Last evening I grabbed a frozen bird out of the freezer , loaded up Jyncks and headed down to Lake Superior, the north entry of the portage canal, to practice deep water retrieves. Jyncks loves this! Jyncks practically throws a wake you could ski behind on his way out and back... He was swimming in proudly with his bird, when a cute family of 3 walked up. The mom said " What a cute little dog! " with pride I said " Yup he is some kinda of special" she said "That toy is so life like, did you get it from Ericksons?" Ericksons is our local feed store, as well as all things animal store. By this point Jyncks is impatient sitting at my feet with the bird, so he launched in the air still holding the now somewhat tired, dead, no longer frozen bird ,and much to the sweet little families horror, as he landed, the head popped off onto the ground .... after a brief moment of awkward silence, as all of our eyes including Jyncks' followed the wayward bird head as it rolled to a stop. The little girl said "Mommy does that birdie have a bad owie? " The little boy exclaimed loudly "Gross !!" The mom exclaimed, "That is disgusting! We swim in this water too you know!" And stomped off kids in tow. I accepted Jyncks offering of the headless bird , then bless his heart he fetched me its head as well. I believe I may stop at Erickson's tomorrow in search of a " Life like toy" for our future public water retrieve sessions.
