Fly Fishing Trips, Vacations, Equipment & Gear: High Plains Santa Cruz

12 week old Cruz backing the "Old Guys"

I purchased Cruz when she was 9 weeks old , by the time she was 12 weeks I was running her with the big dogs ,keeping her on a check cord and encouraging her to back the other dogs ,she became a backing machine .Like any young dog she was inconsistent with her pointing ,sometimes choosing to bust birds instead of holding her points ,this behavour went on longer than I anticapated ,but as she matured Cruz came into her own and is now on the the "A" Team. Like her sister Martha Muffin she is a little sweat heart , get her in the field and she is a tenacious big running bird finding machine .
Lesson learned
Although Cruz showed great promise at an early age ,she needed time to figure out things for herself .
She needed to be brought along slowly and hunted by herself or hunted with a dog who would do it's own thing and not compete with her.As Ben "O" Williams puts it "let the Dog be a Dog "