Dog interventions.

[Todd Duncan Tennyson]

I have always been a guy that took on stray hounds.

Took on a couple of goldens found in the hills, and spent some time with a Great Gordon setter long ago.

We always were able to find their rightful owners, and the goldens lived with us off and on for a couple years.


The Gordon setter was skinny and tired when he found me. We had him about 2 weeks, Dad put an ad in the paper and the owners called us from about 45 miles away and had his papers and his photos and he absolutely knew it was "his people" when the joyful reunion happened.


Found a big St Bernard named "Brandy" took a few days to find her people, but they were glad to get her back.


I found a Keeshound pup in the woods that someone left for coyote food one winter, and he was adopted by a family with a ranch and another couple of dogs to pal around with. They named her "Pebbles."


Took in a stray in Thailand that my sister in Law loves now.

We named him Sanook, it means "Joy" in Thai.


Today it happened again:


Mom came up to the house today and we were going to take our walk together with the red dog.

As we drove up to where the road starts to turn to dirt, we spotted a white dog. Big dog.

One of the other ranch house dogs had chased him into the roadway and he was standing there looking around.

I told mom to pull over and got out of the car and took my slip lead and called the dog over.

I put the lead around his neck and read off his collar. he had a tag with an address and a name, but the place for the phone number had a 086 code, which would mean that he is from some other country, or that it was not a phone number and maybe a registry of some kind.


Was a young dog, still had teeth that were coming in, and was easily as big as Kaden, which means he was all of 70 lbs.
Longer in the back and tall, and with bigger feet though. Pyrenees and Retreiver maybe, or just a young Pyr?


A lady came down from the hill and I flagged her down to see if she recognized the boy, and she did not, So she checked her phone for the address and could not get a signal there.

I said "thanks for giving it a go, I will find his people."


So I sent mom back to my place with Kaden, and then She came back to me and the white dog, then I got into the back of the vehicle and told him to get in...

He wasn't having it, so I laid on my dog charming skills as hard as I could and he got in.
"What a good boy" I praised him.

We drove up into the hills and found his address, the fence was locked, but the base was just some chicken wire that was not secured, I pryed it open and told him to go in...

He did.

Then me and mom went back to my place to get the red dog and go on our walk, but I decided to write them a note and put it in their mailbox, and tie the base of their fence shut securely with paracord.


I said, "Your pup got loose today so I fetched him back for you, he's a beautiful puppy. Be sure to fix that fence" then I signed it and gave them my phone number.


Then Me and Mom and the red dog took a hike up in the woods for an hour or so.

Not a bad afternoon in my book.



I've always felt that if my dog took off for some reason, that i'd be downright thankful that hew was returned safe and sound, not lost and wandering, and not wrapped around the front bumper of some vehicle that never stopped.


I think dogs deserve "looking after" because they surely do that for us.

 

[Rick L]

was out on a grouse hunt with one of my setters several years ago, we came out of the cover near the truck and I saw another setter up the road a ways. I had not heard any other shooting or even a whistle for that matter, so I did not think there was another hunter in the area.

As I loaded my dog, the other setter shyly approached, I gave her some water and looked her over. She was (as are mine) the big old style setter, she seemed to be in good health, well cared for, but had enough stick tights on her to show she had been through the thick stuff. She wore a high quality collar with no tag. I combed the worse out of her and loaded her up with my dog thinking I would be placing an ad and babysitting until the owner came forward.

There was only one farm house near by, so just in case, I stopped there on my way out just to check, after getting her out on a lead, she healed without a command, I noticed the front door was open with the screen door closed. I knocked and called out but received no answer. I was about to leave when I heard a tractor coming around the barn. I waited in the barn yard until the driver (not looking like the sharpest tool in the shed) arrived and turned the machine off. I introduced myself and told him I had found the dog down the road, and asked if it was his. He said no, not his dog. So I thanked him and as I turned to take the dog back to my truck I said "I was just trying to find out where she belongs"

with the same blank expression he met me with he said "she belongs here, she's my sister's dog"

I turned the dog lose and she went straight to the house.

 

[Scott Bell]

I was out scouting for ducks several years back, back in some public land where the river had flooded a huge span of timber. I'd probably driven a mile along this road with water on both sides and I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I stopped and backed up. Nothing...odd. I waited and a small head eventually poked back around the base of a tree. It was a beagle. I got down out of the truck and he hid again. Luckily I had all the right stuff in the back of the truck. Bailey's travel box of food and a leash. I sat down and tossed him a piece of food which barely touched the ground beforee being inhaled....I smiled because this was going to be too easy. The next piece was a foot or so closer to me...then another and another...then a small pile within reach and 'click'...he allowed me to pet him and the collar had a phone number. I called the guy and he was there in 10 minutes.

The best part was...he directed me to the X on the next road over where the ducks were pouring into the flooded timber!

 

[Gary Tanner]

I've had a batch of dog "finds". The most recent: going to the hardware store early one morning here in Bennington, VT, I have to pass a funky intersection handy to a huge typically New England big white church. I pass this way often. This particular morning, there was a cute little beagle kind of standing around, looking around. Out of place. I pulled up next to her, opened the door, and from a standing start, she jumped up into my lap. Probably the cutest little beagle I've ever seen. The good news: she had a collar with an address that was several miles away. I found the place, with an empty dog house and slipped lead in the back yard. Knocked, knocked harder, knocked really hard. Finally a woman in her pajamas comes to the door, and sees the dog I'm holding. She says "wait a minute, I'll get him." Couple minutes pass, guy comes to the door looking really beat. He was REALLY glad to see her, and the reason he looked so beat was that he had been up all night searching for her. Happy man. Happy ending to the story.

Now, one of my very best friends and a member of this forum and I bird hunt together as often as we can. My setter of that time had a long term illness, so he was out of the picture, but my buddy seemed to always find a setter from somewhere that someone gave him or he bought or something. The first of them that I can recall, we spent more time searching for than hunting over. One day, I guess he decided to see what was over the next ridge, never to be heard from again. Another was a tiny little female setter that became a pretty good bird dog. We spent a fair amount of time looking for her, too. On one occasion, she decided to have a stroll; we spent an hour or two driving the roads looking for her. Finally, we saw a farmhouse quite far in the distance. We drove up to the house, and sure enough, there she was, sitting on the guy's deck. Can't remember if he had tethered her there or not. As I recall, she was rather indifferent about the rescue.

On another occasion many years ago, turkey hunting with a batch of NYS biologists near Cortland NY, and using my truck, we came upon a hound meandering down the road, obviously out of place. One of the guys knew whose dog it was, so we stopped and picked him up, putting him in the bed of my truck. I was "camping" out of my truck on that trip, so my sleeping bag and pillow and other gear were back there. As we drove up to the dog's home, he showed his gratitude to me by peeing all over my pillow. At least the owner said thank you.

Bird hunting with a friend in the Green Mountains of southern Vermont, we came upon a pair of bear hounds walking down the road in the middle of nowhere. The both had radio transmitters on and looked pretty beat. We could have left them, hoping their bear-hunting owners would get a fix on them and pick them up but I remembered from my grouse radiotelemetry days how tough it can be to get any kind of ping in mountainous terrain. So we loaded them up (my setters did not welcome them with open arms) and headed down out of the mountains. Sure enough, there's a truck with Massachusetts plates parked off the road, two guys waving antennas all over the place trying to get a fix on something. Pulled up, asked "these your dogs?". Yup. Happy bear hunters.

My last story is about my own star-crossed setter, Jim. He was gorgeous; even the veterinarians would stand around to shoot the breeze for awhile just so they could enjoy looking at him. He was young, maybe 4 or 5 at this time, and on his way to becoming an honest bird dog. Long story short, he and I were hunting in northern NY in late November and got separated. I spent a couple hours looking and calling for him, but it was getting dark, and snowing; I needed to get out of the woods. I did the old hunter's deal about leaving a coat and peeing on it where I last saw him and left, with a very heavy heart. I would come back the next morning and start the search again. But no luck. Went home, made up a ream of flyers about him with a reward note, and put 350 miles in 4-wheel drive over the next two days, stuffing mailboxes in this very remote part of NY. Actually got two calls from people that had seen him (one a state trooper), but he wouldn't come to them and went back into the woods. Rattled dog, for sure. On the fifth day of his absence the phone rang. It was two young surveyors from a town 13 miles from my home. They are about the same stature as myself (5'8") and both bearded, like myself. They had stopped up in the boonies to look at a USGS marker that they had never seen before, and while they were standing there, Jim walked out of the brush and sat down beside them. He still had his bell on. They figured he was lost, loaded him up, and took him back to their second floor office in Camden. His collar had my name/address plate on it, they called me to tell me they had him. I believe I covered the 13 miles to their office in about five minutes! I walked up the stairs to the office and sat down on the landing. Jim walked over, sat down, and buried his head in my chest. I do believe he was glad the adventure was over, and I can only believe that he saw two guys that resembled me enough to just throw in the towel, and ask for help. The guys wouldn't take a reward; instead, they invited me to be THEIR guest at their local DU dinner (they were on the committee). Believe me, I spent as much as I possibly could at that dinner! Final note: When I went back to retrieve the jacket (my favorite) I had left in the woods hoping he would stay near it; it was gone.

I used to bird hunt about 100 days/year, plus turkey and duck hunting days. You spend that kind of time in the woods, you are likely to have these experiences, hopefully all with happy endings.