Dog Follies

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220 – July, 2024

By Chris Robinson

Most fairy tales and many fables begin with the words “Once upon a time.” While these words might be appropriate to begin the following stories, unusual though they may be, there’s nothing “fairy tale-ish” about them. They are true and–in at least one case–was the source of considerable embarrassment for the dog’s owner. Like the time a Labrador Retriever was guilty of “breaking” during a junior hunt test and the break was caused by a sonic boom.

His owner explains. “We live and train in an area that is close to a military airbase where a fighter wing is based which means that once in awhile a pilot will exceed MACH 1 and we’ll experience a sonic boom. Now my Lab at the time was just a pup but he was already quite a big fellow as he was close to 100 pounds and was only a year old. On the other hand, I’m not a big woman. I don’t think I’ve ever weighed more than 120 pounds. So, we were always pretty evenly matched, physically.

“We were walking up to the line on the junior land series so Baxter was still on a leash. I had the leash looped around my wrist as he tended to try to forge more than a bit walking to the line and I wanted to be sure I maintained control. As the gunners were taking the flyer bird out for Bax, as luck would have it, another bird escaped from the bird box. At that exact same instant, some airborne cowboy punched through MACH 1 not far from the test grounds. The odds against those two things happening simultaneously must be astronomic but it did occur and, unfortunately, there were numerous witnesses. I say unfortunately because Bax had a very high level of prey drive–his trainer said he was “bird crazy” but I’m trying to be more charitable–and he took off after the escaping bird towing me.

Click here to read the complete article
220 – July, 2024

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