Before our trip last week, I had never been hunting. But I had always thought — well, if I ever do go hunting, I will do it only if we eat whatever we kill. And unlike so many other of my pre-conceived notions, this one actually (mostly*) came true.
Even though Russ didn’t shoot a pheasant, we had pheasant for dinner tonight. Rod and Renae gave us the bird Rod shot on Tuesday. It had been cleanly shot through the head, and Rio brought it back with a very gentle mouth.
The night Rod shot that second pheasant, he cleaned it out on their back deck. Tooey was very interested in the whole proceedings, almost sticking her nose into the bird while Rod was working on it. Unfortunately, we didn’t take pictures that evening, but tonight, Tooey was equally interested, and we did have a camera handy.
Tooey inspects the pheasant
Russ, as usual did a beautiful job, and the braised pheasant with potatoes and vegetables was delicious and filling. Neither one of us could finish our plates. (Leftovers tomorrow!)
Russ browns the phesant before braising
Braised pheasant and roasted potatoes
* About the “mostly.” Russ did shoot a quail on the first day, which we’re not going to eat. Instead, we plan to use it to teach Cooper to fetch and hold quail, instead of spitting it out. According to Cooper, it doesn’t taste like duck.
The afternoon was too beautiful to pass up, so after lunch on Hunt Day 2, we piled back into our cars to try our luck at one more hunting spot. This was also WDFW managed lands that used to be agricultural acreage. In fact, as we hiked, we came across fallen irrigation sprinklers and capped-off irrigation pipes. Now the land is covered with sage, Russian olive trees, grasses, thistles, cattails, and small ponds.
We hoped also that it would be covered in pheasants, but we didn’t see or hear any. We did see some ducks, but they were too far away. And at one point, while we were standing in a patch of tall brush, one, two, three, and maybe four quail burst into the air around us. Renae sensibly dropped to the ground. I was so stunned, I just stood there, gaping. Because the birds flew in all directions (and possibly because I was in the way), there were no good shots. So we just stopped and listened as the birds flew away.
The day was late and hunting stops 30 minutes before sundown (4:30 p.m.). So the four people hiked back enjoying the sunset scenery, a tired Cooper tried to keep Russ and me in line, and Rio kept on trying to hunt up birds.
The morning of Day 2 found us on wildlife habitat land near Warden, Washington, managed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). Since it used to be agricultural land, the walking was mostly flat, criss-crossed with drainage ditches and rows of wild roses.
The four humans and two dogs were circling back toward the cars, when Russ and Renae heard a pheasant rooster cackle in one of the rose hedges. Rod and Rio went up one side of the hedge, and Russ and Cooper went around to the other side. Rio flushed the bird into the air, where Rod had a perfect shot, dropping the bird into the grass.
At the sound of the gun, Rio and Cooper raced off in the direction of the fallen bird. (Honoring another dog’s retrieve isn’t in Cooper’s mental vocabulary yet.) Fortunately, Rio found the bird first, made the retrieve, and proudly returned the bird to Rod.
After a day of hunting, there is always dog clean up to do. In one of our pre-trip emails, Renae had predicted about 1/2 hour of brushing out the dogs.
For Cooper, it was more like 1-1/2 hours. The dogs had gotten wet from their bellies down, curling the fur tighter around all the plant debris. Rio’s fur was clipped short — just right for hunting. Plus, Rio has an interesting habit — he bites burrs out of his coat as soon as he gets them, so that saves some work at the end of the day, too. Brushing him out took Renae the predicted 1/2 hour.
But Cooper’s coat was much longer than Renae had realized — giving the burrs, seeds, sticks, brambles, stickers, and leaves even more places to hide. Cooper was mostly patient about all that brushing — I think he was too tired to protest too vigorously.
If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you already know what I think about the idiocy of keeping an Irish Water Spaniel’s fur long for show. But there it is — people show their IWS with longer fur than they would ever dare for hunting.
If they’re thinking straight, that is. Our excuse is that we’re planning to show Cooper in December or January, so we couldn’t (didn’t, wouldn’t) simply clip his fur. We probably should have, though.
Rod and Rio, with the advice and consent of Renae, make a great team. Rio hunts ‘em up and Rod brings ‘em in.
That’s why, this particular afternoon, Rod got the first pheasant. The rules state that hunters can only shoot roosters, and the one Rio flushed from the bushes was a beauty.
Rio flushed the pheasant up and out of the cattails, and Rod got a nice center shot. But in an explosion of feathers, the bird went straight back down, further into the dense patch of cattails.
Rod sent Rio back into the cattails to start searching, encouraging him with “Where’s the bird?” and “Find the bird!” Using his nose, Rio located the bird deep in the cattail patch, and brought it out to Rod.
This is where an Irish Water Spaniel’s thick curly coat has an advantage, protecting most of the dog from the cattail’s sharp edges. After a day’s work, Rio had a few red areas around his nose and tail (plus about 10,000 miscellaneous seeds and plant parts).
We were out for about 5 hours at the Lower Goose, and loved every minute of it. The dogs flushed up two birds, and the hunters got them both.
As we stepped down a steep path deeper into the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, I finally looked up from the camera and actually saw what was in front of me. Coming from the big city in wet, green western Oregon, I was not really prepared for the beauty of the potholes area around Lower Goose Lake in eastern Washington.
I took pictures, but they don’t convey the clean, clear stillness of the air, the crunch of the ground underfoot, and the muted greens, grays, yellows, and browns of the basalt cliffs, the grasses, cattails, and sage, all set off by the turquoise water and sky.
What pictures also can’t convey is the up and down. We climbed more miles up and down than we hiked out and back. And the dogs did round and round, in and out, back and forth, as well as the up and down.
It was exhausting and wonderful, all the more so since Rod got the next bird in the afternoon. I’ll talk about that in the next blog entry.
Rod, Russ, Rio, and Cooper were walking along an dense, boggy patch of cattails, about 7 feet high and 20 feet wide. Renae and I were on a short cliff above, watching as Rio searched in and out of the cattails, looking for birds.
Rod, Cooper, Rio, and Russ approaching a cattail patch
All of a sudden, a shot blasted and a quail fluttered to the bank on the other side of the cattails. Russ had gotten the first bird of the trip.
Now, if this were a hunt test, Cooper would have been expected to push a straight line through the cattails to retrieve the bird. But those cattails are sharp, and besides, once in the patch, he wouldn’t have been able to see more than a foot in front of him. So being the sensible dog that he is, he backed up, ran around the patch of cattails, found the quail, and picked it up.
And then spit it out. But, to his credit, Cooper stood over the quail and waited until Russ slogged his way through the cattails. Just for the picture, Russ told Cooper to fetch the bird, and hold it, which he did just long enough for me to trip the shutter.
In one of my earliest emails to Rosemary about getting a puppy, I said that I didn’t plan to hunt. My husband and dog had other ideas.
Hunting in the abstract (like a complete neophyte saying “I don’t plan to hunt”) is one thing. Participating in hunting is another. This past several days has been a mind- and eye-opening experience. We are grateful to Rod, Renae, and Rio, their Irish Water Spaniel, for providing the space, expertise, and companionship to get us started.
Russ, Rio, Rod, and Renae
I didn’t actually pull any triggers myself, aside from the camera shutter. But I watched closely as Rio searched out and flushed our quails and pheasants, Russ and Rod made the shots, Rio and Cooper fetched up their birds, and Rod cleaned the birds for eating.
Over the next several days, I’ll post more pictures and details about our hunting trip with Irish Water Spaniels.
You know, I need to make a new “note to self.” Whenever I think I “know” something, I really out to see that as a signal that I probably know w-a-a-ay less than I thought.
This has happened so many times. In the case of Irish Water Spaniels, I know I wrote about this before, when we were planning to get Cooper. We’d had puppies before, trained them, house trained them, prevented them from chewing stuff they’re not supposed to chew, etc. So, getting an IWS puppy ought to be a piece of cake, right?
Wrong.
Now it’s : Oh, yeah, we’ve had two dogs before. Been there, done that, piece of pie.
Well, maybe.
Having two dogs is really different, and it’s only been less than 24 hours. Russ kept telling me we’ll figure it out, and yes, we WILL figure it out. Here are some of the things that require figuring:
What do do when you give the “table” command, and both dogs jump up on the small grooming table.
(Tell one dog to lie down, then give the other dog the “Table” command. And hope the 1st dog obeys.)
What to do when it’s raining hard outside, it’s muddy, and both dogs push their way through the door and get into the carpeted living room before they even hear the “Feet” command — stop and get your feet wiped.
(Tell both dogs to sit, let the one who sits first come in first, and block the doorway with your body should the 2nd dog choose to disobey. Or get a baby door. Or another person, or all of the above.)
How to give both dogs their evening walk.
(Probably, let them both out into the back yard, then let them play for a bit to work off some steam, then crate one dog and take the other out, then switch.)
How to get a relatively calm good-morning cuddle.
This is easy with one calm IWS. With two IWS, it’s a tornado. Maybe skip this ritual, or let one dog out of his/her crate, alternating mornings with one dog and then the other.
I’m sure other issues will come up. But I will say, Cooper and Tooey seem to really like each other. And they’re both so different in temperament, personality, looks, structure, everything. It’s real entertainment.
Today, Renae sent me some pictures of Tooey, taken on March 8th, when Tooey was 12 weeks old. In several of these pictures, she’s playing with Rod and Renae’s Rio, Cooper’s cousin.
Observation has led to a theory that squirrels have developed a telepathic-type ability to “single-track” the mind of a dog.
Through a currently unidentified mechanism, when a squirrel sights a dog, that squirrel sends a pulse or signal directly to the dog’s brain.
The result for the dog is that conscious brain functions are turned off. Control of the eyes, ears, and nose is transferred to the squirrel, and for a short period, ambulation is disabled. In essence, the dog becomes unable to respond to non-squirrel-generated environmental stimuli, particularly any originating from the dog’s handler.
Some change in the modulation or frequency of this pulse or signal then enables ambulation for the dog. This sudden release of energy, accompanied by the continued directed control over the eyes, ears, and nose, causes the dog to suddenly bolt in the direction of the squirrel. Hence, the squirrel is forced into sudden, extreme aerobic activity, with attendant (but relatively low) risks of being caught and eaten.
How this mechanism might benefit the individual squirrel is in question. One proposal states that this mechanism is employed by squirrels with a highly developed need for thrill-seeking behaviors. Another proposed idea notes that this behavior seems to be evident particularly in the autumn when squirrel intake of nuts and other calorie-dense foods is high, thus necessitating the usage of some factor which can motivate the squirrel to engage in frequent and vigorous aerobic exercise.
How this mechanism benefits the squirrel as a species is more obvious. Squirrels who activate the mechanism, and then do not run fast enough are swiftly removed from the gene pool. Another possibility is that the mechanism is actually used, not by the squirrel who is chased, but by other squirrels competing for resources and access to mates.
Further daily study of this phenomenon is required. Studies using local Irish Water Spaniels will be developed to test this theory.
OK, I’ll admit it. After yesterday, I was really hoping that Tooey would win Best of Breed again today. She is certainly (IMHO) beautiful enough.
But instead, I was able to take pleasure in another goal that I had going into this show. Like a lot of dogs, Tooey has been a bit shy with men. And I already knew that today’s judge was going to be a man. So one of my goals was that Tooey would not freak out at being examined by the male judge.
We’ve been practicing. I have been approaching strange and not-so-strange men everywhere we go, asking them if they would give Tooey a cookie. Several weeks ago we had a major breakthrough at Colleen and Gary’s house.
At the beginning of the evening, Tooey was being stand-offish with Gary. Not running away, just barely nosing forward and then stepping back several paces when he tried to pet her. But Gary persevered, and by the end of the evening, she actually approached him, asked for the cookie, and let him pet her topknot and ears.
That gave me hope, so I kept it up. At parks, on the sidewalks, in front of stores, at conformation class, I would scout likely male prospects. Russ pitched in by asking some of the men at Tooey’s puppy socialization class to work with her, too.
Food helps. In the ring today, Tooey knew I had her favorite treat in my pocket, and when the judge stepped forward to examine her, she stood still, not backing away. And then, when he moved down her body, I stepped around, stuffed a treat in her face, and joy of joys, she wagged her tail! You can see in the video at about 0:40:
And congratulations to Tom and his Maggie for their Best of Breed win today.
Tooey and I went into the ring at the Vancouver Kennel Club show today, and did amazingly well. In fact, this 10 month old puppy won Best of Breed. (With a little help from me and my very generous friends.)
Having won Best of Breed, Tooey and I also competed for a placement in the Sporting Group. We had no expectations, except to get some experience and hopefully have a good time.
Patrice and Tooey in the Sporting Group ring
And that was good — because that’s exactly what we got — I got experience and Tooey had a good time. She even nuzzled up to the handler of the German Wirehaired Pointer behind us, asked for a cookie, and got one.
So, thank you to Colleen for amazing grooming help, to Tammy for grooming and showing tips and moral support, to Tom and Jill for bringing some other IWS to compete with, and to Colleen and Judith for letting us have this delightful little girl.
Tooey and I got to thank each other a bit more personally after we got home. Take a look:
Yesterday evening, Colleen shaped Tooey’s former “rags in the wind” style into a more refined look. You can actually see some movement and structure now under all that fur. (Thank you, Colleen.)
Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures. While Colleen was wielding the scissors, I was feeding a steady stream of pinkie-fingernail sized treats into Tooey’s mouth. Tooey is not a big fan of the grooming table, so I’m using her favorite treat to try to convince her otherwise.
Actually, it’s not the table so much — it’s those dang combs, brushes, and scissors that always seem to appear when Tooey’s on the table. So, she gets this particular treat (Natural Balance beef dog food roll)only when she’s actually being brushed, combed, or scissored. Worked for Cooper and his pills.
Now, if I could only figure out a way to deliver treats at the same instant that I’m putting the ear cleaning solution into her ear…
