clawmute
12-03-2007, 12:27 PM
I once had a beautiful English setter bird dog named Joe. He was mainly white with scattered spots and patches of black. Joe was skinny and cut up when he first came to our rural homestead, but before long he was healthy and full of energy. He and I had many marvelous days hunting together, roaming the Ouachita foothills along the Middle Fork. Even after the gentleman of game birds, the Bobwhite quail, began to go the way of the passenger pigeon, Joe and I would head out for an afternoons hunt. Late in winter we would weave our way through the tangle of cane brakes in the Saline river bottoms searching for the wily woodcock. When Joe got wind of one he would cast back and forth until he began to narrow down its whereabouts.
As Joe began to close in on his long billed quarry he would begin to creep, all the while getting lower and lower. When he reached the point that seemed close enough he would just lie down, head and nose lying between his front paws. He would look at me out of the corner of his eyes as if to say “Well, I’ve done my part, now you do yours”. I would slip off the safety of the Browning over-under twenty gauge, making sure the lower barrel was first, and then ease up until the little long beaked rocket erupted straight up. Their manner of flight in the dense cane brakes was to go straight up until they reached the top of the canes. They would then hit second gear and head out horizontally double clutching for high.
I found that if I could catch them in that micro second it took to change directions from vertical to horizontal I had a fair chance of dropping the bird. Joe and I collected many a brace of the dark fleshed, brown feathered missiles. Joe loved to be out in the fields or woods doing anything. It would break his heart when I told him “stay home”. In those days I hunted deer across the Middle Fork and Joe was not allowed to go with me. Sometimes I would be a quarter mile away on a ridge or in a hollow and could hear him howling his grief to the heavens and to anyone else that would listen.
I would sometimes walk the quarter mile driveway to get the mail and make him stay at the top of the hill. He never moved. When I returned and was twenty feet or so away, I would stop and stand there. Then at “Come here boy!” he would be all over me jumping up with a big doggie smile on his face. If there happened to be a water bucket around, and if it had water in it at all Joe would be in it. I don’t mean just drinking it, he would place all four feet in and do his best to squiggle down into it.
Joe and I went out one day and he never returned. Many were the times when my eyes would tear up as I remembered our wonderful days afield. One day about two years later I was hunting through a very dense saw brier thicket and saw something that gave me a start. It looked like a dog’s skeleton. It was indeed the skeleton of a dog, and a weather worn collar still draped around the bleached white neck bones.
Sure enough, upon examination I saw that it was my dog collar with my name and address stamped clearly on it. Joe was finally found. His skeleton was standing in an upright position with tail sticking straight out and one front leg raised slightly just as he always did on point. Faithful Joe had died on point and remained there until death and decay set in. I didn’t move him or bury him. I just stroked his back bone a few times and said “goodbye old fella”. Joe is still standing there today pointing into eternity, a tribute to all faithful dogs.
I once also had a rooster named Ernie that treed squirrels. He didn't exactly point, just sort of leaned forward a little, repeatedly twitching his head to indicate direction. His eyes were always cut toward me to show that Ernie was in earnest. He wouldn't fetch the ones I shot though, so I don't think he was the world's greatest treeing rooster. But then, that’s another story.
(PS, a good part of this is true. I’ll let you figure out which part.)
THE END
As Joe began to close in on his long billed quarry he would begin to creep, all the while getting lower and lower. When he reached the point that seemed close enough he would just lie down, head and nose lying between his front paws. He would look at me out of the corner of his eyes as if to say “Well, I’ve done my part, now you do yours”. I would slip off the safety of the Browning over-under twenty gauge, making sure the lower barrel was first, and then ease up until the little long beaked rocket erupted straight up. Their manner of flight in the dense cane brakes was to go straight up until they reached the top of the canes. They would then hit second gear and head out horizontally double clutching for high.
I found that if I could catch them in that micro second it took to change directions from vertical to horizontal I had a fair chance of dropping the bird. Joe and I collected many a brace of the dark fleshed, brown feathered missiles. Joe loved to be out in the fields or woods doing anything. It would break his heart when I told him “stay home”. In those days I hunted deer across the Middle Fork and Joe was not allowed to go with me. Sometimes I would be a quarter mile away on a ridge or in a hollow and could hear him howling his grief to the heavens and to anyone else that would listen.
I would sometimes walk the quarter mile driveway to get the mail and make him stay at the top of the hill. He never moved. When I returned and was twenty feet or so away, I would stop and stand there. Then at “Come here boy!” he would be all over me jumping up with a big doggie smile on his face. If there happened to be a water bucket around, and if it had water in it at all Joe would be in it. I don’t mean just drinking it, he would place all four feet in and do his best to squiggle down into it.
Joe and I went out one day and he never returned. Many were the times when my eyes would tear up as I remembered our wonderful days afield. One day about two years later I was hunting through a very dense saw brier thicket and saw something that gave me a start. It looked like a dog’s skeleton. It was indeed the skeleton of a dog, and a weather worn collar still draped around the bleached white neck bones.
Sure enough, upon examination I saw that it was my dog collar with my name and address stamped clearly on it. Joe was finally found. His skeleton was standing in an upright position with tail sticking straight out and one front leg raised slightly just as he always did on point. Faithful Joe had died on point and remained there until death and decay set in. I didn’t move him or bury him. I just stroked his back bone a few times and said “goodbye old fella”. Joe is still standing there today pointing into eternity, a tribute to all faithful dogs.
I once also had a rooster named Ernie that treed squirrels. He didn't exactly point, just sort of leaned forward a little, repeatedly twitching his head to indicate direction. His eyes were always cut toward me to show that Ernie was in earnest. He wouldn't fetch the ones I shot though, so I don't think he was the world's greatest treeing rooster. But then, that’s another story.
(PS, a good part of this is true. I’ll let you figure out which part.)
THE END