Traveling Pointing Dogs

I worry about my dogs whenever they are going through any problem. When the females are getting close to whelping I don’t sleep well. I had friends telling me to just check her temperature. When it drops below 98 degrees she will whelp within 24 hours. That doesn’t really matter to me, I still don’t sleep well. We have some security cameras on the house. I took one and put it on the box that Abby was in so when I woke up I could just check the camera. At least I didn’t have to get up and go check on her.

The camera on my puppy pen.

A blurry Abby in the door of the puppy pen.

Puppies!!!

My vet said there were about as many pups born on their sixtieth day as there were on sixty three days. Sally’s last litter was born on the sixtieth day. I put Abby in the shed on the 59th day just to be safe. In the shed it was too dark for the camera to work and Abby wasn’t very content. I put a light in the box so the camera would work better. I had indoor outdoor carpet on the whelping box and she pulled it up. If she does this when she has puppies she could smother one or more. So I took it out.

After a day in the shed I moved her to the puppy pen. The puppy pen is an off the ground pen with a house on the end. I set the camera on the end of the house but it has to be where the dog can’t chew it. That only gives a small hole for the camera to peep through.

I had a heating pad placed in the house but it wasn’t plugged in until we get puppies. The night time temperatures were in the upper sixties with daytime temperature in low 80s. Abby has been keeping the puppies a hundred degrees while they were inside her. Even 80 degrees will be cold for the puppies. It will be several days before they can regulate their own temperature.

Then Abby pulled the carpet loose in this house. She was bored with being in the smaller area than her kennel. The carpet keeps the puppies cleaner and it’s easier for them to move around, in my opinion. But I can’t let her smother puppies. So I took the carpet out.

About noon on the thirtieth of June she started getting really nervous. Later in the afternoon she was pacing the pen. About 6:30 she had her first pup. I went down and dried it with a towel. She didn’t seem to pay much attention to the pup and didn’t seem to want me there. I plugged the heat pad in and put the puppy on the pad. The puppy pen is close to my house. I went back inside to watch on the camera.

Tur Bo, the puppies great grandfather.

I saw her have the second pup. I went back down and dried this pup. Abby laid down, pulled the pups to her and they started suckling. Over the next few hours she had all of the pups. One of the pups was really small and weak. I dried it and put it on the heat pad. After about 30 minutes on the heat pad I moved it to where it could find a teat. It locked on. By midnight she was through having pups.

When I checked them early the next morning the little puppy was dead. I have heard that if the puppy loses a few degrees temperature the mother will kick them out. I thought putting it on the heat pad before moving it to a teat would help. Sometimes there is more wrong with the puppies than we know.

But we had 7 healthy pups. Abby curled around the puppies that were eating. Some of the pups were on the heating pad. Even when the outside temperature was in the 80s there would be puppies on the heating pad. And with the heating pad at 100 degrees, Abby at about a hundred degrees and 7 puppies, it was warm in the box.

Abby, the mother of the puppies.

I have an air conditioner in the shed so I moved them. The shed stays in the mid seventies so the heating pad was necessary. There is a dog door on the shed where Abby can get outside into the big pen around the kennels. I locked her in the shed the first night to make sure she didn’t try to move her puppies outside. After the first night, I feel she will leave them so she has full run of the shed and big pen.

The puppies, with no carpet, were not as clean as I thought they should be so I replaced the carpet. I stapled it down with lots of staples. It helped, some. One of the puppies had what I thought was poop in the hair between his shoulder blades. My daughter, Dana, her husband, Robert, my grandson, Isaac and girl friend, Shea, came over to pet puppies. When Dana was petting the male with the poop on his shoulder blades, she thought it looked like dried blood.

I took some soap and water down and cleaned the pup. It was dried blood. Evidently, Abby had tried to pick him up and broke the skin. I took all of the pups to the vet for a check and get the dew claws removed. They shaved the pups back, cleaned it and gave me some antibiotics for him. Now I’m giving him some drops twice a day, washing the wound with hydrogen peroxide and keeping it soft with Vaseline.

Sally, the grandmother, pointing a covey.

The big pen that Abby is able to use with the dog door in the shed is the same big pen I turn the dogs into when I clean kennels. All of the dogs are in the same pen. I usually close the shed so the other dogs don’t get into the shed. Yesterday morning I forgot. Sally is a chow hound and she knows there is food for Abby in the shed. She went into the shed to eat while I wasn’t paying attention.

Usually, the dogs aren’t standing by their gate, to go back in, after I clean the pens. I just have to call their name and they come. I called Sally’s name and she didn’t come. I knew immediately what I had done. I walked about halfway to the shed and called her, again. She came out of the shed and got almost to me then went back.

Most of the time Sally minds really well. Not this time. I went to the dog door of the shed and called her. She came out and I grabbed her collar. I took my belt and busted her butt. Not because she ate the food or went in the shed but because she disobeyed. And she knew it. She didn’t resist. She knew she had it coming. She really would like to be in charge and would be if I let her. I put her in her kennel. That’s the first time I have had to do that since I had an old female named Allie, maybe 15 years ago.

Boss pointing a pigeon.

All of this happened around the fire works that never seems to end. The fireworks or thunder doesn’t seem to bother Abby but it used to be really bad for Luke. Although we had a lot of popping around us it didn’t seem to bother him this time. He may be getting hard of hearing.

But Mann is a different story. I think he thought that everyone was shooting birds and he was in his kennel. Every time I got close to his kennel, which with checking on the puppies was often, he ran back and forth in his kennel and whined.

Boss is in South Dakota. In the next day or two I should get my first report on him. I’ve been watching the weather and it’s really hot but most of those guys get out really early to work dogs. It’s hard, even with the puppies and everything else that goes on with the dogs, not to know each day about him. But the guys that go to the prairie couldn’t get much done if they called all of the owners each day.

Abby on point.

Each day after their first day I’ve had visitors to pet the puppies and some of the people are waiting for them to get s little older. The puppies are more fun when they start getting personalities. All of the people petting them, socializes them really well.

Boss is gone. I sent him to South Dakota with Mike Harryman, hoping he will be able to get him into a lot of wild birds. He and Abby both were doing really well on the pigeons, so they need wild birds now. Without Boss and with Abby having a litter of puppies any day, I don’t have any young dogs to work.

Mann pointing what may have been a skunk.

Luke, he looked good in this picture.

Abby out of Sally’s litter.

I went back into the archives and pulled out pictures from a couple of years ago. With no young dogs to work I have no new pictures. Plus, I like to go back and look at them. This time of year it’s good to remember some of the older hunts.

The picture with Mann possibly pointing a skunk is from a hunt in central Kansas. This was the second time he has smelled of a skunk. The first time the smell was very faint and by the time we got back to the truck it was mostly gone. This time I had turned Luke out with him and Luke had gone across the road. I had a GPS collar on him so I knew where he was. A good Samaritan loaded him up and brought him to me.

He thought he was doing me a favor but Luke was only 400 yards from me. For him that is really close. But as I thanked him for bringing him to me he smelled Mann and said, “Boy, he found a skunk, didn’t he”? So this one was much stronger than the first. When we got back to the truck it was less and by the time we hunted the next place the smell was gone. So, so far he’s not trying to kill the skunks.

Vince Dye and I were running dogs, before the season opened, in Iowa last year. I checked the GPS when it vibrated and saw that Sally was on point. We started to her and when I got close I smelled skunk. And it wasn’t a faint smell. I started moving backwards and called Sally. She started toward the skunk. I hit her with the e-collar. She stopped but didn’t leave. The e-collar was set on level 2. I turned it up, called her and held the transmitter button down until she followed me. I thought maybe the grass and weeds would wear the scent off her but no such luck. Sally isn’t a house dog and in about a week she no longer smelled like a skunk.

I have been hunting for over fifty years, with dogs, and this is the only times that my dogs got sprayed by skunks. Years ago my son-in-law, Robert Charpie, owned a Brittany that got too close to a skunk. She had a green streak right between the eyes and smelled really bad. As strong as that smell was she could still point birds. Not just coveys, she found singles, too. That’s a testament to how great a dog’s nose is and how well it works.

Missouri Department Of Conservation built a rifle, trap and skeet range just a couple of miles from my house. I shoot skeet several times a week. I shoot with a low gun, as I would walk in behind a pointing dog. I, also, reload and even in my 12 gauge I shoot 3/4 ounce loads. I shoot an 11/16 ounce load in my 28 gauge. Part of the reason I shoot these light loads is to save on the price of reloads. If I shoot 1 ounce loads I get 400 loads from a 25 pound bag of shot. If I reload 3/4 ounce I get 566. There is less recoil from these loads. This is better for me and my guns.

The 6 quail from a Kansas quail hunt and the W.R. Pape.

I took 3 of the guns, that I shoot well, down to the patterning board. Most of my guns are side by sides. I put a spot on a large piece of paper and shot each of them at 20 yards. I didn’t aim, I just shouldered the gun and pulled the trigger. I shot a paper with 5 shots from the right barrel then shot another paper with 5 shots from the left barrel.

The 12 gauge was a W.R. Pape with 30 inch barrels that weighs about 6 1/2 pounds. The 16 gauge was an AYA No. 2 with 29 inch barrels that weighs 6 1/4 pounds. The third one was a 20 gauge Webley and Scott with 30 inch barrels that weighs 6 pounds. It didn’t surprise me that they all shot to about the same place but it did surprise me how tight the choke in the left barrel of the 16 gauge was. I didn’t waste any time getting it to a gunsmith to have the left barrel opened.

I’m on puppy watch. The last litter that Sally had came on her 60th day. Usually, my dogs deliver on 63 days, 9 weeks. My vet says they are as many that deliver on the 60th day as 63rd. So I started putting Abby in the shed on her 59th day just to be sure. The shed is air conditioned but it’s a long way (close to a hundred yards) from my house. After a couple of days and no pups I moved her to my above ground puppy pen. I have this pen next to my house.

The camera on my puppy pen.

When a dog is getting close to having puppies I don’t sleep well. Some of the first litters I had I would wake up in the middle of the night and walk down to the shed to check a couple of times a night. It’s hard to get a good nights sleep that way. We have some security cameras on our house. I take one and set it up where, when I wake up I can check the camera. Last night I must have checked it 7 or 8 times. About every hour. Still no puppies but I didn’t have to get up.

Another eventful night on the puppy watch. I woke up about midnight to check the camera and I thought it was just blurred because of the rain. After checking it another time or two during the night it finally dawned on me that I could see the plywood floor. Abby had pulled the carpet loose in front of the camera and with it raised that was all I was seeing. The back side of the carpet. About 3:00 am I went down and smoothed the carpet out so the camera would work. Still no puppies.

Abby pulled the carpet back.

When I checked the camera about 6:00 am she had half of the carpet pulled loose. I had stapled the carpet pretty well but she had been working on it for 3 days. I pulled the carpet out. If she had puppies with the loose carpet they could be smothered. After the puppies are born she will have other things to think about and I will put it back.

I was hoping to have pictures of puppies to put in this post. Abby doesn’t want to cooperate. Today is her due date but I was hoping she would have them early. With any luck, I will have puppy pictures in the next post.

I have been working Sally and Mann on retrieving, when it’s cool enough to get dogs out. A friend and I were talking about needing retrievers. I really hate to lose a wounded bird. I will look for a long time and come back a second or even third time, if it’s not found. Years ago I had a male dog, named Rusty, that just loved to retrieve.

Boss pointing a pigeon.

Abby pointing a pigeon.

Abby pointing a pigeon.

Rusty, when we got through with a hunt and got close to the truck, would retrieve beer or soda cans, lying along the road. I had to carry these to the truck. If I dropped them he would get them again. I usually took them to the truck to dispose of them in a trash receptible.

A friend, Kermit Maxwell, and I were hunting in south Missouri. It had rained quite a bit the night before and there was a lot of water standing. We had found several coveys and were working on some singles. Kermit knocked a bird down that he couldn’t find. I got Rusty in to hunt dead. We weren’t coming up with the bird. There were some holes that were filled with water near where Kermit kept saying, “it fell right here”. I didn’t see it, but he got Rusty close to one of those holes and told him to hunt dead.

Pretty soon he was saying, “He got it. He ran his head completely under water and got that bird! He ran his head far enough his collar is wet.” Kermit never forgot that retrieve. Evidently, I haven’t forgotten either. That was over 30 years ago.

Another time Kermit and I were hunting in northern Missouri. I had an old dog that the kids had named Scamp. Scamp was a good bird dog but he didn’t retrieve. He would hunt dead but just roll the bird around and go back to hunting. But occasionally he would pick a bird up and I knew he was going to be buried.

Kermit had knocked down a bird that we never found. A little later I killed one and Scamp picked it up. I told Kermit to watch him. He carried the bird about 15 yards and dug a hole, dropped the bird into the hole and took his nose and covered the bird. We always said he gave it a pat with his foot before he left, but I’m not sure. Kermit said that was probably what happened to his bird, that we lost.

I was hunting a place in central Kansas with some young dogs. I had just bought a 16 gauge L. C. Smith double. I had carried it for the last few hunts and had a string going. I hadn’t missed for about 7 or 8 birds. This is better than I normally shoot but I wanted to keep the string going. One of the young dogs pointed and when I flushed the covey they flew from my left around to my right. The way the brush was I only got one shot and missed, so I thought. As I stood there reloading and thinking about my string ending one of these young dogs brought me a totally dead quail. It was just an unlucky quail, not the one I was shooting at but the string continued.

Now I will tell you about Lady. As a first year puppy she retrieved. Until the last day of the season. From the first day of the season she had retrieved and seemed to love to retrieve. But on the last day of the season she wouldn’t even look for the dead birds.

Abby.

I knew I had to do something. I liked having a retriever. I built a retrieving bench and started force breaking her to retrieve, something I had never done before. In about 2 weeks she was force broke. She would retrieve anything, anytime. I thought I was pretty good trainer. Nothing to this force breaking. I have learned since that, I probably made lots of mistakes, and all dogs don’t train this quickly.

The next season I was hunting shortly after spending 4 days in the hospital with pneumonia. I didn’t have a lot of energy but I needed to get out and get the dogs out. We had found a couple of coveys and as we came up a deep draw, with the dogs well out in front of me, a single quail flushed in front of me. When I shot it fell into the deep draw. The dogs were far enough ahead of me that they didn’t come in. It was 15 feet or more straight down and I knew I could get down in there but might not have the strength to get back out. I called Lady.

When she came in I waved my hand in that direction and said, “hunt dead, hunt dead”. She went into the draw and came right back with the bird. She hadn’t seen it fall but I was able to send her pretty close to where it fell.

Boss pointing a pigeon.

Don Bolen and I were hunting near Abilene Kansas. We had been out for a while when I knocked a rooster pheasant down. Lady was out hunting but we had another couple of dogs close. They looked and looked and didn’t find the bird. The cover wasn’t that bad. I called Lady. She came into the area and went right on through. Don said, “she’s not even going to look. She left.” With less confidence than I tried to convey, I told him she’ll come back with the bird. And in a couple of minutes she came back proudly carrying the rooster.

Vince Dye and I were hunting in south Kansas. We had just turned the dogs loose when he said, “bet a quarter on the first rooster.” I agreed. We hadn’t gone 50 yards when a rooster pheasant flushed in front of us and I knocked it down. I knew it wasn’t hit very hard but Lady saw it hit the ground. They went through the brush in a hurry. I had a GPS on her and was watching her chase the rooster.

Abby pointing a pigeon.

The GPS showed Lady at over a hundred yards away. About that time Vince said, “Roxie’s on point.” I checked the GPS and Lady was getting closer. We went to Roxie. She had a covey of quail. I don’t remember hitting a bird but Vince did. Roxie was coming in with Vince’s bird and I could see it was a rooster quail. About a second before Roxie got to Vince, Lady dropped the pheasant in my hand. She must have had quite a fight. That rooster had no tail feathers and very few of it’s other feathers. But I got Vince’s quarter.

Another time Vince and I were in the same area. One of our dogs pointed and when we flushed them they all came my way without giving Vince a shot. I only shot once and I saw a bird fall. Lady saw the bird fall and went to retrieve. On her way back I saw her head snap to the side but she brought me the bird. I told Vince I bet there was another dead bird. Lady dropped the bird in my hand and went back and brought another bird that we hadn’t even seen fall.

Mann pointing a pigeon.

I gave lady a head off all of the quail she retrieved. She would wait for them. As she got older and other dogs got to the quail first and made the retrieve she still came in for the head. It was just what she charged for her services. She’s been gone for a long time but I still miss her.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while but it’s either raining or too hot for the dogs and even too hot for the birds. When you put a pigeon in a release trap there is very little wind flow through the trap. Abby is 17 days from her due date on her litter. She looks really miserable in this heat. I’ve got the shed ready, the air conditioner is working and I’ve cleaned everything. I will put her in the shed about 4 days before her due date. My vet says there are as many puppies born on 60 days as 63.

Tur Bo in Iowa a few years ago.

Sally on point.

Sally on point with Dolly and Mann honoring.

I’m going to put some older pictures in this since I don’t have much to write about. I have several of Tur Bo who is Sally’s sire. He’s also Abby and Boss’s grandsire. A few years ago we were hunting in Kansas. One of the places I chose to hunt had a mud road on one side and a busy gravel road on the other. I chose to park along the seldom traveled mud road.

This place had some pasture next to row crops. The pasture hadn’t been grazed down too much and there were some draws running through the pasture. I turned the dogs out, Tur Bo and Mann, as I remember. We went along the pasture next to the row crops. When we got to the north end we hit a draw and started back toward the truck. This draw ran to the mud road and across. Both dogs were well out front of me as we got close to the road.

I was still about 150 yards from the road when I saw a dump truck come over the hill. About the time I saw him I heard him hit his brakes. I may have heard him hit a dog but I really don’t remember anything. I just knew it was bad. I checked the GPS and it showed Tur Bo on point at about the road. There was no sound out of Tur Bo. I needed to go to him but I didn’t want to see what I knew I would see. That was the longest walk of my life.

He was killed instantly. There was nothing anyone could have done. The truck driver tried to stop but he was going down hill, with a load, on a dirt road. I could see where the truck slid in the road. I loaded Mann and drove the truck close to Tur Bo. The truck driver hadn’t stopped but as I stood beside Tur Bo a truck came back from the opposite direction.

I started toward the truck and I could tell the young man didn’t want to get out but he did. I told him he had done everything he could. It was just an accident. He said it wasn’t him that had hit him. It was another truck. They were cleaning a feed lot and hauling the manure away, I think. He helped me, very gently, lay Tur Bo in the back of my truck. I was about 3 hours from home.

I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to write something like that, again. When it happened I wrote about it but sitting here typing this I just relived it again. Now we will go to something more uplifting, I hope.

The 6 quail from a Kansas quail hunt.

The pictures with Sally on point and some other dogs honoring was in Kansas. I had hunted a couple of days in Nebraska and was on my way home. I stopped off in Kansas and was supposed to just hunt until noon then head on home. As I put the GPS and e-collars on the dogs I happened to look around and saw Dolly on point about 25 yards from the truck.

Both sides of the road were walk-in. Dolly was standing in a hay field on point. I grabbed a gun and started to her but a single quail flushed before I got to her. It dropped at my shot and several flushed in front of Dolly. I think a covey was spread out heading to the soy bean field across the road to feed. We followed the singles and got a few more points. As we came back toward the truck we found more of the covey. Sally had a couple of points. That’s in the pictures.

When we got to the truck we crossed the road and went along the south edge of the soybean field to the west side and started to the north through some more pasture. Mann was just a puppy, he was born in April and this was his first year, but he pointed at a little bush in the pasture. When I got to him a covey flushed and as I shot I saw two quail line up. I knew when I shot I was going to hit them both. For that to work out it must have surprised me. I never even tried to shoot a second shot. When I went to the birds they were about a foot apart, dead.

Some of the thickets in Nebraska.

We went on to the north. When I came over a hill Sally and Mann were both on point about 25 yards apart. Sally was closer so I went to her. A single quail flushed and I made the shot. When I looked at Mann he was still on point. I marked that bird down and went to Mann. He was on point in ankle high grass with not a tree in the area. I walked in and a single quail flushed. I calmly raised my gun and missed with the first barrel quickly followed by missing with the second barrel. When I really want to kill a bird, especially for a young dog, I miss.

We made a circle and when we got back to the truck we went to another spot. We got into another covey near a pond next to a corn field. On this spot I had turned out Babe and Tur Bo. We chased the covey around for a while and I managed to kill one or two. I wound up that day with 6 quail by 1:00 pm and I headed home only about an hour late.

I probably should have told a little about my trip to Nebraska before I told about hunting Kansas on the way home. This was the trip when Mann started pointing birds. Mann was born late April and this was some time in November. He was at the most 7 months old.

I drove by a walk-in property in Nebraska and saw a covey of quail fly off the place. They had come out of a draw to the edge of the road and flushed when I drove close. I thought maybe there were more there. I turned dogs and Mann was one of them. As we started down this draw I saw Tur Bo point on the other side. Before I got to him the covey flushed flying up the draw. There was really good grass cover and it was really thick brush where they flushed. As we went up the draw the grass cover stayed good but there was less brush.

Dolly pointing a quail.

As we went down the draw Mann pointed along a bank. I walked to him and when I kicked in front of him nothing flushed. I went to him and tapped him on the head but he wouldn’t move. I went back in front and about 5 feet in front of him a single quail flushed. On this bird I was luckier and Mann saw it drop. He didn’t pick it up but he nosed it around on the ground.

We had some more dog work on that place then went to another walk-in property. I don’t know whether it was due to pressure or weather conditions but we got into a covey of quail that wouldn’t hold. I got a lot of dog work but I would see the dog on point and before I got there the quail would flush. This may have made Mann and Babe more cautious. I had 5 or 6 points and I killed 1 bird and it was flying back past me. On every point the birds moved.

There was another fence row on the other side with a draw running along side for a short distance. Several pheasants came out of this draw before I got close. There were a few quail in the fence row, maybe out of the covey in the other draw. As we got right to the end of the draw Babe was coming from behind me and hit a scent cone and slid to a point. I took about 2 steps toward her and a single quail flew back down the draw without drawing a shot.

I’m not sure where this one was but it’s November of 2018.

I didn’t know what I was going to write about today. I just knew it was 95 degrees outside and I wasn’t going to work dogs. Sitting in the basement writing this is much better than being out side. It’s going to be warm for a while so I may write about another hunt over the last few years. Hopefully, the next one will be in a little better order than the way I jumped around in this one.