Highly Unusual Retrieves

by Chris Robinson

Hunting dogs can bring back some pretty strange things on occasion. Perhaps that’s not unusual for dogs bred and trained to do things that, for the most part, go against their nature. Such things as flushing birds rather than silently stalking, trapping, killing and eating them or picking up birds, sometimes made fairly bloody by a too close shot, and delivering them un- damaged to a hunter aren’t what a dog’s natural instincts tell them to do. Since trained dogs consistently perform these jobs, in vio- lation of their most basic desires, it’s necessary to cut them some slack when what they bring back is more than just a bit odd.

A sizeable part of the “why” these dogs bring back unusual objects seems to stem from the reluctance of some to give up a search for downed birds without getting the “prize” at the end of the search. Good retrievers in all hunting breeds can be un- believably persistent, unwilling to leave an area where they can’t find a bird that they think is down even when they have thor- oughly searched that area. Some are so compulsive about com- pleting a retrieve that when frustrated in their efforts to find the bird, will start looking for an alternative target and that’s when they deliver some things that are truly bizarre or, in some cases, border on the eerie.

Duke, one of my Ch/SH dogs, had a crippled duck dive on him and it never came up again, at least not where either the dog or I could see it. He swam around in the area for a long time hoping that the bird would resurface, a forlorn hope, as it turned out. But, he didn’t want to come back “empty-mouthed” so to speak. On the way back, when I finally convinced him to give up the search– never an easy task with a Chesapeake–he happened upon a tur- tle sunning itself on a rock. So, he picked up the turtle and brought that back.

On another occasion, he was off picking up a duck for one of my hunting partners and did not see any part of a fall on a duck I shot. But, no matter, he was running successfully at the senior hunter level and was pretty good about being handled on a blind retrieve. However, on this occasion, I just could not get him to stay on line to where I thought the bird was. Finally, in desperation as well as in violation of all my personal rules, I picked up a stick and threw it on the proper line to the bird. The splash got the dog back on line and he swam into the reeds in the general area of where I’d seen the bird fall. After a fairly long hunt, in which I couldn’t help him because I couldn’t see either the dog or the bird, he emerged with the duck, brought it back and delivered it to hand. Before I could so much as say “Good boy,” he jumped back in the water, swam back out, picked up the stick, brought it back and dropped it at my feet.

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Posted by Alex on Oct 20 2017. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.