And So It Begins…

I know what you're saying: "Not another dog story!"

    And honestly, I don't blame you. There are several dog books on any given shelf of your local book store (and even more in the big, commercial book stores), so what, you may ask, makes this story so different? Not a lot. I don't like lying, so I'm not going to sit here and blow smoke at you. Although, I did say "not a lot"…not "nothing at all."

    The one thing that sets this story apart is that it follows the ups and downs of my hunting dog; a black lab by the name of Strider, and as far as I know, there aren't many about one hunting dog.

Strider has his own story to tell, and since he can't tell it himself (even though he'd be much funnier about it than I will), I will tell it for him.

 

Strider's story begins about three years before he was even born. I was twenty-two years old, and had moved back home in a college transfer from Limestone College in South Carolina to Wesley College in Delaware the previous year.

    I was dating a girl named Colleen…we had been together for a couple of years at the time, and we had discussed the idea of getting a dog together. Growing up with big dogs, my first choice was a Labrador Retriever. This also served another purpose; I have been an avid hunter since the age of thirteen, and had always wanted a hunting dog.

    I don't remember what her first choice was, but it didn't matter…this was one fight I was NOT going to lose. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it's the only fight I didn't lose over the course of our relationship. Anyway, we put some feelers out to a few different breeders, just to see what we could find. We took all the proper precautions in studying pedigrees, trying to avoid the usual health defects that tend to effect labs such as hip and elbow dysplasia and eye problems.

    As luck would have it, she had an uncle named Jimmy who lived in Alaska and was very big not only into hunting, but into retriever games, as well. He made a yearly trek across the country; just him, his truck, and his Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Tundra.

    Tundra was an amazing dog. Even now, every dog I watch or train has to live up to him. The Chesapeake Bay Retriever is, in my opinion, pound for pound, the best hunting dog on the planet. If you tell a Chessie to run through a brick wall to get to a bird, he'll lower that hard-ass head of his and leave nothing but a hole in the shape of a big, furry dog in it. They come in three accepted colors: brown, sedge, and dead grass. Tundra was a dead grass color, which in his case meant that he was a tan color that blended in with marsh grass perfectly, and it also meant that he single-handedly cemented that color as my favorite among Chesapeakes.

    Jimmy arrived in northern Delaware and asked me if I would like to go and help him train Tundra. Of course I accepted, and we were off to the Summit Retriever Training Area at the C&D Canal, which is a piece of public land that had once been a dump, but had been turned into an area specifically designed for the training of hunting and trialing retrievers.

    We drove to one of the technical training ponds on the grounds, and placed the dog on one of the humps that had been built to help people train and handle their dogs with greater ease. Jimmy threw a bumper for him to the front into the water at about 100 yards, a bumper to the left into another small pond at about 150 yards, and had me throw a bumper to the dog's short right at about 50 yards. Before we set that up, he had planted an orange bumper as a blind retrieve on the opposite bank of the large pond that I had thrown a bumper into. Jimmy walked up to the dog and lined him up for the left bumper in the small pond. Placing a hand over the dog's head, as if he were aiming him, I heard him yell, "TUNDRA!"

    I tell you, that dog took off like he had a firecracker up his rear end. I'd never seen anything like it, even though I had hunted over some decent dogs in my life. There was something different about him. This wasn't something that he just did for fun (although it was very evident that he was thoroughly enjoying himself), it was his job…and he did it harder and better than any job I could remember myself or anybody else ever doing. Tundra knew his duty and his role and executed it to, what seemed to me, perfection.

He picked up that first bumper with no problem and brought it straight back, coming to a sitting heel position with the bumper still in his mouth, waiting for his master to take it from him. Jimmy lined him for the other two in the exact same way; bringing him to a standing heel position facing the mark that he wanted the dog to retrieve, lowering a hand over his head and saying, "TUNDRA!"

    He then did something that absolutely blew my mind. The orange bumper that Jimmy had planted on the opposite bank was visible to us, even at the distance that I would estimate now to be about 150 yards, but to the canine eye (which can't see bright orange in the same way that humans can), it was completely invisible. He very deliberately lined the dog up for it, and I remember him saying "dead bird," at which time Tundra's body completely locked up and was aimed right at that bumper. Again, Jimmy lowered a hand over the dog's head, but this time said, "BACK!"

    Tundra ran toward the water and entered with a giant leap forward, as Chessies tend to do, and began swimming across the pond. When he began to veer off line, Jimmy suddenly blew a whistle (a regular coach's whistle that had a big horn on the end of it) in one long tone, to which Tundra turned in the water and looked at his handler. Jimmy put a right hand in the air over his head and said, "BACK!" The dog turned back to his left and began swimming toward the bumper again. A few seconds later, he was again off line, and Jimmy blew the whistle. When Tundra turned and looked for direction, Jimmy put his left hand out to his side and said, "OVER!" This time, the dog began swimming straight to his own right. Once he was on the line for the bumper, Jimmy once again stopped him with a long whistle and gave him another "BACK!"

    He nailed it. He ran up on the bank of the pond, picked up the bumper, and leapt back in the water, swimming back toward Jimmy and me.

    That was it…I had to have one of these dogs. I didn't care what it took, how many books and videos I had to watch, or how many hours I had to spend, I was going to own a highly trained hunting dog. Thanks for the show, Tundra! Rest in peace, buddy.

    Colleen and I set back to finding a Lab, and after a little bit of research, we found out that there are actually two types of Labradors; English and American. Essentially, the short, stocky, square-headed Labs that you see are of the English variety, and tend to be calmer and more deliberate than their American counterparts. The American Lab is taller and leaner with a long head, and is built for speed. They tend to be much higher energy and have a lot of stamina. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to both of these standards when it comes to the nature of the dogs, but when you're talking strictly in general terms, this is what owners of English and American Labs are looking for.

    We both agreed that for our first dog, we should go with the lower energy English Labrador and settled on a fantastic breeder from York, PA. The kennel was called Ivy Spring Labradors, and was run by a very nice woman named Gail (FYI, they are still in business). After a few emails and many answered questions, which is how it goes with every responsible breeder, she agreed to sell us a puppy out of the chocolate litter that was on the way.

    I grew up with a yellow lab/golden retriever mix named Gus, who was the same age as me and died when he was fifteen. That dog meant more to me than anything in the world, and I was completely devastated when we had to put him down. Our whole family fell into a collective depression at his passing, and every dog I will ever own will be compared to him. He was, quite literally, the perfect dog. Naturally, I wanted a yellow lab, but since I had won on the breed argument, I had to make a concession on the color and we went with chocolate.

    Colleen and I may not have worked as a couple, but one thing we did get right was our dog, who we named "Maui." We brought her home when she was seven weeks old, and she was quite possibly the easiest puppy I've ever seen. She slept for 18 hours a day, and only had a few nights of bad crying in her kennel. Being inexperienced dog owners, we thought that the amount that she slept was not healthy, and I'm pretty sure we single-handedly kept our vet's office in business for those first couple of months with all of the visits that we made.

    Maui didn't turn out to be the competition dog that I wanted, but she was one hell of a hunting dog. She was so relaxed and laid back that it was hard to get her excited to train, and she was almost two before a light finally came on and she really loved to hunt. It was more my fault than hers; I missed so many things in her training that I ended up hindering her from reaching her full potential.

    For example, I remember the first time I took her hunting. Every year, I take my dogs dove hunting for the first hunt. This is because dove hunting—especially early season dove hunting—tends to have much more action than your average duck or goose hunt. The birds are more plentiful, people are yelling and cheering, there's more gunfire than usual, and all these things mixed together make for an environment that is completely unbearable for a young dog. Some people like to ease their dogs into stressful hunting situations, but for me, I want to get the early season jitters and bad behavior out of the way as soon as possible.

    She was a year old, and I took her to my uncle's farm in Laurel, DE; just the two of us. It was a beautiful day and the birds were flying. After about a half hour, the first of them came into shooting range. I raised my gun, pulled the trigger, and watched as the first bird of the season fell about 20 yards in front of me. I looked to my side to release Maui for it, as she was trained to stay sitting through the gunshot and retrieve on command, only to discover that she wasn't there. Looking behind me, I saw her running at full speed in the opposite direction, her tail tucked firmly between her legs. The shot of the gun had scared her to the point of running away in fear, and I found her hiding underneath the truck, shaking and whining uncontrollably…she wouldn't come out until I had put my gun away. With all of the time I had put into trying to make her bird crazy and making her robotically obedient, I had skipped one of the most vital steps in gun-dog training, which is proper introduction to gunfire. It was a classic example of an owner not knowing what the hell he was doing, and damaging the dog's performance as a result.

    After another year of training and de-sensitizing her to the gun, I took her hunting again, and she did beautifully. She absolutely loved it, and I never went out without her again.

Well, that's not exactly true. There was one morning when she was three and we woke up for an early morning duck hunt. It was 4:30 in the morning, 28 degrees (which is cold for Delaware), wind blowing 25 mph, and snowing; perfect duck hunting weather. Needless to say, I was very excited about the morning's prospects, but I couldn't say the same for Maui. She literally put one paw out the door, turned and sprinted back into her warm kennel. I'm not kidding…she was moving so fast that her feet couldn't even grip the hardwood floor, almost making her run in place. While she did turn into a very good hunting dog, she was a bit of a diva when it came to harsh weather.     

    It didn't matter, though. She was an amazing dog, plain and simple, and she left an impression on me that I will carry for the rest of my life. Until I'm old and in a nursing home, I will always have a loyal retriever by my side. There will never be a point in my life when I won't have a dog lounging around the house again. Without Maui, I'm not so sure I would be so adamant about needing a retriever in my life.

As you can probably guess, Colleen and I didn't work out. When we got Maui, we made an agreement that if anything happened between the two of us that she would stay with Colleen. Of course, I didn't think that we were ever going to break up, and when we did, I not only lost a girlfriend that I had been with for 5 years, but I also lost my baby girl. Make no mistake, Maui was nothing less than a daughter to me, and I was completely crushed by the entire thing. We broke up in the summer of 2007, and I may have hunted five times over that time of September through February. It just wasn't the same without Maui sitting next to me, nudging my arm on the slow days for a scratch behind the ear, or the way she knew that the ducks were coming way before I ever did. We would be sitting in the duck blind, and I would see her turn her head and freeze, looking off in the distance. Without fail, a group of ducks would appear in a matter of seconds; she could hear the whistling that their wings make before she could see them.

    I think that's what I missed the most about her. Even though I was the world's worst trainer when it came to hunting dogs, she was able to make up for it with her intelligence and natural ability. I don't pretend to be a great hunter—in point of fact, I'm a pretty lousy hunter—but she filled the hole created by my inexperience and ignorance. We were a team; a great team. There were even times that I was invited on some great hunts, but only on the condition that I brought Maui with me…she was that good.

    In the midst of my grief, it was my father and sister who suggested that the best thing for me to do was to get another puppy as soon as I could. After two months of grieving and drinking myself into a perpetual stupor, I began my search for another Lab. On the suggestion of one of my training mentors, I contacted John and Amy Dahl, who are professional hunting dog trainers in North Carolina. They had just whelped a litter of puppies, and the pedigree was one that I couldn't pass up. I did all of my communication with Amy, and she agreed to sell me a black male.

    Some people don't like to name their pups until they've picked them up and brought them home, as to give them a name that best suits their personalities. While there is nothing wrong with that, it's not what I do with my dogs. I had settled on this pup's name weeks ahead of time.

    I wish that I could take full credit for his name, but I can't. My sister, Amy, gave me the idea while helping my other sister, Tammy, name her first puppy. There were many names thrown around, and Tammy decided to go with "Riley." One of the names mentioned was "Strider," which I locked away in my mind for a future dog. At the time, I was still with Colleen, and had no intention of getting another dog any time soon. It was almost a year before I was able to use the name, which I bestowed upon the black Labrador that John and Amy Dahl so generously sold to me.

    Being a literature nerd, I couldn't just let this name go without some reference to The Lord of the Rings in his registered name for the American Kennel Club.
On Tuesday, December 11, 2007, "Shupe's King Aragorn of Dewey" entered my life. I couldn't make it down to North Carolina to pick him out on my own, and it was the middle of winter, so flying him wasn't an option as cargo holds on airplanes aren't heated. I told Amy what I was looking for, and she picked the male that best suited my requirements. I arranged for a guy who was driving down from Pennsylvania to get two pups from the same litter to pick him up and meet me at my sister's house just outside of Washington, DC.

    I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on him. He was with two of his littermates in a wire kennel in the back of the van, and I got the feeling that he was less excited to meet me than I was to meet him. It's understandable; I had just ripped him away from the only companions that he had ever known. I took the Redskins puppy collar that I had bought for him (HAIL!), complete with a dog tag that had his name etched into it, and put it around his neck.

    With that, he was no longer just a new pup for me…he was Strider. More importantly, he was my Strider. I didn't have to share him with anyone, and I didn't have to worry about losing him to anyone, either. He was mine, and I was going to turn him into the greatest duck dog that this world had ever seen. I was also going to be one of the few amateur trainers who produced a National Field Champion. All those pros in the world wouldn't have anything on Strider and me.

    Needless to say, and as you will come to find out, I was quite naïve, and while it's good to set goals for yourself, setting them so high when it comes to training a dog is going to make for some interesting moments. This is where my life took a turn that I never could have seen coming, and this is where Strider's story begins.

    He is five years old now, and is still making me laugh on a daily basis. I will post different training sessions that we do together, and I will also post old stories as they occur to me. As an aspiring writer, this is a great opportunity for me to exercise my mind and get things written as often as possible. I really hope you enjoy reading about his life as much as I've enjoyed living it with him.