Back in the good old days of SW KS pheasant hunting I had a mammoth sized chocolate lab.
Dad had run over her when she was a pup so she had bad hips from the get go. But that meant she was slow and stuck right by my side. Until she got wind of a bird close and she’d give me that look like “come on boss” and start on the trail at a wallowing lope. She’d bull through whatever thick thorny mess of cover and root them out to put them up. The shooting was usually easy as they flushed close, nothing as satisfying as pillow casing a big rooster with an ounce and a quarter of 6s at 12 yards. Cripples she was slow but she’d stick with it and run them to ground, didn’t lose many when she was around.
More than one time a guy asked if I was really bringing that old dog at the start of the day. At the end of the day they’d be wanting to buy one just like her. I could take her and hunt slow like we were sneaking and stalking and not walk past birds and kill most of the ones we put up. With her staying so close and us being pretty quiet we didn’t put many up wild out of range either.
End of the day we’d clean birds on the tailgate and she’d crush and gnaw the elbows off all the wings we cut off. Then eat all the guts out of every bird as we cleaned them. Big old stinking bloody filthy dog that I had to lift into and out of the truck because of her hips. I always snuck her into the motel room and gave her a couple aspirin in a slice of cheese at bedtime. Good times.
