The Autumn Blues … Not!
When the air grows nippy and the number of daylight hours decreases, one result of the cooler temperatures and the loss of daylight is that the deciduous forests provide a riot of color a few short weeks before all that beauty disappears. For some folks, the visible changes in nature — falling leaves, barren trees — serve to remind of life’s impermanence, stirring up feelings of loss.
But for a group of people and their dogs, falling leaves are a signal that the season for which they have trained all spring and summer has arrived. The oaks turning bronze, the yellow aspen, purple chokecherries and red maples all in contrast to the deep green of the conifers mean it’s time to start doing what the dogs were meant to do — hunt.
While human hunters react to the feel and scent of autumn, so do their dogs. The wind, which for five months always had a warm, soft feel to it, even during thunderstorms, now has a sharp edge, a reminder that dogs and humans alike will soon hear “old winter’s song.” The smell of damp leaves on the ground tells the dogs that their time is, once again, finally here. No more fetching dummies, no more following scent trails, interesting though they might be but disappointing because at the end of the trail, there was no bird or critter. All that is in the past for at least the next couple of months or more, depending upon how long the seasons last or, in the northern tier states, the blizzards stay away.
Hunting puts a lilt in a gun-dog's gait.
I’ve known many hunting dogs — mine and those belonging to others, as well as observing many, many others during the 15 years I judged all three types of hunt tests. Some have been absolutely brilliant. A whole lot more have been good hunting dogs, and a few have been complete bozos whose witlessness was mitigated by their being lovable fools. I’ve also known a few people who deserved better dogs and many more dogs who deserved better owners. I’ve learned how easy it is to blame the dog for our own shortcomings as trainers and how shamelessly we take credit for things that the dog does — credit that rightly belongs to the dog. But mainly I’ve known just how damned good it feels to watch a really good gun dog do the job he or she loves, and not only do it well but sometimes do it spectacularly.
It’s especially satisfying to hunt with dogs when, without being given any sort of command, they know exactly what you want done. To watch dogs in the field flawlessly perform the actions for which they’ve been both bred and trained is the ultimate reward for a hunter. The dogs’ glory, when they’re successful, is so great that some of it spills over to shine onto their human hunting partner. A well-trained and talented dog is like an extension of a hunter’s identity, since the dog’s actions allow a hunter to hunt well and hunt responsibly. The bond between a hunter and his or her dog is unlike any other, built on years of trust and mutual respect. Together, they navigate through fields, forests and wetlands, relying on each other’s skills and instincts to succeed.
I have always been fascinated by hunting dogs’ focus and their assignment of priorities when they’re hunting. On numerous occasions, when my dogs have made an exceptional retrieve or found a wounded bird that was thought to be lost, I tried to make a fuss over them for their achievements. While they are ordinarily very happy for praise and pats, to a dog when they are hunting, their response to “good boy/girl” and pats and pets has been the same: body language and facial expressions that clearly communicate to all who have seen it, “Yeah, fine. Glad you liked it. Now, don’t bother me, I’m busy.”
Oh, their transports of joy when you tell them that they are the best ever to wear an orange collar — and mean it.
Some people who hunt without dogs say they aren’t needed to be a successful hunter. Certainly you can hunt without a dog, but to me and everyone I know who hunts with their dogs, it’s like Samuel Clemens’ definition of golf — “a good walk spoiled.”
In a lot of ways, I feel sorry for folks who have gun dogs and hounds but don’t hunt with them. They miss so much of the essence of their dogs. And that’s not all they miss. They miss the warmth of a retriever snuggled next to their legs in the predawn chill and the soft whining of the dog when he hears the wings of waterfowl on the move long before human ears have any inkling that there are birds on the wing. They won’t get to see dogs up on their toes searching the horizon for the birds that only they hear. Or to see their heads whip sharply upward to follow the flight of a flock of ducks or geese over the decoys. Or the frozen statue of their pointing breed locked on point, the only motion being the dog’s quivering nostrils. Or the windmilling tails and the sheer ecstasy of a spaniel homing in on a bird. Nor will they ever experience the spine-tingling baying of their hounds when they have a critter treed.
Folks who don’t hunt with their hounds will never experience the spine-tingling baying of their hounds when they have a critter treed.
Non-hunters with hunting dogs often try to tell me how animated their dogs are in the show ring. I have to bite my tongue to not say, “You want animation? You’ve never seen gun-dog or hound animation until you see one with a snoot full of bird or critter scent.”
I show my dogs and also hunt with them. I will flat out tell you that I wish I could get half the animation from my dogs in the show ring as I see when I merely pick up the shotgun. As it becomes clear to them that we’re going hunting, they quite literally perform a dance of delight for several minutes, like Charles Schultz’s Beagle Snoopy when Schroeder played something jazzy on his toy piano. Hunting puts a lilt in a gun dog’s or hound’s gait and frequently a swagger in its step. If the pro who handles my dogs in the show ring was allowed to dress in camouflage dotted with a little old, dried bird blood and carry a shotgun through the ring gate, we’d have so many group wins and Bests in Show that I’d be having the ribbons sewn into quilts and be running out of people to give them to.
I love all dogs, and most dogs seem to like me. Dogs always seem to instinctively know that I’m good for a pet, an ear, tail head or chin scratch and the kind of soft, albeit meaningless — unless I throw in a good girl/boy or two — words that all dogs seem to love. Given the opportunity, they seem drawn to me like some sort of magnetic force was present. I’ve even had law-enforcement and military dogs want to snuggle at our first meeting, to the complete surprise and dismay of their handlers.
However, I won’t deny that I like gun dogs the best. That’s because they like what I like, which is to poke around places where game birds are likely to be found, whether that’s the vast wheat fields of the Canadian prairies, a five-acre Minnesota marsh, the milo fields and conservation reserve program fields of Nebraska or — especially — the two shooting preserves where we frequently hunt because, unlike the wild areas, they know there will always be birds on the preserves.
In the brains of many breeds, there is an irresistible urge to chase down prey. The vermin-hunting terriers, for example, like chasing mice, rats and chipmunks. Many of the Sighthounds, Beagles, Bassets and PBGVs prefer rabbits and hares. The Coonhound breeds love hunting racoons, although some are excellent coyote hunters as well, and the sight of a cat seems to pump up the adrenalin in virtually all of them. Hunters have channeled this instinct in all the Sporting breeds, except the Lagotto Romagnolo, as well as some Standard and Miniature Poodles and Airedales, into the intense pursuit of game birds.
If the snow doesn’t get too deep, we keep hunting into December and January, switching to pheasants and chukar partridge once the water freezes, usually by November in our part of the country, and the ducks are gone. The grain stubble, corn stalks and frozen switchgrass crackle underfoot as we plod after the dog waiting for the telltale acceleration of his tail that says, “Hey, guys, get ready. There’s a bird in here.”
The prancing gait, a near rendition of the slow, high-stepping trot called a passage that horses perform in dressage, that the dog does as he returns with a bird when the retrieve has been something special is a memory to be tucked away, treasured, then brought out and snuggled with during the months ahead when the snow is too deep, the wind too strong and the cold too bitter for anything but snuggling. Or his transports of joy when you tell him that he’s the best guy ever to wear a collar and mean it.
The prancing gait that the dog does as he returns with a bird is a near rendition of the slow, high-stepping trot called a passage that horses perform in dressage. (Krista Smude, photo)
Hunting with your dogs teaches you things about your dogs and yourself that you likely would never have otherwise discovered. Each dog provides memorable experiences, sometimes beautiful and frequently humorous, that can help sustain a person through the inevitable dark times that life throws our way. A hunt without a dog is like the proverbial day without sunshine. Dog work is so integral to the hunt, at least in my view, that going on a dogless hunt would be akin to eating tofu instead of a tender, juicy, medium-rare steak.
I’ve shared countless days in the field with my dogs, all of them special but some so extraordinary that they linger in memory like an old love affair, a bittersweet reminder of yesterday — bitter because they’ve ended, but sweet because of what they were and what they meant. You’ll quickly find that, unlike your human colleagues, dogs almost always give you everything that they can as best they can give it. Come to think of it, to ask for more would not just be unreasonable, but downright churlish.