Slow times

It’s hard sitting in this inversion looking at the hoar frost on the trees knowing that up on the chukar hill it is probably blue sky, but that’s what the dogs and I are stuck doing. I got my si joints fused Wednesday and will be on crutches for at least the next two weeks. I’m pretty sure this is about all they can do to keep me on the mountain.

That contraption above my hip is a spinal cord stimulator. That was put in my back a couple of years ago to intercept some of my back pain. I don’t think it worked as well as we hoped. They’re also real impressed with how straight my spine is. But that’s not my biggest pain right now.

I’m feeling real bad about my older dog, Jake. As I mentioned earlier he was diagnosed with diabetes two years ago and we have to watch his diet a lot closer than usual. He’s now 12 years old and is deaf to anything but sharp sounds.His hips are going and his back end likes to slide down hill when we are on steep slopes. Because of his deafness, he walks with me much more of the time and checks back regularly when he gets very far from me. I quite often see a panic look in his eyes when he is looking for me and wave my arms high to get his attention. With all that, I still love to take him out. He still wants to go and deserves the time out with us. He’s given so much to me over the past 12 years, it’s the least I can do.

We’ve all said before, “it’s about the dogs”. My hunts recently are all about Jake. Of course Grady is out doing his thing and producing many points, but my hunts for the past month have been mostly for Jake. I believe that dog’s minds slip a little just as human minds do. Jake knows what we are out there for, but has forgotten all those fine things he did in the past to produce birds for me. He still points once in a while and it becomes a sitting point because of his hips but I still love it. But more often now he’ll hit the scent and start yipping and following the moving bird until it flushes. He’s so excited there is no way I’m going to stop him from doing that now.

Jake keys on me and knows when I am approaching a Grady point. He’ll look for him and sometimes honor but usually he’ll follow behind me for the flush so he can get into the action. I am surprised how well Grady handles it after 6 years of honoring each other, but have to admit that Grady will race Jake for the down bird now.

Jake has been probably my biggest fan. He believes that when I shoot there is a bird down. I can’t convince him that there is no bird down when he can’t hear. There is no sense yelling and I just stand on the slope waving my arms until he finally gives up looking. Of course that effort looking for a bird that isn’t there expends a lot of energy. Energy that the old boy doesn’t have. So when he gets back to me he walks on my tail for a while.

We sidehill a ways while Grady keeps doing his thing and I wonder at times what is going through his mind when I take so long to get to many of his points. But I have to slow my pace to a pace comfortable for Jake. Thus my bird take for the year is down. But it’s worth it because of the time I get to spend with Jake. But I found a compromise on our last hunt.

As we were coming off the mountain, we hit a thick draw loaded with quail. I usually try and stay from those places because it’s so hard for pointing dogs. The quail keep hopping from brush to brush keeping the dogs on the move. And was Jake ever loving that. The yipping started and the birds would fly. I finally shot a bull quail and Jake excitedly brought the bird to me. To my dismay, Grady joined in on the yipping and chasing. Quail kept flying in and out of the brush and when one would give me a safe shooting oppertunity I’d shoot. In a matter of five minutes or so, I had seven quail in my bag. Jake got to retrieve five of them. He was tired and it was hard to convince the two dogs to leave the area and we finally made it back to the truck.

I’m not much into quail hunting but later that night I watched Jake lying in his bed. He was softly yipping and his legs were going 100 miles an hour. I wondered if maybe he was hunting those quail again. I know several places that have good quail numbers but just choose to stay away from those areas. Maybe when I get back to health I’ll revisit those places for Jake. That’s the least I could do after all he has done for me.