Tur Bo’s leg where he got hung in a fence.
After the vet, Dr. Becker, sewed it.
Look how sad Tur Bo’s eyes are.
Tur Bo got hung on a barbed wire fence on the second day of the Kansas quail season. He didn’t yelp, whine, bark or make any noises to let me know he was hung on the wire.
I turned Lucky and Tur Bo out with Sport Dog e-collars and Garmin GPS collars on. I had seen the farmer combining the milo next to this farm as I drove down the road eating my lunch. It wasn’t a place I had ever hunted but sometimes when the combines are working they flush quail onto the adjoining farms. The farm I was hunting had soy bean and corn stubble. All of the crops had been harvested.
We had hunted around a corn field then in the middle, of the farm, found a long strip of CRP between a soy bean field and a corn field. I came over a terrace and saw Lucky on point in the tall weeds. Tur Bo came by and I whoaed him. I was still 30 yards from Lucky and the quail flushed another 25 yards in front of him. He didn’t even react when they flushed. I released him and started to the area they had flown to.
We worked the area going north then turned and started back to the south to work the same area again. Tur Bo was to my left and Lucky was to my right when a quail flushed about 20 to my right front and tried to fly to my left. This is my favorite shot and I dropped it. It fell into a small thicket and Tur Bo picked it up. He ran straight to me. I petted him until he released the quail.
The temperature was nearing 70 degrees and this was the second time today these two had been hunted so I headed to the truck. There was a creek running through this farm so I took the dogs by to water them. After they waded in the creek and drank we started on. I hadn’t gone very far when, out of habit, I checked the GPS and it showed Tur Bo on point. He was only about 30 yards from me but I couldn’t see him. I thought he was probably getting a drink so I waited watching the GPS.
The GPS continued to show him on point so I started looking for him. When I found him he was just standing still. When he points he is real rigid with a high head and tail. I called him and he tried to come to me but he couldn’t. I went to him to see why he couldn’t move and saw the cut on his leg and the skin was wrapped around the barb wire. The fence was an old one, of 3 strands, that was lying near the ground with one wire about 5 or 6 inches above the ground. I took off my hunting vest and threw it over his head, so I could check him out.
The skin that was hung on the barb was rolled around where I couldn’t pull it off the wire. I tried to get some slack to unwind the skin but that hurt him. When he felt the pain he tried to bite me. That’s the reason I covered his head with the vest. No matter how nice your dog is normally, when they feel pain they will bite. I didn’t have anything with me to cut the wire so I used my pocket knife to cut through the skin. He must have been numb at that point because he never showed that he had any pain, when I cut the skin.
He hunted as we went back to the truck. Normally, I have a leash in my hunting coat but I had cleaned it out before the season started. It would have been easier if I had carried some wire cutters with me as well. One friend said he always carries wire cutters because he had a dog get caught by a trappers snare.
If I hadn’t had the GPS on him it would have taken a lot longer to find him. He wasn’t whining or barking or making any noises so without the GPS I might not have found him at all. You can’t carry enough stuff for every emergency but I will have a leash and wire cutters next time.