One day years back, a guy on a duck hunting forum said he had a 2 year old Yellow Lab that he wanted to give away because his trainer said he was too " soft " to train.

I called the guy, made arrangements and my son and I went and picked him up.

His name at the time was Buddy. ANd if you raised your vice to him, he would kinda get a little low.

So, I changed his name to Deke, didnt yell at him and we started working on being a duck dog. And a dove dog and a quail flusher. And I have always believed the name change gave him a new out look on life.

He had been thru FF as far as I could tell and would hold til the duck rotted from his mouth. Tell him to hunt dead and I only remember him not finding maybe 2 birds.

Hand signals were rudimentary at best, but he got the job done. And he spent a lot of time retrieving in a river and it only took him a couple of times to figure out how to lead in the current and get ahead of the floating duck for the retrieve.

He was a great hunter, pet and friend and I just got a bit nostalgic and thought Id share a few pics.

Deke and his first duck

That's awesome

That is awesome!

Great memories of a great dog.

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

Great pictures, but.............. Name change, changed the dog? That sounds like a crock to me.

Come on Bill, I changed his name at the same time I started working with him. He responded to our handling and learned his name was Deke. Honestly I dont think he ever knew his name as Buddy.

But Zach and I always said we would rather have a cool name like Deke rather than Buddy and gave him credit for feeling the same way.