Not another sad story of a dog passing, rather a celebration and appreciation for our fine field companions.....

As some of you know we have 4 German Shorthair pointers. These guys are really the loves of our lives. They are a father son, grand son and the new 4 month old great grandson. They are all great hunters and house pets. They've been all over the country hunting birds from our ruffed grouse locally, chuckar out west and pheasants everywhere in between. A true joy to watch in the field and bird finding/retrieving fiends.

The puppy is the son of Jaeger (Jag), my 4 1/2 year old. They were exact clones of one another.

Well over the last 24 hours Jag developed a spinal injury from an old injury we were not even aware of. Thursday night he was doing his usual grey hound run around the field out back with his puppy in tow and playing with him like you'd expect a human father to play with his young son. We were full of real hope for this pair hunting together for any more years.

Friday he was fine, just a little off, not running as much and laying around. He had played so hard and it was so hot we attributed his off behavior to that.

Last night I got home from work very late and he wuldn't come out of his kennel. I had to drag him out on one of his kennel blankets and he could hardly walk, but tried to walk with me and the other dogs.

This morning he had lost complete control of his rear legs and tail. He struggled to walk and his rear feet only dragged behind him. So it was off to the Vet for an emergency call.

The news was not good as described above. My wife was at her sister's home 2 hours away so she hurried to the vet. He was so happy to see her but couldn't even wag his tail so he did something hes never really done, licked her face a bunch.

I really think he was telling us it's ok, I'm suffering and I know there's no hope for recovery. Our vet was kind enough to let us stay outside in the woods behind her office for the final moments.

Our good friend and owner of the female who had our new puppy had gone to my house and picked up a couple of chuckar so the last things he had to remember was being in the woods with a game bird and his family around him.

I really want to know why our guns last us a lifetime and our hunting dogs only such a short time.

I wish it was under my power to change that. Give your hunting buddies and pets an extra pat on the head in rememberance of a fine hunting dog, faithful companion and our very best friend.


Here's Jaeger.


His fine offspring and our future hunting partner is Shatten, which is German for shadow, and his given name is Jaeger's Shatten. We only hope he'll live up to the name. It's very promising so far. If we can just keep him from getting stuck in the banister railing!

In answer to your question on why dogs live such a short life, I have heard it said that it is because we can live without them but they can't live with out us.

Having lost several dogs over the years I can relate to your loss. Good luck hunting with Jaegers off spring this fall.

465H&H

We have a 14 year old Plott on his last legs, hoping he'll make it thru the summer. Hearing just went, has hard time up and down stairs, just getting old. Don't want to see him gone and even more hate the thought of shooting him like I know it will come down to in the end. Old duke knows his time is short too, really seeks the reaffirmation that he is part of the family and I take him in the truck as much as I can. We'll never get one to replace him too.

Losing a friend is never easy. Especially when there are such good memories of shared fun in the field.

Have admit that I still tear up thinkin' about my lost buddies.

Better days to you and yours!

I feel your pain today in a rainy cold day im feeling depressed missing LANHEUL AND PAIMUN my 2 dogos argentinos .

Well, it still sucks having lost Jag, but his son was in the field hunting today for the first time.

We planted some pheasants at the game farm. First ,we took all 3 dogs out and he had a blast following them around. He actually found 2 of the 3 by himself and he backed the other dog's points on the third. Pretty good for his first non-training exposure to the hunt.

Then we planted several more birds in another field and took Shatten, the pup, out all by himself.

He did great. He looks so much like his father in the field it's almost scary. He actually found all the birds and even located them when we knocked them down. We have a bit of work to do on the retrieving, but that'll come. As we were walking home, he located and pointed 3 ruffed grouse and 3 woodcock. We didn't shoot them as we generally don't take them off our own property or the gme farm.

Well, he did so well on pointing the grouse, I decided to take a short walk into the state land that borders our property off he game farm. A very few minuted into this walk he went on a rock solid point over a grouse. I managed to get there in time to flush and shoot the bird. Shatt went over and retrieved it back to my hand. I was very impressed with his performance.

With this great performance by the pup, I decided it was a good time to stop on such a high note.

We went home and before I cleaned the birds we took a picture of the proud pup and 2 of his well earned birds. (Just before Shatt went in and fell asleep!)



Jag would have been proud!