Today, when I cleaned pens and fed dogs Dolly didn’t come out of her house. Yesterday I told my wife, June, that she didn’t look or act good. After cleaning pens I went into her kennel and tried to get her to come out of her house. She just laid there looking at me. I knew it was time.
Dolly honoring Mann who is honoring Sally.
Dolly honoring Mann.
Dolly a few years ago
She was born in my kennel, on February 27, 2006 to my old female, Lady and a son of Grouse Ridge Reroy. I think there was 4 males and 1 female in the litter. From the start she picked me. At about 6 weeks old she would climb the chain link fence and get on the dog house because she got more attention there than her litter mates.
Mr. Wehle of Elhew Kennels fame, said the way to tell how smart a dog was is to watch how they understand gates. Dolly, when she was about 3 months old was loose in my big pen that is around the kennel. I was outside the big pen working on something, sitting in the door of my shed. Dolly came to the fence between us wanting to be with me. I told her I wasn’t lifting her over the fence. She would have to go out the gate.
The gate to the big pen was open but she would have to go away from me to the east through the gate then a short distance to the north and back west to me. I didn’t get up I just waved the direction of the gate. She took off and in a few seconds was with me at the door of the shed.
She would get on the top of her house when I came into her kennel and I would pet her. Her tail would curl over until it touched her back. I really didn’t want a dog with a sickle tail. I told June that I was going to sell her. June kept saying you better wait. That tail may straighten. And it did.
She was about 9 months old and we were hunting with Jim Needham and Vince Dye. She covered a lot of ground and I was running her with a beeper collar. We had been into some quail. I could barely hear her beeper. She was a long way off, on point. Jim and I started to her.
She was a good 350 yards from us buried in a ditch, when we found her. She was standing there with her head as high as it would reach and a twelve o’clock tail. Sometimes, when you really want to kill a bird for a young dog, you put too much pressure on yourself. Jim was on her right and I was on the left. A single quail flushed and I dropped it right in front of her. She nuzzled it around but I don’t remember her retrieving.
On this same hunt, she wanted to walk in with us when another dog pointed. She would back until we got there but then she thought she could go in. I put an e-collar around her flanks for the first time, ever. The next time a dog pointed I stayed behind. When Jim and Vince walked in she took a couple of steps and I pushed the button on the e-collar and she stopped. Before the birds flushed she took another step and I hit the e-collar again. That was it, she never failed to honor after that. I stayed behind on the next point but she never moved after she honored.
In January Vince and I went to south Texas, quail hunting. She did really well for 3 days. She wasn’t quite a year old and she was pointing as many birds as any of the dogs were and more than some. Vince was about as proud of her as I was. He really liked her.
There were a lot of quail on the big ranch that we were hunting but the next day we went to a friend of Paul Haass that had more quail than any place I’ve ever been. Ben Vaughn had about 10 coveys of quail on a 40 acre place. When we got there Ben was hunting with his dogs. Paul and Vince told Ben about Dolly.
Ben called his dogs in and said to get her out. I turned her loose and there was so much scent on that place that she ran through a covey and before they could light she would get another up. She moved 4 coveys and never made a point. Finally, she came by me and I grabbed her and put her in the truck. That taught me to never brag on your dog.
A few years ago I got the opportunity to guide at Bird Fever in Richmond Missouri. I used her and Lucky most of the time. Sometimes Dolly and Tur Bo. On one Continental hunt we were cleaning up afterwards. I had several hunters and there were a lot of birds in our area.
We had a strong wind out of the north east but her and Lucky were finding a lot of birds that had been missed that morning. We got to the edge of the farm where a lot of blackberry vines, plum thickets and brush of all kinds joined a hedge row. Dolly went on point with the strong wind hitting her right in the butt. I got the hunters around and went in to flush her bird. Nothing flushed but she was still on point.
I tried to get her to move but she wouldn’t. I tapped her head and she moved about 10 yards and went back on point. The wind was still behind her. I went back in front of her and nothing flushed. I tapped her head and she moved up again.
She went back on point. There was no room to get hunters in there so I tried to flush something back to them. Nothing. I tapped her head and she ran to the fence and picked up a dead chukar. How she smelled it that far away, against the wind is beyond me. But she did.
I had a few litters of puppies from her and Lucky. Once I took her to Georgia and bred her to Shadow Oak Bo. From Bo she only had 4 pups. I kept one male, Tur Bo.
Dolly was also Luke’s mother out of Windypoint’s Lucky Dog. That makes her Sally’s grandmother and Mann and Babe’s great grandmother. Some good blood runs in all of my dogs.
I carried her to my truck and we went to Independence Animal Hospital. When they called me I carried her into the examining room. Dr. Wingert took a look and said I did the right thing. She was in pain and at her age she wasn’t going to get any better. I rubbed her head as she went into her final sleep.
Even when you know it’s the right thing, it’s really hard. I wish dogs lived longer. I’m going to miss her.
Dolly
Dolly honoring Sally.
Dolly on point.