It was a feat, Joe. Many times before ice-up in December when our fathers had the dogs we youngsters would strip naked and swim for birds going nowhere on calm lakes. The three got-aways: one black came down, punched through and slid under ice that my dog couldn't get to and was too dangerous near a tide-rip for me; another bluebill got away in breaking water 200 yards from shore, diving as my dog reached it, and he would have drowned if I hadn't called him in, and the third, another black, was carried off by a bald eagle before Jake had finished his retrieves. All my Labs are named Jake. Needless to say, I'm a zealot about a dog's place in blind and field.