Ride with good friend is an emotional one

Loading a good hunting dog into a vehicle can be quite a challenge. Every car ride offers the opportunity for another hunt, and the best bird dogs are well aware of the potential cause-and-effect of a drive in the family automobile.

The more the anticipation, the more the excitement of heading down the driveway and to the local state game lands. It is on par to a 6-year-old counting down every last minute to Christmas morning.

The car ride I shared last week with my 14-year-old Brittany, Shell, was definitely an emotional one.

However, we weren’t on our way to another pheasant hunt or to track down a covey or two of bobwhite quail. This trip was to the emergency animal clinic near Watsontown. Shell had lived a long life. She was suffering through rapidly declining health. It was time to say goodbye — to have her put down.

Why can making the right decision sometimes be so hard, so gut-wrenching and so painful?

The 30-plus minute trip from Middleburg to Watsontown through late-night darkness gave me one last chance to reflect on the life of a good dog and even better friend.

As she slept quietly on the seat next to me, wrapped as comfortably as possible in a towel and old sweatshirt, I stroked her head while driving northward.

“Thank you,” I said with a voice that sounded as if it was being strained through a bucket of gravel, “for all the great memories.”

And I shared aloud a few of my favorites.

Like the times that Shell was in hot pursuit of a pheasant, quail or chukkar and I called her name. She’d stop on a dime every time, no questions asked.

She’d hold a point longer than gold holds its value. I learned quickly that she was never wrong. There would always be a bird in the cover and she’d always patiently wait for me to produce it.

Shell would work a scent trail for an hour and be just as happy with the end result regardless of whether my Charles Daly hit its mark or not.

And while the life lessons she taught me in obedience, trust, patience and forgiveness are things I’ll treasure forever, the best memories I’ll cherish of Shell are those shared with others.

Like the agility classes my mother and I took Shell through one summer after I started college. The evenings were hot and it took some time and patience to work Shell through the obstacles one by one over the course of the summer.

But looking back, it was that time spent together that helped shape Shell into such a good hunting dog, and I realize now just how much I valued the extra time spent with mom.

Shell welcomed my future wife with open paws — literally. She had a knack for giving people hugs. Shell was there as we learned the ropes of early marriage and gave us numerous litters of amazing puppies.

She was pregnant with one of those litters at the same time my wife was pregnant with our daughter. A week after Paige was born, Shell gave birth to nine rambunctious puppies. Our small house was one busy place.

As our daughter grew, Shell was there each step of the way. We have pictures of her cuddled on a recliner with baby Paige. Shell was gentle and obedient enough to allow toddler Paige to take her on walks.

When we adopted our then-teenage son, Shell was there to welcome him. As he got into hunting, she was the one who tracked down his first pheasant. After the shot, she retrieved it to him with her tail wagging — just as proud to be sharing this special moment with him as I was.

And even in her older age, she took quickly to our newest family member, a 5-year-old girl whose adoption was finalized Wednesday — just two days after my emotional trek with Shell to the vet.

The tears were flowing freely as I pulled into a parking space at the emergency clinic. My trip down memory lane and the long one-sided conversation was over. I turned off the car and switched on the dome light.

Shell didn’t move. She was dead. She had died peacefully during our final trip together.

As our family laid her to rest in the back yard the next evening, each of us said a prayer and shared a few favorite memories. The girls each drew a picture to place in her homemade casket. Our son recalled how neat it was to hunt over her.

I realized at that very moment that a good hunting dog is so much more than simply a tool someone uses to bag a few extra birds, more than a companion in the field and even more than an extension of the family.

The best bird dogs are the glue that help bind that family together with stories, memories and adventures shared.

Thank you, Shell, for being there each step of the way.

And I know when my time comes to join you in the happy hunting grounds in the sky, I’ll find you surrounded by goldenrod, staunch on point and patiently waiting for me to catch up.

Bambi’s hard lesson

The cherry-red Mustang GTO shuddered with excitement as I engaged the clutch for the first time. Except, a car can’t get excited any easier than you or I can transform 87 octane into 300 horsepower of asphalt-chewing speed.

Transferring human characteristics onto inanimate objects, called personification, is a trick writers and movie producers use all the time. Just ask Lightning McQueen, Larry the Cucumber and … Bambi.

Of course, those who hunt deer would be quick to point out that deer are far from inanimate objects, but the concept is the same. Walt Disney and his team of illustrators didn’t just dabble in the personification pool when creating Bambi. They dove in with both feet, creating a little fawn that was more human than deer.

The result is an emotionally charged movie that can pull on a child’s heartstrings today as well as it did nearly 70 years ago when the movie was first introduced.

When Bambi’s mother is killed by an unseen hunter, we feel just as lost, lonely and scared as the little deer.

The heart gets pumping when hunters later pursue Bambi’s love interest, unleash their blood-thirsty dogs and are careless enough to allow their blazing campfire to ultimately burn down Bambi’s forest land.

Never shown in the movie, the hunter is perceived as faceless, cold and unforgiving — just as vile a villain as Cruella DeVille, Skar, Cinderella’s evil stepmother and countless other antagonists in Disney’s large stable of films.

No wonder many hunters cringe when someone mentions Bambi. There are some who have taken time to research the slow decline of hunting and suggest it parallels the Bambi timeline.

But there is a scene in the movie that suggests a deeper meaning and a larger base of villain-hood. At one point, Bambi and his mother first visit an open meadow together. After some exploring and meeting new friends, the animals all run for cover when hunters barge into the scene, bullets zinging through the air.

Later, Bambi and his mother take a moment to reflect in a safer part of the forest. The young deer asks his mother what just happened.

“Man,” the doe responds, “has entered the forest.”

That man represents people in general. Not just men. Not just hunters.

Yes, hunters shoot and kill deer. Is it as traumatic to the real deer as it is to the personified Bambi and company? That’s a debate for a different day.

The point here is that while hunters do “harvest” deer, that is hardly the only threat we represent to deer and other wildlife.

What about the massive destruction of habitat for houses, amusement parks, parking lots, etc.? Everyone who lives in a home is guilty of taking habitat away from wildlife in some form or another.

What about those who drive cars? Thousands upon thousands of deer and other wildlife are mutilated on our man-made highways by our man-made vehicles.

Of course, the point here involves what Bambi really teaches our children, or at least what it should be.

Not that hunters are villains, but yet another piece of the predator-prey life cycle that has sustains life on this planet.

And that we all have an effect on the world around us.

Make yours count.

Hero credits Scouting for courage to ‘stand up’

 

As gunshots barked in the crowded school cafeteria, students were quick to dive for cover. They all attempted to move away from the unexpected bullet-laced rage of a 14-year-old transfer student tormented by teasing.

Everyone, that is, except for one.

Share the passion, make a difference

Pound-for-pound, it was one of the most impressive hunting displays one could ever imagine.

Sheer determination, dedication to the hunt and commitment to follow through. She used the wind to help pin down her prey, a slow and steady gait to get into position without flushing her quarry and flashed a look of pride after the hunt was successfully complete.

She was a 31-pound, efficient, unrelenting hunting machine.

Bugging out over the ecosystem

 

Did you know that there was an old lady who swallowed a fly? No one knows why she swallowed the fly.

But rumor has it that she panicked, gobbling down a spider to catch the fly. Of course, then she had a spider wriggling and jiggling and tickling inside her. So she swallowed a bird to catch the spider, a cat to catch the bird, a dog to catch the cat, and so on.

A silly story, but one that scientists seem to be reliving in regards to the dreaded emerald ash borer.

Back in Black … powder

As the Kawasaki Mule slowly climbed a snow-covered steep logging road up the side of a heavily wooded Lycoming County mountain, it seemed almost a certainty that one of the six adult men huddled in the back bed would be tumbling out.

Or, that the Mule would flip end-over-end back down the near 60ish-degree slope.
Luckily, neither happened. Each of us were safely dropped off to post for the first of a busy day of late-season muzzleloader whitetail drives.

The countryside was beautiful. Thick hemlocks werecovered with a dusting of fresh snow. Deep gorges and large rock out-croppings with small caves likely were housing a family or two of hibernating bears.

Whoooo flew down the flue?

Any unexpected noise at 2:30 in the morning can be hard to ignore.

Especially if that noise is something scratching inside a metal stove pipe between your own oil furnace and the chimney leading outside.

Icebreaker show helps connect children to the outdoors

Three-year-old Owen Resseguie, of New Berlin, swung the yellow-and-black claw hammer as hard as he could towards the tiny head of a small nail.

Below that nail, steadying it, were the fingers of an unpaid volunteer who was helping create his tenth consecutive bird house at the 2011 Icebreaker Sportsman Show at Christ Wesleyan Church near Milton.

Why I hunt

It is amazing how just a few words can crush someone. How they can hit harder than a Muhammed Ali uppercut, totally unexpected yet so devastating.

I was a teenager at the time. My father, younger brother and I had hunted deer religiously every season for years at the Montour Preserve public hunting lands. We were lucky to even see a deer those days, not to mention seeing a deer in the right season and in a safe shooting position.

A lesson in worm-o-nomics

Written two years ago …

For those who missed it, gas prices jumped considerably during the past week. July 4th is tomorrow, we fuel-guzzling Americans know all too well what that means.

However, before you start hyperventilating or popping some Paxil, just remember that it could be worse. Much worse.