A dogs life and Death, and how it changed Mine

I thought I would share a story for those Friday night fellows taking it easy. I am sure many of you dog owners can relate to this story. I am a bad writer so I am sorry for the bad wording ahead of time.

The life of my bird dog Abby Tekoa Smith.

12 years ago in Washington Michigan, in the back of a dusty barn my father and I found a box full of English setters, a bred line known as Tekoa Sunrise setters. I was 13 years old, fresh out of hunters safety and the thought of a furry hunting companion was as exciting as getting my first shotgun (Remington youth 870 20 gauge). We picked the only chestnut colored pup in the bunch; she was also the only one crying obnoxiously the whole time I held her (typical women thing!) “Thank you Larry” my dad said and we drove her home to Troy. My mother being a huge anti-hunter thought Abby was created by the devil himself and did not want to have anything to do with her. Which was fine with us! My little sister somehow won the battle of naming her Abby, which turned out okay.
A couple weeks later after school, I rode my bike to the underpass of I-75 interstate, trying to catch a G*damn pigeon…and yes pigeons are way too fast to try and catch by hand. Luckily they forget they live under a busy bridge and when I flushed them they flew into oncoming traffic. Worked out nice I’d say (not for the peoples cars though). I filled my pockets with a couple of mangled birds and headed home. I threw one in the grass and let Abby after it. With her little wobbly legs she stopped in her tracks, head down, tail up and LOCKED. It is still to this day one of the coolest acts of nature I have ever seen.
The first few days we noticed she had a bad limp, which is a big concern for a bird dog owner. We had to make a decision to keep her and hope it was not genetic, or trade her in for another. We thought hard and my father said “she just seems like the right one for us”. We decided to gamble.
About a week later we all headed to my grandmother’s house, which is an all day trip. We left Abby in the fenced in area outside. When we returned the meter reader dude had come to check our meter and left the gate open. Abby was gone and I was crushed. 3 weeks went by and we had one report of her being sighted 3 miles away at a busy intersection. My dreams of having a bird dog vanished. But, this isn’t the end of her life. Don’t worry! 4 weeks after she has been missing, I heard scratching at the garage door. I peeked out the window, saw nothing and went back to shooting chipmunks with my bb gun from the backdoor. Again I heard scratching, I opened the door this time and there was little Abby, muddy with burs in her fur, cuts and scars but she was still wagging her tail. How did she make it back home? I do not know. Her limp was also gone!
Fall had arrived and after a summer of hard training on car crushed pigeons, pen raised quail and chukar, we took her out to the nearest public hunting area called Mount Holly. Not even a year old, her electronic color looked ridiculous on her skinny neck. Off she went into the woods, as we lost sight of her. My dad blew the whistle “cheerp cheerp”. Nothing. “Cheerp Cheerp” Nothing again. “Abby come”, “Abby come” we yelled. Still Nothing. My dad hit her electronic collar on high. Nothing. My dad left me at that spot as he ventured into the woods. 7 hours had passed and I see a police car arrive dropping off my dad. “We found her” he said. I remember thinking; we are never taking this dog hunting again. We already lost her twice. By this time she has become a friend, an escape from my anti-hunting mother. She was more than just a dog.
Well… we all know you can’t have a hunting dog and not hunt it right? They love it, it was what they were born for. It is who they are.
So, after a year we took her up north, where the woodcock and grouse roam the ash and poplar forests. The smell of pines and fresh leaves filled the air. We let her go. She stayed close working into the wind on angles. It was picture perfect. 15 minutes into our hunt she disappeared once again. She was following our commands so well all summer. I was again devastated. How could we lose her again? My father called and yelled, and hit the collar again on high. Nothing, we walked toward where we last saw her, and just above the tall ferns we saw a little white tail sticking up. “point” I yelled to my father. So we walked up to her, she still stood strong, even after we yelled and zapped her a few times (rookie mistakes). She never moved. I took a step forward and a grouse flushed into thick poplar trees. I threw my barrel up and shot twice. Abby broke point and ran off into the thick. “Did you get it” my father mumbled. “Uh, not to sure” I replied. We were never going to find this bird in this thick stuff I thought. “Dead Bird” we yelled off into the trees. Soon after hearing her little bell jingling, Abby came running back, mouth full of feathers and she jumped up on my chest, dropped the bird in my hand and licked me in the neck with her bird breath.
In today’s society, we forget how to live in the moment. Life goes by every day and we get in our routine, time passes by and we tend to care about the wrong things. For that moment in my life, I can honestly say… as I held the bird up, looking at all the beautiful marking on its feathers, that I was living in the moment. I was high, high on life-living in the current moment. This is why I care about hunting so much. It’s not about the killing, but the intangible moments of a hunt. I got the bird mounted on my wall still to this day.
The next year, Abby turned two. One cool late summer night, she scratched on my door and I opened it. She started running down the stairs, but came back to make sure I was following. She took me down the stairs and to the garage. The smell of gasoline fumes infested my head. My father, sitting in the front seat of his 1989 Chevy Suburban had a lighter in his hand. I opened up the passenger side and looked at my father as Abby climbed in my lap. He was crying. Gasoline was poured all over the vehicle and on the seats. My mother at this point stood at the door way yelling something, we didn’t care about. I looked my father in the eye, grabbed Abby and said, if “you’re going to take your life dad, you’re taking us with you”. I never stopped to wonder why all the sudden my father was depressed. It hit me blind side and again, I found myself living in the moment, this time it wasn’t a good one. I closed my eyes and held Abby’s shaking body, tuned my mother out and thought about the great hunting season we had together. When I opened them, my father was inside getting into it with my mother. Abby became my escape, she understood the bad situation that had erupted in my life. 2 weeks later, my father told me he was going to the market…before he left I said, “I can’t wait to hunt opening weekend with you and Abby dad”…”yes” he said, “it will be a great time”. That was the last time I ever saw my father.
After my father’s passing, right before opening day of bird season, I grabbed my truck and Abby, packed all my clothes, took my money I saved from cutting lawns in the summer, and headed up north. Living out of my truck with Abby in the woods for that fall I learned a lot about myself. A companionship with an unhuman existence, hunting grouse and woodcock taught me trust, love, honesty, commitment and much more. I remember our last day that season, dropping out of high school I knew I was headed down the wrong road. I sat among a hill overlooking the yellow, red and orange colors of the autumn forest. It was the last hour before dark, when the suns shine turns a deep golden orange. The time of day when the wind dies down, the leaves stop falling and the woods become silent. I call it the golden hour. The time when the deer start to move, the turkeys roost and time itself seems to stands still. Abby sat next to me watching the forest as I did. I knew I had to get my shi* together and suck it up. I smiled as darkness crawled in, packed my truck and headed back to home. Picking it up in school, I graduated high school early that spring. I enrolled in aviation school in Florida and took Abby with me. From here we would fly above the long beaches of eastern Florida. I took her everywhere I went. We hunted quail in the muggy heat of Georgia, the hills of Tennessee, grouse in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of Colorado. She walked the streets of time square in New York and the long sunsets of California. With her, I found myself. She understood what words could not express. She grew old next to my side.
Heading back to Michigan to finishing my college degree in Engineering, I took her on her last hunt 2 years ago. She had a hard time hearing me or the whistle, but she was an old pro. She had a hard time seeing, but her nose guided her through the same thick forests I grew up hunting with her. She remembered these woods like it was yesterday. She pointed her last bird, I knocked it down. She could not jump on my chest anymore to hand me the bird and I knew that it upset her. She curved up and laid down on the pine covered ground, out of breath. I gave her a pat on the head and said “it’s okay girl, you still got the hunt inside you”.
It’s funny how something so, so unhuman has so much character, so much personality and is so full of life. I am lucky god gave me such an amazing companion. Last December, as the sun began to set, in the golden hour of the corn fields surrounding my house Abby limped across the yard to my truck. I spent the last hour of her life going for a drive down our old dirt road-remembering the smell of the northern pines, the feeling of a good shot on a grouse and the taste of feathers. It was a lifetime of hunting, adventures and nights by the fire. She rests her head on my leg as life began to drift. I knew she was the only thing left in this world who truly knows my story. She was the last thing I had left of my father. I had been scared of this day since first day I held her as a screaming little pup. I carried her out of my truck and in my arms her heart beat one last time. There is never a good time to leave this world...but there was someone on the other side waiting to see her. There probably aren’t enough birds in heaven to satisfy her hunting instinct. I buried her next in the woods where we once hunted, the same woods I threw my father’s ashes. How do you say goodbye to something once so full of personality and life? The answer is simple…you don’t. That was the last time I ever lost her. Thanks for reading this long story! Good night!


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Back when I left home to live with my then fiance we got a dog, she was gone within the month but I still have Neo and now he has a new 'mum', my wife.

Back when I got him he was such a wild bugger, so playful and full of energy. He is an old man now and I worry like hell about when that day comes, I try not to think like that and to remember all the great times, all the times when he was the one thing in the world that got me through and to make his last days as happy as his first. IME dogs truly are mans best friend, RIP Abby.

A lovely story, thanks for sharing.
 
Blurry screen here buddy.

Thank you for sharing your story, which is a fine testament to a much loved dog. You gave Abby a wonderful life and, when it comes right down to it, that's all a true dog lover can do.

I lost my soul mate (my Lurcher Jessie) nearly 3 years ago and I understand only too well the pain and grief one goes through when they leave us. I still think about her every day.

I hope you get a new dog soon.

W - B
 
A fantastic tale. As one who has watched my setters disappear many times I can share most of your sentiments. Down to the day I lost my first one.

Well written. Good luck with your next dog, my your memories be as good.
 
Sad for your loss, you will find her again. I lost my firs Weimaraner last month and I'm still in bits about it, they tell me that he waits at the rainbow bridge for me. I'm sure she waits for you
Wingy
 
Hell, I've got to come back to this as but half way through or "dinner will" truly "be in the dog" but you say you can't write??

"In today’s society, we forget how to live in the moment. Life goes by every day and we get in our routine, time passes by and we tend to care about the wrong things. For that moment in my life, I can honestly say… as I held the bird up, looking at all the beautiful marking on its feathers, that I was living in the moment. I was high, high on life-living in the current moment. This is why I care about hunting so much. It’s not about the killing, but the intangible moments of a hunt. I got the bird mounted on my wall still to this day."

Love it and so much I'm going to ensure many more SD memebrs read it. Promise!

Cheers

K
 
A good Keeper mate of mine buried his dog of a life time in his best shooting jacket, he could not express in words what you have done but the result is the same.
 
Damn. Seen this thread for a while now and knew it'd get me emotional if I read it, so thought I won't. But I did. And it did.
 
Thank you all for the kind words, Didn't mean to make it sad haha. Thanks for the recommendations on dogs as well, so many choices. I think I might wait a year, and spend a chunk of summer fishing Scandinavia again and hunting Scotland/England this fall for stag and roe bucks. Oh and if a muntjac happens to hop along...boom. Having a dog in college anyways is not easy especially a puppy, an adult dog like Abby was okay. Speaking of which, I need to find out how to get a stag or roe buck back to the usa for mounting (taxidermy haha) by the cheapest way. Where should I post this question? any recommended threads?
 
I imagine you would struggle to export/import a dead deer and your only bet may be to have it done in GB and then sent/taken across.
 
what an amazingly moving story, thank you so much for sharing it with us,good luck with your search for a new pup

Morgan
 
Thanks Morgan and jb. :) Back to the mounting stag topic, I guess your right that would be the best way. Have it done there. I'm not not sure how much to expect he shipping to be! :cuckoo:
 
Makes me both sad and happy at the same time, sad for the loss, but happy that she had such a full life.

Great story, very well written.

I hope that I can only give such a full life to my extended family.
 
I, I appear to have something in my eye :)

That's wonderful. I grew up with dogs, they were my truest friends. I've spent 30 years not having a dog because the path my life has travelled would not have been fair to have one. Now, at the age of 48, as I write this, sitting at my feet is a puppy I can call my own. I know that, one day, I'll have to say goodbye to her, but even in the short time I've had her, I couldn't have believed how much I'd have fallen in love with her.

What wonderful memories you have of your friend.
 
Well Far Away,
You certainly pulled and tugged and tugged again at my Heart string's still a tear in my eye. This has brought back many a happy hour I spent with my dog's out and about enjoying life to the full WOW.

Regard's
TS
 
Well damn, its been 3 years since I wrote this post. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who left kind words in the comments. I had a great time catching up on them all. I got busy with school and work since then, so I haven not logged on. I am now marketing director and film maker (as a side job) for WILD Jaeger, who travels across Europe hunting and fishing. I would love to share some of your stories with the world, please feel free to write me and share some experiences. I would love to share them on our pages, or even come out and film a short youtube video.

For me, I DID get another Abby (English setter). She is turning 3 years old this month. She's the same color (Chestnut) that Abby was, about the same size, but has a much wilder personality. Shes an amazing hunter, but gets side tracked with butterflies or mice every now and then. I named her Cora.
When I went to pick her up, there was one other puppy left which no one wanted. These two were sitting next to each other in the grass, and when I took Cora in my arms she kept looking back at the other puppy as I walked away and they were making puppy sounds back and fourth.
This other puppy is now named Stella. Yes, I took her as well. Her personality is more like Abby was, but more needy. Cora and Stella are great, however because I am traveling to Europe to film people hunting a few weeks out of the year and publishing their stories, or I am fighting fires as a fire fighter (volunteer) in my home town, or I am busy in school studying engineering.....I have not had time to train them as well as they probably should be. But I am okay with that...They don't usually miss birds, they lock on point but they just don't want to bring the birds back to me. I am happy I have them to share the last of my 20's and into my 30's years of life with. Maybe one day I will be writing another one of these in 9 years from now. It just shows you how much love these animals bring to you live life.

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Hi Fellah

I seem to have missed your original post - sorry. Reading it today it certainly brought a lump to the throat for a number of reasons.
However, it is good to read that you have moved to where you are today including taking up replacements for a dear companion.
Hope to read from you when you are over this side of the world again.

L
 
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