Whenever people tell me that dogs don't have emotions, I tend to laugh at them. Anybody who has spent time with a dog knows that if there's one thing that they lack, it most certainly is NOT emotion.
The story I'm about to tell you is not all that uncommon for hunting dogs, but it plays into Strider's personality so much that I feel that to leave it out wouldn't be right.
Strider was three at the time and we went on a Canada Goose hunt in a cut corn field with a few other people, two of them being good friends of mine. The five of us were in layout blinds, which for those of you who don't know are pretty much nothing more than sleeping cots with a camouflage covering and two small door-like openings that cover you when you don't want the geese to see you, and swing open when you're ready to shoot. Strider has his own dog blind (which is also camouflaged) that sits next to me in the field, much like a collapsible kennel.
After covering our small hideaways with cut corn stalks and husks from the field, we felt confident that no passing goose would be able to sense any danger while flying overhead. It was still dark, and the crisp January air was catching our breath in dense fogs as we exhaled. We still had to set up the decoys, and it was still early enough that the birds hadn't even started chirping yet.
That's right…for all you people that are cozy in bed on that morning, we hunters are out in the cold, up before the birds, actually pursuing what we intend to eat. Sure, we could wait until the grocery store opens like most "normal" people. But I ask you: Where's the fun in that?? Who wouldn't love waking up an hour (at least) before sunrise and driving to a frozen corn field with a wound-up retriever, fifty decoys that need to be strategically planted, an awkwardly large layout blind, a shotgun, and a personal equipment bag that is undoubtedly missing something that you wanted to bring but left at home? Sounds like a great way to spend a morning to me.
Forgive me, I've digressed.
After putting out the decoys, we all settled into our layouts to get ready for the morning's hunt. When you're lying in a blind like that, it's very easy for the excitement of the hunt to give way to the exhaustion that you feel from waking up at 4:00 in the morning. While it's not as common as you may think, it's not unheard of for a group of hunters to be lying in a field, and during a lull in the conversation between them, a very loud snoring can be heard coming from one of the blinds. The thing about it is that somebody will try to figure out who is doing it, as to be able to play the appropriate prank.
There was one time when I was the unfortunate soul who fell asleep in the blind, and the rest of the yahoos that I was hunting with viewed it as an opportunity to mess with me. They planned their prank very well; sliding my gun out of my hands before proceeding, which was a smart move considering that what followed would have probably had me firing it until it was unloaded at whatever moved. Still snoring quite loudly, one of them stood kneeled at the head of my blind and fired off three rapid shots from his shotgun up into the air. This brought me to the upright position as if somebody had just stabbed me in the back, screaming, "WHAT THE &%#@?!?!" I love my friends…I swear I do.
The morning in question passed pretty uneventfully until about 8:00 am, which is when the birds began flying. The first group of geese came in, and we downed all four of them. Strider retrieved all of them without an issue, and we all sat back in our blinds, awaiting the next group. It was only about twenty minutes before the next group of about ten geese came coasting into our decoy spread. Five of them fell from the sky, with one of them only being crippled and falling like a glider away from us at about 100 yards.
I climbed out my layout and brought him to a standing heel so that I could line him for the crippled bird. The rule of thumb is that you always send the dog for the crippled bird first, as not to extend the bird's suffering. Strider took off for that goose, and when he got about two-thirds of the way to it, the bird started running away. By the time he had reached it, the bird had managed to get off the ground in an attempt to fly away. That wasn't going to stop Strider. He got under that goose, took one giant leap, grabbed it by one of those huge webbed feet and slammed it back to the ground. Of course, all this did was ROYALLY tick of the goose, which reared up on its feet and gave a big, posturing hiss toward the dog with its wings fully extended outward. As he's trained to do, Strider made a fast move, gripped the large bird around the midsection and began the trek back to me with the live animal firmly in his grasp. During the return, the goose had managed to rear its head around was incessantly biting and shaking Strider's ears and lips in an attempt to make him let it go. He was about 30 yards from me when he dropped the great bird from his jaws and placed his right paw on its chest, rendering it largely immobile, staring at me and ignoring the ever-growing protest of the goose. I looked down at my friends, who were still in their layouts, and said, "I don't know what to do. We don't train for this!"
He was fed up, and kept looking at me as if to say, "Do you see what this damn thing is doing to me? Are you going to do anything about this??"
All I could think to do was tell him to pick it back up and bring it to me so that I could deal with it, and after a few of my "Fetch" commands went unacknowledged, he gripped the goose's neck in his jaws just below the head and gave one great shake of his head.
Hunting dogs are trained to have a soft mouth and to bring the animals back to us alive, because all dogs are born with the knowledge of a "death shake." Anybody who has played tug-of-war with their dog knows what it is. Whenever you have a rope or towel that you are tugging on with your dog and he shakes his head from side to side, he's not just trying to rip it away from you, it's a primal instinct to kill and rip apart what you are fighting over. Have you ever given a dog a new stuffed animal, and the first thing he does is take it away and violently shake it back and forth in its mouth? He's not showing affection or gratitude to you…he's killing it. I have seen some dogs to that with live birds, and believe me when I tell you that the bird that gets the "death shake" from a retriever is no longer fit to eat. The dog has completely crushed the mid-section of the animal and punctured multiple bones into the breast meat, effectively destroying it and releasing excess blood and bowel into the meat, as well. Go ahead and try to eat that bird…I dare you.
Strider has never given the "death shake" while making a retrieve, and I don't really classify this instance as him doing something that he wasn't supposed to do. I honestly think that the goose had annoyed him to the point that he wasn't going to pick it up again as long as it was in that state of mind, even if it meant disobeying my fetch command (which is a HUGE no-no in the retriever world). The single shake of his head ripped the goose's head clean off, which he then spit onto the ground. The bird was flailing about, as birds with freshly severed heads tend to do, but Strider calmly picked it up and made a clean delivery to me. Of course, my friends are losing it alongside me watching this whole episode take place.
Really, what could I do? He hadn't damaged the bird in any way and delivered it to my hand, just like he's supposed to. There was nothing that I could scold him for at that point. I just scratched his ear and told him "good boy," and we resumed hunting. We only needed one more bird to reach our limit for the day, and it was achieved not long after that. It's the only hunt that I can remember where the fact that everyone limited out (which is quite rare) wasn't the main point of conversation afterward. As you can imagine, on that hunt, it was Strider.
He has always been that way. There are several trainers that adhere to the idea that SIT MEANS SIT…so there is no reason for a "Stay" command. When you tell a dog to sit, he should sit until given further instruction. It's that simple. As a puppy, when teaching Strider how to sit, I encountered a problem. He would remain in the sit position by keeping his rump on the ground, but would pull himself along with his front legs to get closer to me…and his treat. It wasn't a hard problem to fix, but it did give me some insight into future training; not technically breaking the rules, but not doing it completely the right way, either. Smartass.
Strider is full of personality, and even though it has made for a few setbacks in his training, I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world, and I know that every dog owner out there feels the same way.
Well, be sure to give extra scratches behind the ears and happy training!
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