Dog Gone
Phil Taunton
Friday, December 7, 2007
At the risk of alienating those of you who own and love short-tailed pointing dogs such as Brittanys and German shorthairs, and before the hair on your back bristles, I would like you to know I appreciate all breeds of hunting dogs.
“The tail doesn’t make the dog. What they have between their ears is what makes them the fine companions and bird finders they are,” my good friend, the late Doc Somers, would always say.
My father introduced me to English pointers when I was a kid. They have long tails. Besides the aesthetic value of seeing a pointing dog run with a pleasing gait and a high-cracking tail while searching coverts for elusive upland game birds, the dog’s upright tail is a valuable indicator of its location when birds are found.
Many times in the past, the dog’s tail was the only thing I could see above weeds and grasses, sticking out of brush piles and even ice jams when it pointed birds.
Dad and I always ran our dogs with bells on their collars and even listened for the rustle of leaves to help us keep track of them in their search for game. But when the dogs got out of sight and established point, bells are silent, the leaves still.
And sometimes, a staunch pointing dog is just plain hard to locate, even for handlers who like to keep their charges in close, and especially when hunting the tall bluestem grasses of CRP fields for pheasant. True to its nature, breeding and training, the pointing dog should hold point until the handler finds the dog and flushes the bird. Until the gunner arrives, the dog shouldn’t get greedy and creep and put the bird in the air out of gun range on its own.
My dog, Peach, once made a find right in front of me in the snow-covered woods along a river. All I heard was the sound of ice breaking. I never saw her establish point and just knew she had fallen through the ice.
A sense of urgency hurried me to the river with hopes of helping her out of the freezing water. An eerie silence and a hole in the ice were the only things awaiting me there.
With panic and anxiety, I raced up and down the river bank looking for her, blowing my whistle and calling her name: “Peach, Peach, here!”
No Peach, only the silence of the woods and the falling snow. Once again, I faced the much hated river. With a heavy heart and almost to the point of exhaustion, I made my way back to its edge and the foreboding hole in the ice. She was just right there, and I asked myself how could she have gotten into trouble, fallen through the ice and be gone so quick. I played the horrible scenario over and over in my mind as I followed my tracks in the snow back to the place where I had last seen her. My heart was pounding, about to leap out of my chest as I grieved. I had a gut-wrenching feeling my devoted friend and hunting partner was gone forever.
But your mind can play tricks on you.
Can you imagine the joy I felt when I found her on point? Her white- and liver-ticked body made her completely camouflaged in the snow covered woodland. I had passed just a few feet from her in my haste to make it to the river when I heard the ice break.
If she hadn’t turned her head slightly, as if to say, “Over here, dummy. What are you doing hollering and running around like an idiot for? The birds are right here,” I probably would have walked right past her again. That situation could possibly have been avoided if Peach had been wearing a blaze orange or iridescent lime-green reflector collar. But even they aren’t very helpful when hunting in tall grass or dense weedy cover.
Enter the world of electronics.
Old habits are sure hard to break. Until this instance, I never used a beeper collar — I didn’t like the sound of a fork lift driving through the woods, interfering with the sounds and serenity God gives us in the Great Outdoors. And I didn’t like the thought of needing to keep track of another gadget.
I welcome the security such a collar offers now after my ordeal with Peach and hearing of other dogs being lost and then found days later in abandoned wells, or never found at all. Such a collar takes the worry out of not being close, I guarantee you!
Training and beeper collars can prove a valuable tool for all dog owners if used right. I would imagine they are on more than one Christmas list this year and are such a worthy investment. A collar such as the Tri-tronics Sport Upland G3 provides both functions. Visit www.tritronics.com for more information.
I wonder if they have “beeping golf balls?” Maybe such a gift would get me back in good graces with Wifeus this holiday season. One can only hope…
Peach is gone now, but one thing’s for sure:
F Women will leave you,
Best of friends will desert you,
Even new pick-up trucks rust, won’t start and will too soon fall apart,
But the memory of a good dog lasts forever.
Peach, old girl, I miss you.
— In memory of NSTRA champion, Sheza Lucky Peach 6/26/86—7/22/98.