12/02/2024
Our trip to Iowa was full of adventures, fantastic dog work, and personal triumphs. Scout still has "it," flushing and retrieving her share of birds. She's always had the capacity to take complex directions and that ability shined when I sent her on a blind retreive across a creek into the dense grass to recover a downed bird. Her aging body leaves her in pain after the hunt but like a true working dog, she only takes a break when forced to. Bear has grown into a seasoned hunter, dutifully locating bird after bird...including a wild turkey! He never protested once, even after all of the miles, the cuts on his face and undercarriage from diving face-first into the dense vegetation, or the battle scars from fighting with a raccoon. Then there's my favorite hunting partner, Brooke Wendt, who hunts harder than most people I know and hangs tough when the conditions get brutal. Her persistence was rewarded during a memorable hunt where Bear pointed a rooster, her aim was true, Scout reterieved, and I had a front-row seat to the whole thing! It takes a certain amount of of crazy to drive 12 hours to willingly walk for miles through chest-high prairie during the frigid November wind only for a rooster pheasant to flush at your feet and you miss; but for some reason we keep pushing on to the next fence row, the next creek, the next ridge, and beyond.
