Hunting Dogs—and Dogs That Hunt

Story by Elliot Heggenstaller, Age 16

Our littlest dog, Pogo, just got mildly skunked the other day. Those who dwell in suburban areas might think that this means that poor little Pogo was thwarted in some way, but fellow rural denizens will know exactly what I mean. The books lie about skunk spray remedies, too. I don't know how many times I've heard that tomato sauce gets rid of skunk smell, but I never have actually seen it work. Since skunk spray smells mostly like garlic to me, putting tomato sauce on a skunked dog brings to mind a well-ripened calzone. Thankfully Pogo wasn't sprayed hard enough to merit the cross-your-fingers-and-pour tomato sauce treatment, so I was spared that particular reminiscence. However, Pogo's plight makes me think of the difference between "hunting dogs"...and "dogs that hunt."   

I've always wondered what it would be like to have a hunting dog. I have dogs, sure, but they just don't have quite the same types of behavior that I imagine a proper hunting dog has. I just can't imagine a noble setter or spaniel pawing at rocks in the creek bed, whining pitifully, and then carrying the rock in its mouth for the next half-hour, or until it finds a new rock. I'll sometimes sit on a convenient perch while hunting and listen to the sounds of the woods. I'll hear the raucous calling of crows, the croak of ravens, the adrenaline-inducing crunching of leaves—well-known to any anxious young hunter as the huge buck that morphs into a squirrel when it comes into eyesight. Then I hear the high-pitched yipping which signifies that one of the dogs has found an animal to chase, has found a rock to chase, or is craving attention.

Whenever I flip through outdoors magazines, I come across pictures of steely-eyed hunters, shotguns in hand, peering intently over the head of a dog more purebred than some European royalty. When I read the article, there might be some good-natured crabbing about the dog chewing a hole in a gun sock, but the complaints will be quickly tempered with tales of the dog's prowess in all things outdoors. These are "hunting dogs." Their dogs don't eat rocks, roll in manure, or gobble unidentified meat-like specimens found on the ground. I'd further be willing to bet that they don't have to keep at least 50 yards ahead of the dog, so that if the hunter sees something, he'll at least have a couple of minutes to look it over before their dog comes bounding joyfully over, happily chasing the game into the next county. That is the domain of a "dog that hunts."

I've always had "dogs that hunt." I have once witnessed one of my dogs that hunt shakily point a groundhog, and the sight caused me to brag for the next several days that I had a genuine groundhog dog. Never mind that she's probably never pointed at anything else and probably never will; she's my groundhog dog. But as a general rule, if you're going to go into the woods with a dog that hunts, you might as well leave the gun at home. Any hunting to be done is going to be done by the happy dog, and your job will be to keep an eye out for porcupines and skunks to steer the dog away from. I have a tendency not to mind this—the dogs just seem to be having so much fun that you just can't get angry at them. That is, unless the dog comes running happily towards you, and your nose tells you that your prize groundhog dog is going to smell like the dumpster behind Domino's for a good couple of weeks.