There’s hardly a man who can’t be improved by a good dog.
I guess that if I were totally honest (and that’s not a subject that any writer should trifle with), I would have to admit that in my heart of hearts I’ve always been something of an optimist. I’ve been accused of it occasionally for as long as I can remember. Any man with three ex-wives, a girlfriend, multiple bypasses, and a couple of mortgages would have to be just to get up in the morning.
If I were to tread upon the perilous ground of absolute truth again, I’d also admit that I do approach every day with a positive attitude and look for the best to happen — and sometimes it actually does. Nonetheless, my latest folly probably stretches the absolute limits of optimism. Somewhere under the heading of sheer frivolous, careless, serendipitous, Pollyannafied, boneheaded optimism, there is a picture of an old man with a puppy. And it’s me.
My late, long-time best friend was the redoubtable Sam, a big, headstrong liver-and-white pointer with an attitude of absolute indomitability. At his peak, he pushed 70 pounds of tall, lean, hard-running, bird-finding machine. He’d gladly hunt all day without a whimper and still want to debate the point when sundown came and I decided it was quittin’ time.
Sam was a good’n, but became a working dog only through liberal applications of electricity. He spent most of his life and meager mental capacity trying to figure out how to get loose from the feeble-minded human that enslaved him so he could hunt for himself whenever and wherever and however he saw fit.
Despite his hard-headed nature, we eventually formed a loose alliance and managed to take our fair share of birds over the years. He found birds with the best of ’em and grew into a flawless retriever, despite his attitude. In his whole career, I can recall only two birds that were killed over him that he didn’t retrieve.
Then, one snowy winter’s night when Sam was 15, I put him out to do his business. He wandered over to the neighbors and visited for a while. Then, according to his custom, he pottered down to the spring creek that runs by their house to get a drink. And laid down and died.
At the time, I vowed that I wouldn’t get another dog. Life’s thread had grown too short, the grief too deep, and the task too burdensome, I reasoned. And I knew for certain that I would never find another dog like Sam. A dog like that comes along only once in lifetime.
I kept the vow for three years, too. I travel a lot, and so I hunted with guides who had kennels full of dogs they wanted to show off. I hunted with old buddies and mooched off new friends who had the good fortune to be owned by dogs. I even tried going it alone and hunted without a dog. I can’t complain of bad times, because any day spent in the field or the grouse woods with a shotgun is a good day. On the other hand, there was something missing. And in my heart, I knew what.
All the collars and leashes and whistles that I’d accumulated had no purpose. They were no longer favored tools but mere decorations that hung lifelessly on the vacant door handles of my life. With no dog to hang it on, Sam’s old e-collar languished on a shelf in my boot closet. Even the regal old Purdey seemed to take on an air of melancholy as it stood unclaimed in the kitchen corner, while the quail that called at sundown from the far woodline of my lower 40 grew careless for want of an old man with a gun and dog to roust them out and force them to fly into the safety of the swamp.
Not all of my dogs lived in the house. Only the great ones. Still, the silence grew palpable, and with time my home began to resemble magazine photographs I’ve seen of spotless homes that had no dog in residence. No muddy dog prints wandered across the kitchen floor. No dog bowls or dog beds blocked my passage, and no half-chewed remnants of old hunting boots cluttered the floor. No dog-hair trolls lurked in the hallway, waiting to ambush the unwary.
I found that having an evening toddy wasn’t nearly as enjoyable without a dog to debate philosophy with, and I discovered to my chagrin that even howling at the moon wasn’t nearly as satisfying when I had to do it alone. I began to put off gun cleaning because no one sat patiently at my feet and admired my expertise. Then one day I realized that, at least superficially, I had taken on a façade of respectability, and I knew that something had to change. The carefully cultivated reputation that I’d garnered over the course of a long and colorful life was in danger of complete and total ruination!
Fortunately, about that time I began getting twice-a-day phone calls from my bird-hunting buddy Mike Altizer, regaling the virtues of a certain chocolate Lab puppy that had been born into the kennel of his brother Alan. Smart, perceptive, and eager to please at the tender age of eight weeks, she was a veritable wunderkind. According to my pal, she might even be the “golden child” of all Labs.
Of course, I took it with a grain of salt. But I hadn’t seen Mike in a while and I always enjoy looking at puppies, so I threw caution to the wind and made the journey to Watauga, Tennessee, for the weekend.
Apparently word of the birth had spread far and wide, for many suitors had come to see her. Great sums of money had been laid at Alan’s feet. Wise men had come bearing gifts. Unknown to me, Mike had made Alan promise to hold her until I saw her, and, luckily, when I arrived she took one look and picked me from the litter. She obviously knew unfulfilled potential when she saw it.
When I began writing this, Coco was just a pup. She’s grown considerably now and has proved to be all that I could have hoped. She knows doves and ducks and quail and grouse and soon will be introduced to pheasant. She lives for only two purposes — to fetch birds and to please me. She does both quite well and approaches her tasks with an attitude of irrepressible, infectious, manic glee. She has become my constant shadow and friend and hunting companion, and she still sleeps on the foot of my bed, just as she did on the evening that I brought her home. I think that I’m better for having her because a dog, like a woman, can bring out the very best or worst in a man.
In the end, I guess that a little optimism never hurt anybody. And if there is any moral to this little tale, it’s that there’s hardly a man who can’t be improved by a good dog, and that a man with a gun but no dog just hasn’t reached his potential.
From the 2014 Guns & Hunting issue of Sporting Classics.
Let legendary outdoor writer and editor Vin Sparano (Outdoor Life Magazine) take you into the great outdoors with stories about hunters, their dogs and the upland game and waterfowl they hunt. Hunters will experience all the emotion they do in the outdoors in the comfort of their easy chair: the smell of an autumn forest, the friendship of a trusted hunting dog, the joy of the hunt, the satisfaction of a fine meal and more. Buy Now
