The Meadowlark Gallery, Inc.
Specializing In
Western Fine Art
118 North 29th Street
Billings, Montana 59101
Gallery: 406-294-8575
Clients: 800-727-3949
Roxy (1993-2005)
November 9, 2005
My friends,
Well this morning instead of going into the treestand, I had to take an old friend out to the duck blind. As we turned on Byam Road and even before that she sat up and was excited for what the morning was to bring for she was always ready to go.
Roxy was a terror on four paws or wheels. One of the toughest dogs I had ever met, maybe not in mass but heart and stamina as she was all business thus came her alternate name of "Miss Business."
One of my favorite memories of her was once at the inception of a hard snow storm the dogs needed to go out on the deck. The two of them ran out there whereby Kayla did her business and was a streak of flame for the door and the warmth of the fire. I looked out into the snow storm on the deck and there was Roxy, standing alert with her head into the wind and loving it all.
"Miss Business" could really work my numbers and, or push my keys but she was there in our lives for a reason I am sure. I am not sure if I can remember every retrieve but I can remember the feeling every time a bird was brought back to me.
I can remember the times when the neoprene vest became a uniform for her unlike many of my friends who hunted with a dog. We had learned about and appreciated the vests with our first dog that we lost at the age of twelve in 1993. The neoprene vests became a necessity in cold weather for all of my German Shorthairs. I can remember one morning when we went into the blind and while walking out, Roxy was pointing Mallards in the creek. The weather was so cold that the birds did not want to get off the water and Roxy had an easy one inch of ice hanging off her neoprene coat.
Yes, I have trouble with dogs and will often say to folks that bird dogs make glad, mad, and sad. Glad when you get them, mad when you have them and sad when they are gone.
Of course there are many memories but Roxy had full seasons of bird hunting. When I first got her at just over eight weeks, I wrapped her up in my hunting coat and she fell asleep on my lap while we were sitting in the blind. The shooting never bothered her and I remember this big yawn from the depths of my coat with this little nose sniffing out into the cool fall air.
I had not initially worked on hand signals with Roxy for one reason or another. She was working on a retrieve for me when I simply yelled at her, stopping her while looking back at me. I exaggerated my movements and swung my arm out to one side and said, "Over!" She looked at me as if to say, "Well boss why didn't you say that earlier?" She took the command and then later I did it again to the other side with the same results. "Back" was even more easy than the others. A smart old working gal she was to become.
One of my most favorite stories about her was in her first season of training. We had a blue bird day and nothing had really come except a little old green winged teal that I was fortunate to dump on the water. I went out and got the bird and the training began. I threw that little old bird about eighty five times or so and Roxy really had the old enthusiasm pumping as she was then ready to go. Finally I gave her a rest and we went back to the blind. The retrieved bird was a nice clump of feathers that had been mouthed many times.
Now with a blue bird day it is very relaxing because the sun beats down nicely and so it is usually the case where one stands up to enjoy the world. All of a sudden some Greenheads (Mallards for you big game hunters) started coming into the blind. Little by little our count went from three to four birds to six, now seven, then nine with the limit at twelve birds between the two of us. Of course our count now started to include this dilapidated retrieval dummy a.k.a. Green Winged Teal. Finally we were within one bird of our limit with this teal when a pair of Mallards came back to look at us. We touched off our shotguns and we were done except for this little bitty problem for now we were over the total amount of this clump of feathers. We went up to the car to leave and now this game of retrieving got really serious for every time I would distract Roxy then I would toss the teal into the high grass. Pretty soon I would look around and here was that blessed dog with the teal. Finally I took the teal, waded to the front of the blind and took a fence post and rammed it deep into the mud under the blind.
A few weeks later the local constable told me that he had some spare time to go out duck hunting based upon a long ago invitation. We got out to the blind and got set up. Roxy was beside her dog door of the blind and was just fussing and going through a fit to say the least. I looked at her and said, "Fine, get out of the blind!" That dog flew out the door and dove under the blind without even hitting the water, coming up nicely with this now very much aged Teal in her mouth. The Constable turned to me and said, "Now I cannot tell who got this bird but I would surely suggest to that person that they never do this again." I said, "Yes, sir."
One early weekend in October of Roxy's first real season, Gary Sengbusch and I were sitting in the blind and were fortunate over three consecutive passes to dump five Canada Geese. I immediately jumped out of the blind because a goose and a new dog can end up with disaster for the dog and possibly ruining it as well. Roxy ran up to this goose who was "dead" on the ground, all of a sudden the goose stood up and turned around with its wing and knocked her down. Roxy backed up and rolled her jaw back and forth. When she early on would get mad at me she would do the same thing but the Alpha man let it be known who was boss.
Roxy let out a bark and hit that goose in the chest, knocking it down and started plucking feathers out of the bird while it was still alive. Later another bird was down in the water and the same thing happened with the same results. I knew that the lesson with the retrieving of a goose was solved for the future.
In about her second or third season we had some geese come into the blind and we dumped a single in some very deep water. Roxy went out to the goose, got it in her mouth, and brought it to shore proceeding to directly bring it right into the blind and drop it on the floor. We all just praised her greatly and she knew it because her neck was just bowed while holding that goose and the look in her eyes was just priceless.
One particular day over in Big Timber, a goose had the misfortune of coming over our blind. We fired and finally could see the bird dropping to a far corner of the shore of the pond. As I watched the bird fall, out of the corner of my eye I could see this white blur streaking toward the bird. There was a sudden impact of a German Shorthair and this old goose with a cloud of feathers flying up into the air. A few weeks later when I walked by this very spot I had to laugh because there were still some goose feathers on the ground from that very bird. The reason for my laughter was the winds are extremely high in the Big Timber area.
Well my old friend now recently has become scared of any ice on our roof or on the deck. Her hips were very weak and she could get confused very easily. Last night she was really scared to go out on the deck because of the ice. She would become irritated with us and scared at the same time without knowing what to do. She was panicky to the point that it bothered all of us and she was so disappointed in herself.
Last night it seemed so cold but something had to be done because her dignity was gone. I called our dear friend and veterinarian, Krayton Kerns, of Beartooth Veterinary who initially was going to come to the gallery to help Roxy. He called me back and said that he would be working with some cattle owned by Larry Hart and was only a few minutes away from our duck blind that we have on the property of Wilmer Hart, his father. So the girls and I went out to the duck blind and just enjoyed ourselves sniffing the world as it be such. Krayton arrived and we all were there to send our working dog on to a better season.
I will probably from time to time go on with other memories of retrieves and even points for a good dog is never forgotten. I used to comment that "life was a bitch and then you die." I was nicely corrected by a good friend of mine that told me that his father would say every morning, "I wake up surprised, give thanks, and go on."
One of my favorite statements that I usually make when new guests come to our blind is, "Welcome to the Taj Majal."
"Roxy, are you ready to go?" "Born ready Boss!"
"Roxy, ................back!"
