I've owned a lot of dogs who were strictly JV material, or who, under more strict coaching, wouldn't even suit up. I guess that anyone who spends much time messing around with pointers, setters, spaniels, and retrievers is going to get his share of the dull, the lazy, the ones that won't and the ones that can't.
As we all know, the most selective of breeding only creates so many good ones--the rest are scattered around for us optimists who probably believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
But suppose it was the other way around: setters who would only do their best for fine wingshots; retrievers who wouldn't give the time of day to a person who couldn't fling a training dummy a minimum of 50 yards; or hounds who demanded a man with superior night vision before they'd run a raccoon.
If the dogs did the choosing, how many of us would be sitting in front of the kennel TV? I can imagine a quail dog saying, "Well, Hilly has good form and looks like he can go all day but he can't hit anything after he's walked six or seven miles, and you put him into tough cover anytime and you're just wasting a perfectly good point!"
Or a retriever remarking, "Old Gene always seems to get in the blind about half an hour too late so we miss the good early flights and he won't sit out there is it's cold for the afternoon flights. And I'd like to trade him for one of those Rudy Etchens or Bubba Woods that can hit something. I'm getting damn tired of him sending me out for a bird that's healthier than I am!"
If I were working for a dog, there's no doubt he would cut down on my cocktails, cheese and crackers, the odd morsel of cherry pie, and make me run along at the end of a check cord. I'd be slapped with a newspaper for chewing tobacco and have worse done for missing easy straightaways. I'd be restricted to just one down vest in a duck blind in an effort to improve my ability to swing through a downwind broadbill. Even my little brandy flask would go. I'd be forced to watch Ricky Pope gun woodcock and grouse while I was choke-collared and leashed so I wouldn't spoil his shooting.
No doubt a dog is as entitled to a good owner as the other way around. One friend of mine would be forced to carry about 10 pounds of whistles around his neck because he never knows when not to use one. Another ought to have to wear lead boots because he always pushes a dog too fast in heavy cover. And how would you handle the guy who always makes all the dogs "hunt dead" when everyone knows that the few quail he takes home are accidents or someone else's birds?
Or how would you break the guy who hunts one dog all day in the warm weather and never thinks about bringing him a drink of water, or the one who likes to "sting" a dog with No. 9's when he happens to think he's running just a little wide?
What would you do with the man who likes to show you how tough he is by sending a dog out in a cold and heavy chop for a wing-tipped goose when he ought to use an extra shell or so and his outboard motor instead?
Just imagine what an intelligent dog would do if he were allowed to use a shock collar. No doubt he'd teach some of us how to walk in on a point properly instead of hesitantly shuffling around, and it might not be a bad way of curing the dimwits who think nothing of taking every 70-yard duck shot they can and then not making any effort to mark the wounded sailers that they scratch down every so often.
It's not too hard to train a human to open a door when you bark to go out, but it's often something else when it comes to using flea powder and clean kennel bedding. And while humans are generally pretty understanding about needing to play once in a while, why can't they get it through their thick heads that a dog, who doesn't wear shoes, finds it hard to tell an old one that ought to be chewed from a new one that shouldn't.
It seems that people are basically inconsistent and confusing; they take an old brown chair that you like to curl up in and cover it all yellow and won't let you come near it. Do they think yellow is bad for a dog, or what? And while most dogs are pretty good about letting humans pet them and scratch their necks, others think it's undignified or demeaning--not the right thing in a decent working relationship.
Then there's that old question about people thinking a dog ought to be "tough." To a lot of them, "tough" means the same thing as cold, uncomfortable, poorly fed, and ill-housed. Others think it means a lot of shouting and whipping--as if being relatively small and defenseless isn't enough to show who's who. Dogs want to like the people they're with; it always makes for a better partnership. But it doesn't always work out that way, through gaps in communication and a lack of effort understanding each other's needs and wants.
Naturally a dog wants a good shot, but he can appreciate why a man can't get out everyday and practice and that we all have our ups and downs. There's even a saying amongst dogs that "the sun don't shine on the same man's rear end every day." It's hard for a dog to figure out a man who wants a companion to always be perfect, but does so little to improve himself in the field. If a duck hunter makes such a fuss about a retriever getting caught up in a decoy line every so often, why doesn't he lay them out with a little room between them once in a while? Or if he can see you're working a running bird that only stops for a second or so, why doesn't he move up a little faster instead of blaming you for flushing one out of range? There's no law against a man having some bird sense, too.
And wind! You'd think that only one gunner in a hundred even knew that there was such a thing. It's more often than not a different thing on the ground than it is way up in the air. But when a man gets it into his head to hunt a cover so that he ends up no more than ten feet from the car--no matter what the wind says about how to hunt it--your average dog is in for a bad day. And this is usually the same guy who won't even give you half a sandwich after you've spent the whole morning trying your best to keep him from looking like a fool.
The guy who wants every bird retrieved just so ought to mix it up with a big cock pheasant in the briers once a year so he'll remember what can go on, or try to get a handle on a Canada goose that's more mad than hurt. Most dogs don't really mind retrieving if they can get some common sense into an owner's head. You spend 15 minutes or so in ice water, playing hide-and-seek with a diving black duck, and see how fussy you are about where you take a hold!
Well, a dog could go on and on about our faults. Books could be written about what a pointing dog or a retriever expects, but the only ones who'd read them are those who already seem to know. That's the way things are. But good, bad, or indifferent, every dog ought to have a man as a hunting partner. Most of the fun is seeing him all tangled up in honeysuckle on a covey rise or trying to figure out where to set his coffee cup when a bunch of mallards appear out of nowhere. Only a man is so appreciative of a little devotion; he'll put himself through almost anything for a good dog--and even if the dog isn't exactly the talk of the gun club, the right man will brag him up and make him feel like he's a million-dollar, once-in-a-lifetime pal.
There's another old saying that "every dog deserves at least one good man." Well, here's one that knows he's not the kind a dog would brag on too heavy, but I'm loyal, faithful, and loving, and hope it isn't too much to ask that my dog looks the other way every once in a while.
I've got an old brown chair that's just right to curl up in and, if my back's not bothering me, I love to get down on the floor and play. All I need is someone to take me out when the woodcock flights are in (or we hope they are), or to sit with me in a duck blind and help scan the skies. I'll always have a sandwich for you in my paper bag, a helping hand, and a kind word. We'll be a team, you and I...and no matter what, I'll see you sitting in that old brown chair forever.
This story originally appeared in Tears & Laughter: A Couple of Dozen Dog Stories by Gene Hill.
Copyright (c) 1981 Gene Hill. All rights reserved.
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