The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

I totally live in the land of dogs. I had more than a few Heinz 57 pets growing up but did not land my first bonafide Retriever until 1996 when I was 35. I was sitting at an AKC hunt test with many of the judges and participants and when the test had concluded for the day I asked the question, “why would anyone need more than one dog?” I figured you could only hunt one at a time and if the dog was good at its job there was no need for a second or a third.

The crowd all went into a laugh and chuckle at the same time. Their answer to me was just wait and see. Fast forward to opening weekend of my first pheasant season with a new young dog.  I hunted the first two days with my friend who did the training at that time and on Monday evening I took my 1-year-old Yellow Lab named Scout on our very first solo outing. We hunted near the town I live and after that first night I took a picture with my two-rooster limit.

After the photo I was sitting on the ground petting my new hero and, much to my horror, I found a deep cut that ran from her chest to her privates. This was a long deep cut and ended up requiring 35 stiches. She gave me no indications of any kind that she had been injured. No yelp or anything.

I was scheduled to leave that Friday for my first trip to the land of ringnecks, South Dakota. My dog was in no shape whatsoever to participate so she got left home. I was so bummed. My hunting partners, not to miss a golden opportunity to give me a bad time, would always say when their dog brought them a bird that Scout would have gotten that one, but right, she isn’t here is she?

This is the moment I knew that having only one dog was not going to be enough. The pheasant season is about 10 weeks long and with only one dog I was benched for three weeks of that 10-week season. This was not going to happen to me again. It takes about two years to go from wanting a puppy until you have one with enough training to be a valued asset. I bought and trained dog number two. Following my timeline out two years, I was hunting with a group of about eight guys in temperatures that required an exorbitant amount of restraint. A dog will hunt until it dies of heat exhaustion if the handler is not paying close enough attention.

In temperatures nearing 75 degrees a dog can only safely hunt for about 30 minutes without an extended break. I hunted dog one for 30 minutes and on the next walk I hunted the other and an hour and a half into that day I was “out of dog.” Out of dog means out of dog horsepower. Both dogs needed a few hours to cool off and to hydrate fully. You cannot let a heated-up dog drink as much as they want because in this situation they can suffer an intestinal contortion. This is where the intestine twists inside the dog and death is the most common outcome. They get a small drink, wait 20 minutes then another small drink and over the course of two hours they can hydrate satisfactorily.

Two dogs was not going to be enough and number three and four came along. About one every two years so their ages would be spread out and I would not have a stable of elderly retired nursing home dogs all at the same time. Today that roster has Tracer, age 12, Sarge, age 9, Raider, age 7 and Ghost, at the tender age of 3.

As my luck would have it this season, four is almost not enough. Tracer at 12 can only hunt about every third day. Sarge stepped in a hole and messed up his right wrist. He was on injured reserve for about 10 days. Ghost ended up with a deeply cut pad and the underside of feet that looked like they were painted with red lipstick. This is unavoidable and requires time to recuperate.  Raider was the only dog I had operating at 100%. Now Raider is an A-Team member so I managed until some of the others recovered. Sarge is still not 100% so he continues to receive free room and board even though he hasn’t played in the game for almost three weeks. Labradors live, on average, about 12 years so as much as my heart will ache, Tracer is certainly living in the end of his 4th quarter. I am searching where my next puppy will come from.  It will certainly be from the genetics of Rounk Lake Kennels located in Bemidji, but those breedings will not take place until spring/summer of 2024. I may have five dogs for a short while but time marches on and no one or no dog can cheat its way out of it.

If you only hunt a few days a year then missing two, three or even four weeks of a season might not be all that big of a deal to you. For me it would be a killer. I spend all of my free time working on habitat for pheasants and other wildlife. In the fall I get to walk around on those efforts in the way of new publicly owned Wildlife Management Areas. I know at the age of 63 I cannot and will not be able to chase ringnecks at my current pace forever, but I intend to keep doing it as long as my legs, my health and my dogs can hold out and, I guess I should add, as long as I can keep up with my dog food budget!

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.