Let's share some of our Favorite Dog Stories:

I've got quite a few stories about my dogs, but here's one from 2 weekends ago.

It was a "solo" weekend at the farm where I'm privileged to be allowed to hunt in central SD. After struggling to find birds that weren't jumping way out of range the day before, we had finally found a good pocket of roosters in thick cover and got 3 birds in relatively short order. The following morning, I got my camper hooked up and ready to pull back to western SD. As soon as legal shooting hours arrived, we took a quick walk to see if I could add a couple of birds to the cooler for the drive home. First up was my 8 year old GWP, Piper, who quickly found a nice, mature bird in a food plot, pointed it, and made a nice retrieve after I dropped the bird in a harvested field. As we were wrapping up our short walk, I was caught off guard by a big, wily, longtailed rooster who waited until the last instant before making a dash for it. I swung hard and slapped the trigger and watched the bird go down. In an instant, my 2 year old Pointing Lab, Remi, was streaking toward the downed bird. Suddenly, the rooster was back in the air, somehow, flying the low-to-the-ground dipsy-doodle flight that usually ends up with the bird back on the ground in 15-20 yards. I've often marveled at how fast Remi is, and this pursuit was no exception. 10 feet behind the still flying rooster meant I didn't dare take a follow-up shot. The bird refused to go down, with Remi equally determined to not let it escape. Eventually, both Remi and the rooster disappeared over the crest of a hill at least 300 yards away. I thought for sure the bird had gotten away. Suddenly, Remi appeared out of the tall prairie grass with the bird in his mouth, pleased as punch with himself! I could not have been more proud of both of my dogs that morning! I know for sure that second bird would have been lost if I'd been hunting without a dog. This picture was taken probably 15 minutes after our short but exciting morning hunt. Can't wait to get back out again!

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Awesome story. Man I love the aspect that a good dog brings to a hunt.
 
I have been blessed to have had a few good dogs over the last 30 years.
About 25 years ago, my wife and I drove from our home in Michigan to Kansas with our Brittany, Toby. We had driven all night and got to the farm we were to hunt and we had gotten out of the truck and started getting our stuff ready to start hunting. I let Toby out as we were doing this and out of nowhere he walks up behind my wife as she is putting on her hunting coat and he proceeds to lift his leg and let's go on her leg!!! I started laughing uncontrollably and needless to say my wife wasn't happy and yelled at Toby, who was smart enough to keep his distance from her. This was strictly him trying to show her who was boss.
We still laugh about it to this day. Sure do miss him.
 
Well another mishap for Taylor and another 1k for the Emergency Vet, fellers. Thought this might have been an early Copperhead bite but yesterday's temperatures were pretty low. Whatever she did, it happened before we went for an outing for the day after we let her out to pee before we left. Came home 7 hours later and she looked pretty bad. The vet had to sedate her to carefully examine for fang punctures but the area also had to be cut and drained due to all the swelling. She has internal and external stitches. She will live to fight another day!
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Best part about hunting with a dog are the memories. They say every man deserves one good dog. Personally I am a lab guy and have been blessed with many outstanding dogs. To many stories to tell plus I tend to ramble on and on and on when I start talking about dogs!
 
A friends dad told us "God only gives a dog a short life span so we have the opertunity to enjoy more than one good one!"

I have been blessed with some great dogs. The one I have now is by far the best! Love here.
 

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Hey Randy , Dixie is gorgeous , nothing like rescuing a dog ... hats off to you!!
Thx PHARR, she gets a hug and asked every morning "you're my girl, right?"

Her little stub of a tail goes 100mph, lol.

My wife calles her "The tongue!"

Look close under the tree in the second pic. Took her for a walk at the park awhile back (she loves stalking the ducks), suddenly she went on point? Dixie what are you pointing at? Looked under the tree and seen a pile of beer bottles.

Yup, she's my dog!
 

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Thx PHARR, she gets a hug and asked every morning "you're my girl, right?"

Her little stub of a tail goes 100mph, lol.

My wife calles her "The tongue!"

Look close under the tree in the second pic. Took her for a walk at the park awhile back (she loves stalking the ducks), suddenly she went on point? Dixie what are you pointing at? Looked under the tree and seen a pile of beer bottles.

Yup, she's my dog!
My two genius pups are barking at a poster of my youngest son.. never a dull moment.. Pointing beer bottles is good !!! Full ones better right?
 
I'll try to keep this short. One of my first experiences hunting quail about 35 years ago, on a preserve, I had the chance to hunt with a couple young, good dogs (1-English setter, 1-English Pointer) and one great dog "Jim", an English setter. First half of the day was the young dogs as they needed the time afield and training. Now I knew a wee bit about what was expected of the dogs, not much about training so I was as interested in that as much as shooting, but the two gents I was with needed me to kill birds, not miss (no pressure, right?). Fortunately I mostly held up my part. The young dogs did pretty well on being broke to wing and shot, at least I thought so - not so much on retrieving. After a bag lunch, "Jim" was added to the pair of young dogs. Some more training for the young dogs on how to back. After a little practice, the young dogs were starting to get the idea but still wanted to creep in a little. Now to the "meat" of the story. We had all dogs on point with Jim up front, other dogs properly backing - what a pretty picture! Jim's owner had his turn, walked ahead and flushed a single. With a successful shot, the bird was falling - right into an island briar thicket about 40' x 60'. Fell right in the middle of it. Head high briars, only could see several feet into it. Young dogs started circling the thicket as Jim went straight to the edge and started in practically crawling. After about five minutes surveying this thicket, I would not have went in there for $ 100, much less one bird. Not that hungry at the time LOL. Young dogs still circling, cannot see Jim, but hear him rustling around in there. After about 15 minutes, here comes a bleeding, all scratched up Jim with the quail in his mouth. Owner replies "He always retrieves - no matter the circumstances, always". After a time-out to tend to Jim's scratches and patch him up a little, he's ready to go again as the sun is beginning to set. After one more find, shot and retrieve by Jim - I am pretty impressed with this day with Jim. At this point, I asked the owner how many people have you brought hunting that wanted to buy Jim - "All of them" he replied, "but you cannot buy Jim". He did however offer a me a pup from the next litter if I was interested. I declined as I was at the time too young and dumb to care for it, much less train it. Owner replied "One thing to remember when you get a dog - either you train him/her, or they will train you." Great bit of wisdom there I have since concluded.

Now, as Paul Harvey would say - "time for the rest of the story". Several years later in talking with some friends, the subject of bird dogs came up as did "Jim". I now find out that Jim is a direct descendant of "Tomoka" - I suspect most of you know that name, I did not at the time. Not only did every hunter want to buy Jim, but many well-known breeders had offered big money, free flights, even Lloyd's of London insurance to have this dog at stud. All to no avail - yet the owner bred him to many local friends' dogs whom he trusted for nothing but a first choice pup, many for nothing. Quite a gentleman and quite a dog!
 
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