Hunting Dogs and a Motel
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by Chris Robinson
Motels may not have been created for hunting dogs but you’d be hard pressed to convince mine this is true. If you were to ask them whether they wanted to sleep in their crates in the back of the truck, even though the crates were cushioned with memory foam, or go inside and do what people do–brag about the shots they made that day, moan about arthritic knees and other aching body parts, watch the weather channel–there isn’t much question which option the dogs would select. Obviously the motel room is infinitely better than any crate, no matter how many comfortable amenities it might contain, and I suspect this is not just true of sporting dogs but virtually any breed except possibly the sled dog breeds that would find even the chilliest motel room unbearably hot. I mean the motel has a big soft bed in a comfortably heated room with a huge white drinking bowl that’s far nicer than any plastic bucket; and they get to sleep with something other than another dog for company.
Actually a dry, burr-free dog makes a good sleep buddy. There’s something comforting about a dog nestled close to you. It’s a lot like a child with a favorite blanket. A dog snuggled next to you provides such a good, pain-reliving sedative, you may only need two aspirin to ease your aching joints enough to allow you to sleep instead of the maximum dose of ibuprofen.
Every now and then, you will run into a motel owner who feels the same way about dogs in the room as you do. I’ve actually had motel clerks in the Midwest and western states and the prairie provinces of Canada ask me if the dogs would vouch for my character as they said they’d never had to evict a drunk and disorderly dog in the middle of the night nor had they ever had a dog skip town without paying their motel bill. They also never had a dog steal towels, bed clothes or even the pictures off the wall. Of course, on the other hand, how many times do people poop on the rug at 0200 hrs?
While most motel nights are quiet, as both the dogs and the hunters are usually too tired to cause any sort of trouble, there have been times I’d certainly rather forget but which seem to have become an unerasable file in my personal, random access memory. On one occasion, I was leading three dogs down a motel hallway when the biggest and most rambunctious of the trio slipped his collar and raced toward my room. Halfway there, he spotted a partially open doorway and as smart as most dogs are, they haven’t yet learned how to read room numbers. Anyway, he shoved the door open and raced into the bathroom to get water from the porcelain oasis. A guy was siting on the bed talking on the phone and apparently was unaware that an already hard day was about to get a whole lot more difficult. For, about the time I reached the open door, the dog completed his water stop and exited the bathroom but not before slopping enough water on the floor to cause most people to wonder what, exactly, is a cubit. (Ed. Note: For those readers who were not raised in a Judeo-Christian atmosphere and thus might be unfamiliar with cubits as a measurement, see the Biblical Book of Genesis, Chapters 6-9 or listen to Bill Cosby’s “Noah” comedy routine.) But, instead of responding to my hissed “come,” being a sociable fellow, he ran over to the bed, jumped up on it and proceeded to demonstrate his affection for the human race by covering the unfortunate man with a series of slimy, dog slobber kisses. When I finally managed to get the collar back on the dog and started dragging him out of the room, all the while apologizing profusely to the room occupant for the dog’s fondness for all people, the guy, bless his heart, smiled and said, “Forget it. Actually, it’s the only love I’ve had all day.”
Then there was the time I led two dogs down a motel corridor after a late-in-the-season hunt on a snowy, brutally cold night. The clerk had given me the fisheye when I checked in and there was a “no pets” sign at the desk but it was wicked outside and there was no way the dogs were spending the night in the back of a freezing cold truck. The dogs and I had almost dragged our respective exhausted tails to the room when a burly guy, who epitomized motel security guards everywhere, suddenly came around a corner and eyed me and then the dogs. It was very late on a miserable night; I was cold, wet, tired and hungry and the dogs were in the same condition and the last thing we needed was to have to look for a different motel. I gave the guy a tentative smile and waited for the inevitable challenge. But, he looked at me again and at the dogs. Then, without comment, he continued on his way but as he passed me he said sotto voce out of the corner of his mouth, “Beautiful dogs. Be sure to take them out in the morning before seven so the management doesn’t see them.”
Most dogs understand that their presence in motel rooms, even those that welcome dogs, is best kept a secret and they’ll be quiet. But one of my dogs had the unfortunate habit of greeting the dawn of each new day, whether we were at home or on the road, by whining and if I failed to respond would escalate his demand to go out with barks that would increase in decibels until they echoed through the motel like the report of a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun (“ma deuce”) on full auto. As a result, I learned very quickly on road trips to make sure the drapes were fully drawn on the motel room windows and I always carried several safety pins to fasten the drapes together to insure that no light leaked in or the dog and I would be out prowling around in the chilly half-light of dawn and that, even with a dog in tow, can attract unwelcome attention from police officers demanding to know whatinhell you are doing in that area at that time of the day. The first time that happened, I was more than slightly nonplussed and just a bit cranky both at having to be up and freezing that early in the morning and at the cop’s belligerent tone as to me, at least, it was pretty obvious what I was doing, so my reply was “Whatinhell does it look like I’m doing?” Turns out it was unwise to answer the cop’s question with a question as he took considerable umbrage at my response. Let’s just say that for several minutes, it looked like I was going to need a lawyer as I found myself abruptly ordered over to his squad car and patted down while several possible charges, none of which had any basis in the fact of what I was actually doing, were hurled in my direction by the irate officer as I struggled to keep the dog, who was by now nearly as agitated as the cop, under control. Needless to say the experience taught me to not be out walking around in that particular city with or without a dog at that time of day and a few safety pins to keep the dawn at bay seemed like pretty cheap insurance.
On another occasion, I asked the waitress in a restaurant if the chef might have just a bit of meat juice to entice tired dogs to eat kibble. She responded to the request by bringing a container of boeuf au jus from the prime rib on the menu. Now anyone whose brain was not totally numbed by fatigue would suspect that too much of that rich sauce would rocket through a dog’s digestive system with roughly the same amount of thrust as the Saturn V that launched NASA’s Apollo moon missions. But, exhaustion seriously impairs judgment and I dumped the beef juice on the food which the dogs gobbled down like they hadn’t been fed for a week.
In the absolute depths of the night, the scent of dog deposits penetrated my olfactory system and dragged me back to consciousness. When I turned on the light, I found two piles neatly arranged at the foot of the bed. Fogged by the methane emanating from the piles, instead of grabbing an easily cleaned, stainless steel dog dish to scoop up the mess, my brain locked on to the motel ice bucket instead, something you may want to keep in mind the next time you use the ice bucket to chill a martini. But, at least I managed to not walk through the mess as I stumbled around in the middle of the night.
The same could not be said for one of my hunting partners. He got up to answer nature’s call sometime after zero dark thirty on a Canadian duck hunting trip and his bare feet squished through the sludge of partially digested dog food left on the carpet by a dog with an upset stomach. Actually, the mess was not so much on the carpet as on his underwear which the dog had somehow managed to pull off the clothes bench at the foot of the bed. While the mess on his skivvies made cleanup considerably easier, he noted that neither the barefoot sensation of wading through the upchuck or the fact that he was washing underwear in the motel bathroom sink at 3 a.m. could possibly be classified as a pleasant experience.
Then there was also the time that I mistakenly turned the motel thermostat up instead of down when I went to bed. In the middle of the night, I awoke to a pair of dogs panting and drooling on my face. Instead of being a comfortable-for-sleeping 60 degrees in the room, it was about 95. I got up, turned the heat down and then decided I better take the dogs out to give them both a chance to empty out and to cool down. So, I pulled on a pair of pants and mocassins but no jacket before I stepped out into the frosty night with the dogs. But, the room had been like a sauna and my body had so much retained heat from the experience that the chilly air was very comfortable…for a couple of minutes.
One of my dogs at that time seemed to possess unlimited bladder storage capacity but when he did finally go, it was like waiting for the Johnstown Flood to subside. As he stood conducting an interminable pee, I got colder and colder, shifting from one unstockinged foot to another as my hands, fingers and arms rapidly progressed to total numbness. I pleaded, “For godsakes Bobby get done,” to no avail as the endless stream continued to water the ash tree he had chosen as his personal latrine. Finally, when I was on the edge of hypothermia, the dog’s bladder gauge reached “E” but as I turned gratefully to the motel door, I discovered, to my frozen horror, that sometime during that never-ending tinkle, even though I thought it was propped open, the door had managed to shut. And, you guessed it, the key was on the dressing table inside the room. It was not one of my finer moments.
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Posted by ralbee
on Jun 19 2015. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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