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.