Kelly, the worldly wise Brittany, was backing Murphy's point but he had the look of a small boy lying in wait with a snowball. Kelly was rolling his eyes, turning his head a little to look at me, twitching his tail involuntarily, and if dogs can giggle, Kelly was giggling.
Murphy, all 55-pound English pointer of him, was rigid in a picture point which made bedraggled little Kelly look shabby indeed standing back a respectful distance with cockleburs matted in his brindle hair and wet mud up to his belly. I hurried up as fast as I could with half-frozen mud weighting my boots. It was a place for Hungarian partridge all right, a strand of dead weeds next to a western irrigation ditch, yet there was something about Kelly's attitude that made me hurry.
But I was too late and I still think Kelly said something in dog talk to Murphy because Murphy broke his point and lunged forward. Then came the surprised yelps I had feared and Murphy emerged looking like an overgrown wirehaired terrier with porcupine quills sticking in all directions from his face.
Here I was, I thought, with two dogs disabled by quills and miles from the truck, but I should have known better. Although Kelly had appeared to take enthusiastic part in the charge he was now sitting 50 yards away, quill-less as always, grinning with his tongue lolled out and evidently anticipating the fun of my yanking 80 quills out of Murphy. He had never cared much for Murphy, who was fast on his feet but not noted for being mentally swift.
I AM PRETTY GOOD AT TAKING QUILLS OUT of dogs as I have had considerable practice. Do it fast with good pliers and it isn't nearly as bad as it looks. I served my internship at a blackpowder rifle shoot years ago when a geologist's dachshund named Oiler caught a roundhouse swing from a porky's tail. Everyone else was a little slow to get with it and I figured this would be better than learning on my own dog, so I grabbed some pliers and gave instructions to the holders. I hope Oiler's owner doesn't read this but it went pretty well. Oiler tried to bite me at first but finally decided I was on his side. That was the first year I ran a bird dog in porky country and I had more practice before the year was over.
Now McGillicuddy, the thinkingest Brittany I know, still has irresistible curiosity and used to get quilled regularly, after which he'd come in and wait for the pliers. Just couldn't leave porcupines alone. There was once when he got a minor dose of quills just as a day's hunt started and his owner, Ben Williams, and I got him squared away and back to hunting. We hunted all day and then came back by the bushes where McGillie had got it early that morning. You guessed it. He went back in there and came out with a faceful, wearing the look of an addict who needs help.
McGillie has been bitten by rattlesnakes twice but always around his short snout and the veterinarians say he pulls back fast enough that he doesn't get a full dose of venom. He doesn't want to bite any rattlesnakes--just check them out.
Kelly never collected a quill in seven years of hunting porky country, but he liked to start each season off by getting nailed by a skunk. After opening day of the third season my wife Debie was at the garage with a jug of vinegar before I could get Kelly unloaded.
"I smelled the truck when it came into the drive," she said.
Then when old Kelly began to get skunk savvy he acquired a sense of humor about it. One day he made some funny points around an old wagon wreck out in the grass country. I went over and kicked the junk and a skunk cut loose at me. I looked around to find Kelly sitting a hundred feet away with his ears up, his tongue out on one side and with that giggly look.
HAVING SEEN DOGS GET INTO TROUBLE pretty frequently I conclude that "Whoa!" is the most important command in the trainer's manual. Kelly knew it well but he'd ignore it now and then, like the time he found a big badger out in the open. The badger, who was quite capable of busting one of Kelly's legs, or possibly killing him, was making badger fight noises and feeling for a soft place on the ground just in case he had to dig in. I told Kelly whoa, but Kelly had to have some fun so he got back quite a distance and ran at the badger full tilt, went over him, and nipped him on the way. It happened pretty fast and I've never seen a badger so mad. He blew froth and sounded like a clothes dryer full of bobcats. Kelly never went near him again, just sat down 50 yards away and giggled.
But "Whoa!" is a pretty important command.
This story originally appeared in The Part I Remember by Charles F. Waterman. Copyright (c) 1974 by Charles F. Waterman. All rights reserved.
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