A Tribute

I'm going to start by saying that this post might be just a little bit sad for some. If you haven't ever had a dog from puppy till "old man" you probably will think that I am lame, but oh well. Also, if you saw the movie "Marley and Me" and didn't cry this post will be dumb.

For the last few months my dog Moose hasn't been doing very good. He turned 11 in December. He has had really bad arthritis for quite a while but it had gotten really bad. He was staying in the garage at my parents where it was a little bit warmer. It all started about last Monday. I went over to visit and went out to see my dog. He looked really bad. I petted him for a little while and knew that he only had a few days left. He hadn't been eating and I could feel his bones starting to stick out. Well I went over Friday to get some stuff and to see my dog again. No one was home so I went out to the garage to see the dog. He was terrible. I petted him and talked to him for a few minutes. He was trying to stand up but couldn't. He couldn't even raise his head. He would try and it would just smack down on the ground. I went in the house to grab a few things, came back out and he was gone. I had only been in the house for 10 minutes. I truly believe that my poor, old dog had just been waiting for me to come say goodbye. My dad had already dug a grave in anticipation of this event. I went and got Annie then came back to help my dad bury him. We buried him with a dead duck and an old decoy. It was a really sad event for me but I'm glad that Moose is out of his pain.

Now for a little reminiscing. Moose was by no means the best hunting dog ever. He had hearing problems his whole life. We tried all kinds of things on him because we thought he just wasn't listening. He never marked a bird his entire life, but he rarely didn't find a bird that we sent him after. I don't think I'll ever have another dog that will be as good of a friend in the blind though. Moose would sit there with you for hours, in icy water, and never whine. He would rest his head on your leg and just stare, waiting for a shot to be fired. He walked a lot of hard miles but was always excited to do it again. I will really miss him but I really enjoyed the hundreds of hours we spent together.

Here are a few pictures that I have of the old dog and me over the last 11 years....

1/18/10

My dad invited me to go ice fishing with him this morning. It was a lot of fun to finally get out on the ice. Duck hunting is my thing, ice fishing is my dad's thing. He out fished me of course. I can swallow my pride and admit it though because I almost always out shoot him. I also need to point out that I had to help my dad ties his lures back on after he broke it. Good thing he brought me or he would have fought that knot all morning.

Last Duck Hunt 09-10

Went out this morning for the last duck hunt of the year. Mitch did a little scouting and found us a few birds on the weber river. The spot we wanted to set up on was tons deeper than we thought. I had to pull Mitch up to safety while it was still dark. We had to set our decoys right on the edge. It worked out okay though. Ended up with four. We left a little early though so that Mitch could take his brother out there in the morning. Then we came back to my house for a little late season euro-dove hunting. We ended up killing 8 of those. It was a good way to end a good season.

Hoody Mount

I picked up my Hooded Merganser from the taxidermist last night. I was really excited to see it. It looks really good. I also dropped off my Goldeneye while I was there. It's a good thing the season is about over because I can't afford to shoot anymore uncommon species.

01/01/10

Just after Christmas I had the opportunity to go to Colorado with my landlord to hunt geese. Since I have a wonderful wife who "gave" me this present for Christmas I got to go. We left on Sunday and drove all day. We stayed in Loveland. It is just south of Fort Collins. I thought we would be going to some small farm community; I was dead wrong. This place was like hunting in Sandy. There were tons of malls, outlets, and people. The places where we hunted were only a few minutes from all the hubub of the city. We hunted with Fowl Basin Outfitters. The first day we hunted a picked corn field. I hunted for the first time out of a pit. It was a little tricky to shoot out of at first, but I caught on pretty quick. We ended up killing 20 birds. It took all day, but it was tons of fun. The birds were pretty tough to bring in. There were about 3,000 birds feeding and loafing between a couple fields only about a 1/2 mile away from us. We watched the birds move all day, but if birds saw the birds in the field they were gone. It was really tough competing with that many real birds. The guides did a good job calling and our 30 dozen decoys helped a little bit too.

Day two was our water hunt. My landlord has hunted with this guide service for a few years now and asked for us to be able to hunt water one of the days. They were nice enough to do what we wanted. They set us up on the golf course that they work at during the summer. They have pits and ice eaters set up all over the course and they control where the geese will go. The geese had been roosting on the other side of the lake that we hunted. We set up after most of the geese had already left to feed for the day. We were hoping to pick off geese as they traded water or came back for a drink. The hunting was a lot tougher than you might expect for a golf course. The geese really didn't move much all day. We ended up staying almost all day but did get 20 birds again. The birds that we did see worked much better. These birds were all basically "in the hole." I ended on a really good double; that absolutely made my day. The last pictures are an action shot on the last 3 killed. They are a little blurry but turned out ok for my first attempt at a kill shot. We also got to shoot a few bonus ducks. We ended up with goldeneyes, mergansers, spoonies, and a gadwall.