Category Archives: The Dogs

Unusual events in my daily travels with the dogs.

A Fateful Fuller Swamp Hunt

Fuller Swamp isn’t a welcoming type of place that invites you in for coffee by the kitchen fireplace. No, not quite. The call from Fuller is more like a challenge or foreboding taunt. Something like, “Come on in if you dare and give it your best shot.” No promise of success, never an apology to […]

Some Pheasants Win

The deck is stacked against our ring-necked pheasants these days, when hunting for them has, unfortunately, become strictly a put and take game. The beautiful, pen-raised gamebirds arrive at selected coverts open to hunting – mostly state-owned Wildlife-Management Areas – crated four to a box in racks on the back of stocking trucks driven by […]

Tail Feather Tickles Memories

A white carpet blankets the meadow as the sun rides low in the southern sky, freezing poignant memories of my finest gun dog, Chubby – registered “Old Tavern Farm’s Rabble Rouser” – who suddenly took ill in his eighth year and died well before his time on the final day of pheasant season … It’s […]

Chub-Chub’s Tragic Death

Chub-Chub died a horrid, preventable death. A spry, 8-year, 7-month-old springer spaniel of world-class pedigree, prowess, and stamina, he uttered his pathetic death groan at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 30, a Saturday, ending a tortuous, 3½-day ordeal that I believe could have been avoided. We buried him noontime the next day. Grey skies, an extended snowstorm […]

Sights, Sounds And Scary Serpents

The question came from an intermediary — his son, my colleague — doubling back to my desk on his way out the door from work this week. “Hey, by the way, my dad wants to know if you’ve seen that big buck lately,” he queried. “Yes. Three or so weeks ago, coming home on a […]

Survival Games

Noontime Tuesday. Getting hot. Deep, pale-blue, hazy sky behind sparse cumulus clouds floating soft, high and wispy over the western upland horizon. I park next to the greenhouse, walk to the back of the truck, drop the tailgate to free the eager dogs, Chubby and Lily, the latter’s tail anxiously thumping her porta-kennel’s east wall. […]

Validating Viper

Coincidence? No, not a chance. More likely some sort of coded message. One I may never comprehend. Yet I will hold out hope that I may have time to scale such a pinnacle of understanding before I pass on to the spirit land. Time’ll tell. Honestly, truth be told, I had anticipated sitting here today […]

Dawg Days, Forest Fight

I celebrated my 39th wedding anniversary Saturday; plus  gundog Lily’s 14th birthday. That bitch never ceases to amaze me, still patrolling terrain, flat or steep, wet or dry, with that happy tail and youthful gait. She’s incredible. Nearing noon that day, having already grabbed everything needed for my daily ramble with the dogs, my wife […]

Reading Signals

A gentle mist was falling for my noontime Wednesday walk and Lily and Chubby were rarin’ to go. Oh, how they love rainy days, which greatly enhance their scenting capabilities, producing a rambunctious hunting gait, tail in a joyous, eager wag reminiscent of how I once felt those first few days outside for baseball practice. […]

Springtime Observations

What a day. One delay after another. Not a one of them unwelcome. Must be the springtime air. Positive energy. The season of optimism. Mating and nesting. No wonder birds are singing their happy tunes. On my way out to the dogs, delayed till noon, a blind man couldn’t have missed that brilliant cock cardinal […]

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