A Perpetual Pup

July, 2012

by Chris Robinson

A couple of dogs ago, a pup, sired by my thoroughly sensible, dignified and mature champion, group winner and senior hunter, came to live with me that recognized the perks of puppyhood. In fact, recognized them so well that he devoted his life to more or less being a professional pup.

The canine experts say that most dogs reach mental maturity somewhere in the two to three year-old span which may be as close to a rule as we can get with regard to expecting when the puppy goofiness will vanish and be replaced by a calm, serious, settled dog. But every once in awhile, you get a dog that defies that rule and, like Peter Pan, announces to the entire world through his or her actions, that “I won’t grow up…I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, not me!” Indeed while his body aged, mentally and spiritually, Mike remained a puppy at heart and refused to give up those joys until he drew his last breath. His personal glass was not just always half-full, it was in a state of constant overflow. I don’t think he ever had a bad moment, let alone a bad day and in his own goofy way, had an enormous amount of fun in his 12 years as did most of the people who came in contact with him. He was the ultimate example of not only making the best of what life handed him on a daily basis but turning it into a Saturday night blow-out. In fact, all of life was a party to Mike. He even managed to turn meals into playtime.

While he somehow figured out that being a puppy was a pretty good deal, he was very successful in both the show ring and the field on occasion but only when he had time, when nothing more important to him was going on like taking a swim or chasing a meadow vole or trying to entice any of a variety of wild critters to play with him. He certainly was a considerable source of entertainment for everyone—judges, both field and conformation, other handlers, galleries, other hunters, everyone, in fact, but the unfortunate individual handling him when he displayed his all-to-frequent propensity to be Bozo the Clown. As best I can figure, Mike saw the world as Never-never-land and everything in it was put there for his pleasure and amusement.

He was, to put it mildly, a trial. A big, handsome dude, he was strong as an ox and could be just as bull-headed. He was also very talented. I knew this because on those occasions when he chose to display his ability, he produced jaw-dropping performances. It is just that like many a gifted athlete that never lived up to his or her potential, his desire to remain a canine kid kept getting in the way of his occasional spectacular achievements. He had a rare talent for making the impossibly difficult look easy and the easy look so difficult as to be virtually impossible. He could do work that was so spectacular you wanted to give him a standing ovation and in an eye blink turn around on the very next retrieve to absolutely stink out the joint. One particular goose hunt that I vividly recall provided a perfect example of the Jekyll/Hyde factor that always lurked in Mike.

On this hunt, a goose came high over the decoys and while hit hard, it sailed a good quarter mile away before crumpling into some rough and very heavy cover. It was the kind of retrieve that would have given trouble to a champion hunting dog on its very best day. It appeared to be an exercise in futility but I sent Mike with only the faintest of hope that he’d somehow wind up in the same county as the goose. Instead, like a laser-guided smart bomb, he unerringly homed in on the area of the fall and quite literally stepped on the dead goose which he promptly scooped up and delivered flawlessly.

Not two minutes later, another goose was shot and fell no more than 30 yards away. It was the kind of easy retrieve you’d want for a six month-old pup on its first hunt. I sent Mike. Ten yards away from the bird, he seemingly forgot why he was out running in the wheat stubble and promptly went on a wild tour of the decoy spread in hot pursuit of a late season butterfly. In fact, he ran around and through the entire spread at least three times and several times during his romp nearly tripped over the bird but never did bother to stop and pick it up. Only Mike knew why he chose to go larking about the decoys chasing a butterfly instead of picking up the bird.

If it was possible, he was even more of a trial in hunt tests than he was when I was actually trying to hunt with him. There were times when judges went out of their way to compliment me on his sterling performance. There were other, more frequent occasions, when he picked up the bird, then ran off into the woods to play with it and hide from me or never got to the bird at all because he decided to swim into the decoys and push them around instead. Usually when the career puppy part of his personality took over, I would try to pick him up and get him out of the way for other competitors. Invariably at those times, he would demonstrate escape and evasion tactics so effective they should have been included in the curriculum at West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs.

He demonstrated no more maturity in the show ring than he did in the field. Oh, I grant you, he had his moments—a championship, some group placements, he even once beat his dad for a major win when the old man was ranked among the top ten in the breed in conformation—but on the whole, his show career was the same roller coaster ride as his work in the field. He refused to stack except on his own. Then, if you tried to alter the position he had chosen, he resisted, all the while clearly laughing at any attempt to move his 100 pounds of dead fit muscle and bone. It was an uneven struggle under the best circumstances and most always wound up with the handler on the losing end. He also refused to hold the stack position for more than a few seconds before he’d launch his imitation of Gene Kelly. I have no “glamour” photos of Mike because he was never willing to stand still long enough for one to be taken. While no judge ever said he lacked animation, plenty rightly accused him of lacking discipline and focus.

It was not that he was allowed to get away with his devil-may-care approach to life. When he got in trouble, which was often, he would get an apologetic look about him, like a convict appearing before the parole board, but it never lasted and frankly, it lacked sincerity. Five minutes after he had been braced against the bulkhead, he would almost invariably go back and repeat the offense just to see if it got the same sort of reaction from his long-suffering owner.

Mike was the kind of persistent puppy, even when he was an old dog, that made people want to roll around in the grass with him and when they had finished wrestling and playing with him, they would stand there laughing and play-growling with him. Then his eyes would take on a look that said he had something he wanted to whisper just to you, a sort of secret plan meant only for you and him. When you bent down to see what he had in mind, his eyes would say, “I’m going off to chase butterflies. Wanna come along?” and you’d be hard-pressed to not respond, “You got it, buddy. Let’s go!” Among other puppy activities he carried throughout his long life, he never lost his fascination with untying shoelaces.

­A long-time friend of mine and frequent hunting partner considered Mike to be a role model. He said he did his best to stay a kid, unconvinced of the virtues of maturity, even through combat operations in Vietnam and later in Koševo, a pair of marriages and family responsibilities, and I often wondered if that really was such a bad idea as a choice on how to live one’s life. But in dogs, after my experience with Mike, I came to the conclusion that a lingering bit of puppydom was far from being the end of the world although probably not to the lengths that Mike carried it. I guess I finally understood that there are a lot of things to love about dogs like Mike who radiate an irrepressible sense that life is one big joke meant to be enjoyed by everyone. For sure, he was the happiest dog I have ever known. Nothing ever seemed to bother him. He was constantly in trouble and he never seemed to care. There was also one other certainty about life with Mike. It was never boring!

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