Chaucer in December

I woke up nice and early and went out for a walk this morning with Chaucer. I only intended for it to be a quick walk, but it turned out to be a pretty interesting, and much longer, experience. It was pleasantly cold. Some mornings that I walk with Chaucer in the winter are just plain cold cold. This one was crisp and nice. I was only going to walk to the river and back but as I neared the small bridge, Chaucer took off and met up with a man getting out of his truck. I have seen him around the park before, I have even spoken to him before. I used to think he was a ranger, but he isn't, just a hunter and dog enthusiast. His name is Dennis. He has two Labs, one yellow and one black. I went up to retrieve my retriever and he was patting him and taking out his own two dogs. I was ready for those cursory and quick "hi's" and "have a nice day's" but to my surprise he asked me to walk with him and his dogs. He was going to, as he always does, allow his dogs to ferret out pheasants in the fields and shrub brush that grow along the banks of the river. I.. to my own surprise... said "Ok."

Chaucer and his yellow lab, the male, didn't get along very well at first. Chauc isn't aggressive in the least, but he is really playful and sometimes other dogs, especially older dogs, don't take to that very well. They growled and played the whole "whose dominant" thing for a while, but the eventually calmed down and ran around together. The black lab (female) was friendlier until Chauc tried to get "too" friendly and she let him know that she wasn't interested, in no uncertain terms.

Dennis'  dogs are hunting dogs. They have been trained since they were 5 months old. It is pretty cool to see them do their thing. Dennis would point in a direction and both dogs would go off... about twenty feet away, and do these figure eights. They would then slowly trace their way back to him and that was that. A couple times they caught scent of a bird, signified by them wagging their tales in this spiral pattern. (the faster they spun their tales the stronger the scent). They never spooked up any birds, I guess a rarity in his experience, but it was great to see them do what they were born to do.

Labs really are born birding dogs. Their bodies come equipped for it. A lab's fur is hollow (to keep them warm after getting wet in the pursuit of ducks). Their feet are webbed. Their actions are instinctively aimed at retrieving game. I have seen it in Chaucer, even though he has never been trained for hunting in the slightest. If I throw a stick, he will fetch it and not bring it directly back to me. 9 out of 10 times he will run past me and then circle back to me and give me the stick. I have even seen him shake it out before handing it to me. This is all in an effort to bleed the thing out a bit before giving his game over to me. He just does it... programmed in.

When I was ready to go, Dennis handed me his card and asked me if I wanted to train Chaucer to be a bird dog. Chaucer is a very big lab... not one of those petite, long-nosed ones. He has a huge head and is very muscular. Dennis kept on commenting on what great shape he is in, and I have to admit, Chaucer has these back legs that have visibly huge muscles in them... probably a combination of genetics and the fact that I hike him out so often. I was kind of taken aback at his invitation. I wasn't expecting it. Dennis told me that when a dog trains with dogs that are already well trained, the training goes really fast. He asked me if I wanted to go with him to a private reserve in Connecticut that he and his friends go to in the off season. (Visions of "the Most Dangerous Game" flashed through my head)  I am not a hunter. Really... I don't have a lot of desire to shoot things and eat them. I am an outdoors kind of guy... just not really a gun kind of guy. But something in me wants to go. I just want to see Chaucer in his element. I don't know. It just seems so republican. "I am going out bird hunting with the guys today my wife. Maybe we can talk about money over a fire when I come home and I can smoke cigars and wear a tie." I don't know... it's just not me.

Still though, I still have his card... maybe. We walked through the brush on these barely visible paths, Chaucer followed his dogs and I could tell he was loving it. We walked for about an hour and finally decided to give up the hunt. No pheasants had scared up and apparently we were at the end of his route. Chaucer was acting satisfied and had no problem walking with me away from the other two dogs. As we were taking our last turn back toward my car, at a place where I normally throw sticks into the river for Chaucer to retrieve, a huge explosion of whooshing pops scared me senseless as a pheasant flew out of the pine trees just ahead of me.... Chaucer remained unimpressed.

db