One Exceptional Proud Moment

Many of us who have owned hunting dogs have had proud moments of their companion’s accomplishments. I would like to share one special accomplishment my buddy Shadow displayed. Keep in mind he was a mistreated pup before I took him in.
Shadow was my first and only hunting dog that I took upon myself to train what I expected from him. I’ve already produced 1-thread for his first outing on retrieval but that technically was only half the story. After that first outing retrieving downed ducks on open water was a done deal. Now what he wouldn’t do was go by himself into cattails and tall marsh grass. He would follow me in but never on his own. Whether it was fear or apprehension I don’t know and racked my brains to figure out a way for him to overcome this reluctance.

I was almost to the point of giving up and prepared to still carrying my waders along for this type of duck hunting. That is until a hunting incident changed everything.
It was Shadows 2nd year of hunting when this incident occurred. It was a beautiful fall day where I didn’t expect much bird activity but felt the need to get out. It was late morning when a hen mallard decided to visit the pond and dropped her there in open water. Shadow was quickly on her to bring her in. While Shadow was swimming back to shore the duck appeared to miraculously come alive and with one wing thrashing wildly on the side of Shadow’s head he let go. That duck immediately and hurriedly made its way into the cattails. Ah Nuts.

When he finished watching the duck disappear into the cattails his attention returned to me. For some reason I yelled FETCH and then thought “What am I saying”. As I turned to get my waders I saw the tail end of my buddy disappear into the cattails. To say I was amazed as to what was transpiring is an understatement. Instead of putting on my waders I climbed the embankment for a better vantage point to see if I could see any sign of movement from the reeds. Sure enough I observed a small ripple of reeds trying to elude a larger ripple trying to catch up with it. Man I had a ringside seat for this chase that was a hoot.

During the chase it looked like the duck might make good an escape and I would have to get my waders and join in. But somehow Shadow would re-orientate himself and was back on the bird. This chase lasted 4-5minutes but eventually the big ripple met up with the smaller ripple. About a minute after that Shadow came out of the reeds proudly holding his catch. I don’t think I can express how delighted and proud I was of my buddy’s accomplishment. I couldn’t help my buddy overcome his reluctance to enter into a blind area and he himself overcame this difficulty.

Okay I had some apprehension for a short while and still brought my waders along on a few following hunts. But since that day I never again had to wear waders for bird retrieval. That was now completely handed over to Shadow.


Ed