order to save the crops.

The gray whiskers of the four legged hunting buddy have a tale to tell as well.  For their owner it's a story of honor and pride.  A hunter may shoot thousands of birds a year and his dog may pick up every one of them, but there are a handful of retrieves that will never be forgotten and will remain as timeless events to be relived over and over in his mind as if they happened yesterday.  It doesn't matter how many mistakes they make, or how many times they break.  In the big picture, there is that one retrieve that makes an owner forget all about that horrible blind retrieve they ran in training, breaking on the only ducks to work the spread that day, or slipping a whistle in a trial. The one retrieve that topped off the season is the one that's engrained into memory forever. At this point, it doesn't matter if you shoot another goose, duck, or pheasant that year.

Let me reflect on my own personal dog Bandit that some of you may have heard about or even had the chance to hunt with.  I think those of you can vouch for him being a one of a kind dog regardless of anything he ever does in the field or in a trial.  Before he was a year old he picked up well over 1500 birds due to me guiding for a club in Arkansas that did European tower shoots. In that first year, one retrieve stands out to this day and will attest to how much I have grown as a handler/trainer.  Bandit was the first dog I had trained to an upper level of handling but instead of a whistle to stop him I would yell stop as loud as I could.  I would also verbally yell with the hand signal.  Yeah, no whistle at all. A few weeks after duck season we were doing the last tower shoot of the year, a 400 bird shoot. My dad was guiding at this shoot as well and running his older and more experienced dog.  After one round it was time to pick up the birds.  Everyone sent their dogs to pick up the downed birds when I noticed a long one up on the tree line at about 250 yards.  I sent my little ten month old Bandit, and I'll be if he didn't run a perfectly straight line to the trees.  I stopped him with a loud yella STOP!! This grabbed his attention and he spun around and sat to take a command.  Then I gave him a walking over while yellin OVER" at the top of my lungs. Like he was shot out of a cannon, he took off to the right for another 40 yards or so and picked up the bird.  Of course everyone noticed me yelling at this puppy, who responded like he was on a string. The highlight I'll never forget was when my Dad, the man who taught me everything I knew about training a dog, said, Damn son, you've done a good job with him. While Bandit picked up a lot more birds than just this one his first season, that lone retrieve stands out more than any of the rest - even more than his first duck, simply for the congratulations I received for a job well done from the man that introduced me into this game of ducks and dogs.

As each season comes and goes, our buddies add gray to their muzzle from years of experience like rings to a tree. You will notice as each year goes by that gray ring will get deeper and further back, as do their experiences in the field and the joy they bring to your heart.  Some of these stories can be told at any time and while in any company, and others can only be shared amongst good friends with the glow of a good fire and a jar of shine, but they all remain stored in our memory for just that right moment to share them. Just like our forefathers have stories to tell with their gray, so do our dogs.

When you get that little fur ball at 8 weeks old you never think about how they're going be there beside you to share memories for up to twenty years of your life in some cases. They'll be there through thick and thin and no matter what happens they are going be there with a loyalty second to none. They'll be there for the ups, the downs, and any other curveballs life may throw at you. Think about all the things that you can go through over a ten year span of life.  Friends, money, jobs, and girlfriends can come and go, but your dog is going to want to be right by your side no matter what.  He's not happy to be anywhere else. They just want to be hanging out with you, whether it be drinking beer on the porch, watching TV, standing at the line at the grand, balancing on a downed tree in the flooded timber, or lying in their ground force blind waiting for a group of big fat mallards to come in cupped and committed. They just want to be hanging out with you, their best friend.

Think about it.  What are those stickers you have on your truck all about? You have those stickers for a reason, and it's to tell the world what you're all about no matter where you go.  How many hours of your day do you think about hunting ducks or geese?  Do you go to bed thinking about it? Do you think about it when you take your morning leak? Do you think about it when you eat breakfast Is the only time you don't think about hunting ducks when you're hunting ducks? Because that is what your retriever thinks about non-stop except for when they're picking up birds. Out of all of the many birds you take in a season, which ones really stand out? A great hunt doesn't have to be measured in the number of birds taken. To me, a great hunt happens when you get good people, in the right spot, with good calling, good shooting, and a great dog to finish it off by picking up the downed birds.