Why Hunt With A Dog?
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By Chris Robinson
I’ve been a hunter since the state where I live decreed that I was old enough to take the Department of Natural Resources’ firearms safety instruction and thus old enough to be trusted with a firearm. The fact that I was a graduate of one of the first firearms safety courses that the state offered says that I’ve been a hunter for way more years than I care to count. During that time, I’ve hunted with lots of different dogs, some memorable for a variety of reasons on days that were glorious in their splendor and on others when any sensible person would have been sitting by a roaring fire with a good book in hand and a glass filled with some fine adult beverage at their elbow.
My personal breeds of choice over the years have been Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and, until arthritic knees followed by a knee replacement that was just semi-successful limited my upland bird hunting to “posting”, Brittanies. But, I have also hunted over many other breeds belonging to others and the truth is that I’ve enjoyed all of them. Some, to be perfectly candid, I’ve enjoyed because they were so quirky or so abysmally trained or their owners were so colorful or so obnoxious that I knew they’d provide “fodder” for future stories that I’d write.
My current Chesapeake, Bo, or to use his “fancy” name, Ch. Sprucegrove’s Rippling Waters Pro Bono SH, loves to hunt and I love the joy that hunting gives him. Yes, show dogs can hunt and a lot of them are very good at that job. I’ve often wished that I was as good a shooter as my show champions have been hunters. Way more often than I’d like, they’ve heard the words “No bird.” What’s worse, when I or my hunting partners miss, especially when we’re hunting pheasants in heavy cover such as sorghum, switchgrass or corn, they’ve all given us “the look,” the one that says, “Hey, you just made me do a lot of hard work for nothing!” Bo, in particular, makes no bones about the fact that when he does his job, he expects the payment of a bird for him to fetch. He’s a bit more forgiving when we’re hunting waterfowl because then all he has to do is make the retrieve but even there, his patience has limits. If there are too many missed birds in a row, he’ll lay down with his “Let me know if you ever hit one” look.
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Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=218084
Posted by Jane Alston-Myers
on Dec 26 2021. Filed under Current Articles, Featured.
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