Who knows which of my many rough-shooting dogs
pointed this one but sure wasn't Mertie...

With Ginny, 16, and son, Patch, 15  the hope was for one the other dogs to step up. But while Mags had done really well pointing and not crowding pen-raised birds she had yet to prove herself on wild grouse and woodcock.

From what I saw in the preseason as long as I ran Rosy, who somehow couldn’t quite shake the idea of being boss dog, alone she would "find" plenty. But, for reasons I never did figure out, sometimes she would point staunchly then circle the bird and, of course, with our grouse as skittish and educated as any grouse anywhere this faux pas almost never worked—usually the bird flushed with her first misstep and that was that. The good news she only did this every now and then and hardly ever twice in a single outing. Who knows?

While I could live with her busting a few birds two record breaking porcupine encounters that fall really put our relationship on thin ice. Both occurred on weekends and both required expensive vet visits. Both times she required sedation to pull literally hundreds of quill from her face, inside mouth and just about every other part of her body. We stopped counting at 500 the first time and we all agreed the second was even worse.

Gale never did bond with Rosy, I think mostly because she whipped up on her buddy, Patch. But when, next spring she got blindsided and ended up with a broken leg...Well, soon as we got home from hospital I called the previous owner and said, “Come get your dog, she’s too much for me.” 

As I mentioned in a previous installment, Mertie was the easiest ever to yard train. Start to finish I doubt the whole process took 6-weeks. Pretty damn good for a dog been penned up and pretty much ignored for the first 3 years of her life.  Also she never chased a single deer, ran a nice ground pattern and from the get-go seemed to get that “Here” meant get your butt here pronto. Apparently so happy for the attention almost anything I said brought her running, but...

Though she was easy to live with, got along with well with the other dogs (Rosy excepted), was  smart, athletic and obedient, possessed stamina to hunt all day, everyday, and as I mentioned last time was about as well-bred as they come—her littermates were tearing up various trials all over but...

Yes, by now I’m sure you readers get than with my dogs there always seems to be a BUT...Admittedly most, if not all, are at least in part the fault of your intrepid reporter but in Mertie’s case I plead not guilty. For you see when it came to birds, wild birds, planted birds, released birds, you name it, Mertie was CLUE...LESS.

Graduated from yard training, when dog training season opened August 15th I began running her in the grouse woods every chance. Not once did she so much as act birdy, not once did she so much as stop to flush. Even birds nearly stepped, flushed right in her face failed to get her attention—she just kept goin’ on as if nothing out the ordinary had just happened.

By this time in my career, for better or worse,  thought I'd seen it all. But, trust me, this unexpected turn of events really tossed me for a loop. Beyond baffled, I ran it by every bird dog man I knew and found not one had ever experienced such odd  behavior.

The stock answer, “Who knows, maybe doin’ all that solitary in a rabbit hutch killed off the genes...Good luck and let me know how turns out.”

Stay tuned the rest of Mertie’s story is one for the ages...