Fecal Test, Free Flights, Bagged Game

     A lot's happened in the last week. My last post was me worrying about Petrie's bloody mutes. I got the fecal results back and they came back negative, so it looks like I went overboard on his weight reduction and shocked his kidneys. All is well, now. Petrie is healthy and acting fine.
     His training has been blowing by, since really, all of this is a refresher course. He's been pursuing the lure like a champ, so yesterday I free flew him for the first time on the lure and it went fantastically. The only thing that I wish would have happened, was I wish he would have taken a wider shot at the lure after missing it. He kept turning immediately after missing it without going out very far.
     But since that went so well, I bagged him on a tethered sparrow today. It also went very well. He hit the sparrow from a good distance away, and bound to it. He started working on it without any efforts to carry. He was quite nervous when I made in. Likely, it was because I did it too quickly and without giving him enough time to get comfortable on his catch. He did trade off of it very easily though. All in all, it was a very good flight.
     I'm trying to figure out what I'll do with him this week, because I have so much going on that I can't start hunting him yet, but I don't want to make him too comfortable on bagged game. I want to get him hunting ASAP, but I don't have the time yet. I'm thinking that I'll just split the week between lure flights and bagged game.
     Wish me luck! Happy Hunting!

Fecal Test

     Petrie was getting better for a while. There was less blood in his mutes and he was still acting like he was just fine. But this morning he started losing weight so freaking fast I though I must've messed up on his wight or something. He's losing twice as fast as he normally is. He nearly quit responding to me in the middle of training today, too. He was flying to my fist at 40 feet, dead on immediate. Then he just froze.
     I'm starting to get really, really worried. He was getting better, then he just tanked. I took a mute sample to the vet this afternoon, but there was barely any fecal matter to it. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think they'll be able to draw any conclusions from it at all. But it's already off, because the secretaries seemed confident enough that I couldn't talk myself out of it. I paid $40 for the test, but if it's inconclusive I don't get a refund. Doing this off of babysitting money means that wasting $40 is a huge deal.
     I'm starting to think it's Coccidiosis, but there are a billion other things it could be. It may be a bone shard in his guts, or a parasite, or I may have taken his weight reduction too far. I just really hope these results come back with some sort of conclusion. Preforably, a conclusion that will be quick and easy to deal with.
     Wish us luck!

Plot Twist

     Today was going really well. I took Petrie outside to fly for the first time and his responses were dead-on. So I backed up a bit, then backed up some more, and really soon, he was making 40 and 50 foot flights to my fist (first outdoor flight). Ya, I was over the moon.
     About halfway through, a juvenile red-tailed hawk flew over my yard and scared Petrie, not because he made any effort to scare him, but just because he was big and scary. Petrie's response time sank like a rock. I started beefing up his rewards, because I had somewhere to be and it would get the session through quicker. Also, because I needed to feed him up a bit today because I noticed a new tail feather growing in.
     We finished the session; I was very proud of it. First outdoor flight, 40-50 foot flights, immediate responses until the red tail showed up. It was awesome.
     Less than a foot away from the door on our way back in the house, Petrie drops a mute with a big blood blot in the middle.
     Crap.
     Petrie is sick. With what, I'm not sure yet. Coccidiosis? Parasites? Internal bleeding? Impacted crop? I have no idea. He shows no other signs of sickness aside from loosing weight kinda slowly, but it's just on the slow side of healthy.
     I rain check on my place-to-be and message my sponsor with the pictures. She messages a falconer friend with the pics. His best guess is internal bleeding from something pointy that he swallowed, like a splintered bone.
     His next couple of mutes look healthy, and it's so late at night that there is nothing I can do until morning. So I put him in the giant hood with some fresh newspaper and make it late to place-to-be a bit late.
     I come back home around 9:30 at night. His mutes while I was gone look healthy. I put him on the scale and immediately he drops a big mute over the side. It's got two little crimson spots in it. So do the next two mutes. At this point it's so late that I can't contact my sponsor, so instead I hop on here to record my thoughts before they're all lost.
     Wish us luck...

The first bloody mute he dropped.