A young Ginny pointing a woodcock; the bird she seemed to love best.  

Explosion’s Ruffneck (Ginny)--The Last Hurrah...

For Ginny our final Pennsylvania grouse season before moving to Montana would be her last. But as always she kicked it off with a bang and...

If you would have asked me, say 10 years ago, if Ginny (16) would still be  alive, let alone be bouncing about like your basic energized, though somewhat worn-out bunny, at the mere sight of the Boss lacing up hunting boots...Well, I would have bet the farm...

Skinny as a rail, well-scarred, shredded ears, missing teeth, eyes seeming to grow dimmer by the day, all but deaf and a wobbly gait such makes you wonder if next step might be the old gal’s last. But obviously obvious "the end" has not yet crossed her mind. No longer the fastest dog on the block but she can still pick ‘em up and lay down pretty good—though an hour or so every few days is about it. So, for several seasons now, Ginny get’s the day’s first dibs and we let her blow the whistle when had enough. 

A spot we call the Spring Hole is relatively flat and easy to hunt as grouse spots get. It’s also private, only a few of us locals have permission and those do forego hunting whenever I let them know Ginny’s good to go...as mentioned earlier not always a sure bet.

As grouse coverts go this one has it all. Water, wall-to-wall good grouse eats, conifer cover to dodge nasty weather and just the right mix of brush and grassy openings to make for tough though not impossible opening day shots. 

It had rained some overnight but the morning dawned bright and cool with just a hint of breeze. A nearly perfect set-up it seemed for an ancient bird dog whose nose, like the rest of her, wasn’t quite what used to be.

So I bell her up and we start down along a little spring seep, bordered on one side by brush and grass—mostly clover—and the other a hemlock thicket with oak forest beyond.  Betting the grouse would have spent the night in the hemlocks and relish clover for breakfast instead of paralleling the crick we attack at right angles...Too and fro, back and forth from the crick through the good cover and back again, doing my best to keep her out of the trees and into the best of it. 

Twice the bell stops clanging and I find her locked up at the edge of the spring seep.  But woodcock aren’t yet in season.  As you might expect, I want badly to kill whatever she points... You know, just in case. But somehow I manage to hold fire and ignoring her nasty look, send her on...

About an hour into it she starts to fade. And now I'm really beating myself up for not saying the hell with it and dropping at least one of the woodcock. So I whistle her in, take a seat on a stump, and feed her an energy bar. All the dogs love the smelly things but she is the only one ever seems even a little bit re-fueled. And as usual gulps it down, stands, shakes and off we go.

Anyway now we cross through the hemlocks and she turns toward the truck coursing back and forth through the heavy laurel (evergreen leaved bushes) under-story. The white oak mast crop is heavy and though grouse somehow figure how to swallow even the largest acorns, these are among the smallest and a favorite.

Halfway to the truck a pair of grouse flush wild, out of range and head in the wrong direction. She sees them go, starts after, but turns, comes back, circles part-way around a big blow-down and...

And POINTS!

With the red gods on my side for once the grouse rockets out, straight away, in the wide open. I slap the trigger, grouse tumbles, Ginny trots to it, picks it up, brings it just far enough there can be no doubt. Tosses me a conspiratorial look, throws it down and bell clanging vanishes into the greenery...

Ginny was no brag dog. Wonderful companion, easy to train, lived to please the Bosses and on her good days—those days she wasn’t nursing/recovering from injury—a pretty darn good bird dog. Like Patch she fetched whatever fell on land or water and seldom lost a cripple. And no dog I know hunted harder for so many seasons. She didn’t know quit and no amount of pain and suffering diminished her desire to git ‘er done even a little bit. 

Stay tuned: Next up Ol’ Patchy closes out his career with a flourish...