Bo and I had scoured a couple of desert washes north of Tuscon and flushed a lone Gambel's. Not expecting a single quail without seeing a covey in over an hour, I just watched it fly away thinking, "Could that be a quail?". When Bo and I couldn't relocate it, just for verification's sake, and couldn't find a covey after another hour, I kenneled her for a rest.

With the few birds Chaos had been able to find in her first season, she didn't know the difference between birds and bugs so she would be easier to entertain on a desert walk than a veteran like Bo.

Chaos and I hopped a couple of ridges and found a deeper, wider, brushier wash. I just followed Chaos while she tried to guess where I was going for a few hundred yards when I saw a small covey of Gambel's run into a clump of bushes and trees. Chaos was out investigating dried cow patties and boulders as I circled to the south side of the brush and called her in. It's a bad thing to have the desert sun in your eyes when trying to pick out flushing quail. Chaos scented the quail as she approached the brush and busted into the small covey. Two birds came out my side and I missed with my first shot but tumbled one as it tried to crest the bank behind me.

I marked the bird while Chaos darted in and out of the brush looking for me and the birds. Once I got her near the crash site, she was on and off birdy and finally dug under some roots and found the now dead quail.

She was a happy pup trotting around with her little Arizona prize.