Aside from the fact that she wasn't at all interested in getting her feet or anything else wet, Duchess thought that going duck hunting was great fun.   (Teaching her to swim was hilarious.  That's recounted elsewhere.)  On this particular pre-dawn adventure (October 1999) she climbed onto the prow of the duck boat before we could even launch it to set out decoys.  "Come on, you guys!   Let's get this show on the road!"  Once the divers started flying over our set and we were dropping some birds, it was Chickadee that was doing all the work of swimming out after them.  Duchess would meet her at the shore and try to steal the duck.  If we didn't keep an eye on her she was always dragging one off and chewing on its feet or head.  Telling her that her job was to retrieve them not eat them had absolutely no effect on her, of course.  Finally we had to put the ducks in the boat.  She couldn't figure out how to get at them, but her nose sure told her that they were there!

Back to those gorgeous goldens.