Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

Wow. I had 9 pages to catch up on. Dang work gettin in the way of my fire time has gots to stop!

Well, took the day off yesterday and took my two dogs out pheasant hunting. One is my pride and joy. I call her my baby girl dog. Her hame is Rooster. (Hence my handle on the fire)

I can explain why she's named that if anyone is interested. She's a 5 year old pure bred pointing lab and my pup is an 8 month old 1/2 llewellin setter 1/2 choclate lab. He's a very good boy too and I credit Rooster for raising him with good mannerisms and smarts. I have not had any time this summer to work with that pup or train it for bird hunting but last weekend on opener he went for the first time and was amazing. Just a natural. I couldn't be more pleased with how he works a CRP field along with my baby girl dog. Just a beautiful thing to watch.

Anyway, I hit one spot and flushed nothing but hens so decided to move on to another spot. The dogs found a deep mud hole near the truck and decided to cool off in it so now they were going to have to ride in the back. I gave it several second thoughts because I know what young dogs like to do when riding in the back of trucks. Then I thought, well he won't jump out as long as Rooster stays in.

That way of thinking has cost me dearly. I was enroute to the spot I was going to hunt. The dogs were riding fine in the back. All of a sudden I hear a YELP YELP YELP. My pup must have caught a scent and dove over the side. I was going between 35 and 40 mph. He went ass over tea cups and crawled, wounded into the ditch. I got back to him and he was crying out in pain. I managed to get him into the back seat and headed straight to the vet.

He has a dislocated right rear hip and the joint is also fractured into pieces. The vet gave me 3 options. $1,100 surgery that may or may not work. Let it heal on its own and risk him losing the use of his leg and the arthritis that will inevitably set in or put him down. Well through lots of tears, we braced the kids for the worst last night. The wife and I went to work this morning with the sick feeling in our stomachs of what we were going to have to do.

I had a long meeting this morning at work so Karen was going to have to be the one that called the vet to let him know our decision.

All through that meeting I just knew when I got out that I was going to have an email that my little buddy was gone. Sick, sick feeling.

BUT she couldn't do it! She went and got him and he is home and comfortable on his pain meds. We are no where near out of the woods but he is alive and with us! And if he can't ever hunt again so be it! He deserves the chance to heal and be a part of our family and I'm so glad that he did not get the deadly needle!