Old Dogs

Jake had been out roaming. After years of carefully monitoring his comings and goings, I have taken to letting him ramble around the 50 acres that we live on. He free hunts, harassing all manner of wildlife, and I know I will regret letting him run when the fall rolls around. His range, to be charitable, has always been expansive, horizon-to-horizon as a pup, straight-line run away in his middle age, and distracted wandering as an older dog. He dragged himself into the house, where he now lives full time as another concession to his age, his white coat caked with swamp mud to mid thighs and ears matted with burrs. He stiff-legged to the oriental carpet in front of the fireplace that cost almost as much as I have invested in him in training, feed and vet bills, circled, and settled in, where I knew he would stay until let out at the end of the evening for one last bush break before bed.

Jake is getting old. He will be partially retired this year in part because Jasper, his two year old kennel mate, has progressed so well and partly because of a shoulder injury inflicted by Chase, the rambunctious duck dog, that also lives with us, which has him limping at the beginning and the end of each day. Looking at him lying still, breathing heavily, muddy and obviously sore, I began musing about old dogs.

Old dogs are experienced

Some young dogs blaze the woods with speeds reminiscent of a road runner cartoon. Their legs are a blur. They point with intensity, overrun their noses, and blunder into birds unintentionally and sometimes intentionally just to see them fly. The not-so-good old dogs move just like they did in their youth. They run hard, range too far, don’t listen and burn out after an hour or two in the woods. They then trail forlornly after you through the woods, no longer hunting until it is time to call it quits.

The good old dogs are cautious. They move more slowly than when they were young and point at a greater distance until they can ascertain whether the birds are running or sitting still and just how much pressure they can put on their prey. They are smarter in the woods, often going around deadfalls rather than blundering through or over. They seem to recognize what looks like grouse cover and what does not. I had a dog that, once he got old and we were hunting a piece of cover for the second or third time of the season, track shoes were appropriate foot gear. He seemed to remember each area where we had found birds and straight-lined through unproductive cover to the next patch which had historically been productive or appeared productive. Since, in theory, my cognitive powers were greater than his, I too would straight-line from dogwood swale to dogwood swale and many times would find him hard on point awaiting my arrival.

The experienced old dog is a joy to watch. It is not just the instinct that has the young setter pointing when still possessed of stubby legs and a wrinkled face, but instead the sum of years and years of experience in the woods which makes them, from time to time, do amazing things, like jay hooking a running bird or realizing that a brood has hot-footed it from good cover, across a two track into the middle of a fresh cutting.

Old dogs regress

Jake, when he is not roaming, frequently behaves like a puppy. There are few things as gratifying to those of us who are approaching 50 as watching an animal, who in dog equivalency is your elder, romping like an adolescent. Jake from time to time can be caught repeatedly flinging a rawhide bone in the air and catching it. He can be seen bumping Jasper with his nose in that puffed up boy dog fashion to provoke him to rumble. He can be found pointing the odd lady bug in the house, leaping in to flush and trapping the offending bug under his paw when, with head canted, almost resting on the floor, and stern high, he will lift the paw toe by toe to see if he had been successful in trapping the creature. The return to adolescence is usually short-lived; where a distraction would occupy him for hours as a two year old, he is usually "done with this foolishness" in a relatively short time frame as an adult. With some of the games, the reason is obvious. Rumbling with your much younger, slightly larger, slightly stronger kennel mate may seem like fun in the abstract, but looks painful in the execution. With the bugs, I think it’s embarrassment. I do believe he could fool with ladybugs for hours, but when observed, seems downright embarrassed.

Old dogs are set in their ways

There is truth to the adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Hard of hearing with many physical infirmities and years of doing things one way, what you see with a dog that is over ten years old is likely what you’ll get for the duration. I have resigned myself to being bitten and growled at on each occasion that I try to comb the burrs and forest detritus out of Jake’s ears or tail. He has done it forever and no amount of screaming, yelling or other displays of bad temper is going to change the way he reacts. He is also going to bump birds. He always has. He is not going to stay close. He never has. Becoming annoyed at real or feigned hearing loss is unproductive. I simply cannot change it, so why try. Instead, revel in the good and enjoy every single minute with your old dog. Hunt him as long as he can comfortably be hunted and create new memories of time shared together.

Old dogs are bittersweet

Looking at your old dog, head resting on your knee, eyes, the whites slightly bloodshot, gazing up adoringly, slobber and drool seeping onto the pants you put on just moments before and you can, if you are like me, drift back into key moments in your old dog’s life. Similarly, if you are like me, a master of revisionist thinking, you will remember the good and not necessarily the bad. If the dog has been hunted as the dog should be hunted, there will be many happy memories inexorably tied to the dog on your knee. Days with just the two of you in the woods under bright skies with the maples phosphorescent and a temperate wind blowing bright yellow poplar leaves off the trees with every gentle puff; Dark, rainy, nasty days where the birds you pull out of the game bag look sodden and small and both you and your dog are delighted to be back at the truck, even though neither of you will admit it. "John Wayne" days where your dog was heroic, could seemingly do no wrong and had the good graces to do it in front of a client, duck hunting buddy or someone casually acquainted with pointing dogs or being introduced to them for the first time. You think back on all you’ve shared together and all you’ve learned from him and realize that you just might not have him around that much longer.

Old Dogs are like old friends

There is never a right time for them to leave, but sometimes they leave just far too early. We lost an old friend recently; an old friend who, from time to time, despite his age, would puff up and do that young man thing, bumping a much younger friend and trying to provoke a rumble just for the joy of it; a bowlegged old friend who, hobbled by bad knees, would hunt slowly and painfully for an hour or two, walking around deadfalls, not over or through, and still managing to scratch down the same number of birds in his abbreviated hunt that some of us would reduce to capture in an entire day afield. After the hour or two, this friend who at age 60 was hunting dawn to dusk, would sometimes suggest, now less than ten years later, that he was going to "drive south and hunt my way down" or "hunt that cover by the old dump" when we all knew that his dogs were up for the day. An old friend who suffered from selective hearing loss, but with whom it was hard to become annoyed when everything he said brimmed with value, humor or wisdom. An old friend with whom each of us individually and collectively shared magical moments. So I hardly need to admonish you to cherish old dogs and to cherish old friends because we are all painfully aware that sometimes the time comes too soon. We’ll miss you, old friend. RWOL

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