by John Jefferson
When my eight-year-old granddaughter visits from Tennessee, she often ventures into my man-cave while I’m working to tell me about her latest adventures. Yesterday, it was about how much our latest dog had grown since last summer when she carried him around everywhere. She could almost ride him, now.
That started a conversation about dogs. She sat on the floor, legs folded, listening intently. I jumped to the semi-recent hunting dogs. Riley’s a young hunter and has a Lab.
I told her about Beauregard, my first and best basset hound. His picture was over my computer. She squealed with delight, saying, “I’ve always wanted a basset hound. I love their long ears.”
I told her about hunting deer when my sons were about nine and ten. We were one a high bluff overlooking a clearing along the Pedernales River at 29-1/2 minutes after sunset. We spied several deer, and I leaned across a large boulder for a rifle rest in the fading light. When I pulled the trigger, the muzzle flash in low light blinded us for a second. All we saw were some of the deer racing for cover along the river to the left.
I contacted my wife back where we were camped and asked her to bring Beau. She laughed, doubting he would be any help.
When she brought him to us, we found blood where the deer had been. Beau lapped that up and took off to the right. We yelled at him. That was opposite of where the several deer had gone. He kept going, beginning to yip. That became baying – like he was trailing something. We followed, probably just to bring him back.
Several minutes later, we found him, sitting beside a recently dead deer, looking like he wanted to ask if we needed anything else. Later that evening, he was awarded the deer’s grilled heart.
Another time; another dog. Pilo was a Lab. I was back at the cabin writing. Vicky was hunting alone.
I heard a shot about a mile away. Thirty minutes later, she called for me to come help look for her wounded deer. She had Pilo in the truck and had enlisted his help. She said he kept trying to go the wrong way instead of where she thought the deer had run. I joined the search … to no avail. We never found the deer. But I felt we should have relied upon Pilo’s instincts.
My oldest son wounded a deer a year later on the same ranch. We saw it and several others run over a hill and out of sight. We released Pilo after letting her sniff blood. Coming over the hill, we saw several deer run to the right. Pilo, though, kept heading straight. After discussing it, we followed Pilo, who led us down the hill for a hundred yards – right to the dead deer.
Hunting dogs have hunting instincts. We’ve learned the hard way to rely on their instincts — rather than ours.
JJ
