it after a couple times out. She was loving the attention she got from everyone, she soon forgot about the noise. Now it doesn't bother her at all. Next time I'll probably try Brent,D's method. Spend a few hours with her in the car, first. Then ease them out. Take care.