Man's Best Friend

What Are the Prime Locations for Trapping Pigeons?

Online Editors — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:56:20 -0400

by Chad Love

I've previously blogged about the importance of using live birds for training and how it's smart to use a mixture of both pigeons and pen-raised birds. While I try to mix it up between the two, I have to admit that pigeons are what I use the most. Why? In theory, off-season training with live gamebirds sounds great. In practice, however, there are some issues.

First off, live gamebirds can get expensive. In my area, adult quail generally will run you four to five bucks apiece, chukars and huns will go slightly higher, and pheasants will set you back up to $13 per bird. On top of the initial expense, trying to keep gamebirds healthy, alive and in re-usable condition can sometimes be a struggle. Not to mention the fact that you can't take a bunch of quail out to a remote field, turn them out and then expect them to find their way home.

You're pretty much restricted to one training location and a johnny house/callback pen set-up if you turn out free-roaming quail. And if they're not adequately flight-conditioned enough to, well, actually fly away from your dog, then it pretty much defeats your purpose.

That's why so many of us rely on pigeons, both trapped and coop birds, for our training. They're free (if you can trap them) or cheap (if you have to buy), they're very hardy, easy to keep and raise, and are strong fliers. If they're adequately homed or imprinted on your pen or coop, even normal barn pigeons will (mostly) find their way back home from distant training sites. You can either buy barn pigeons or homers on Craigslist (barn pigeons normally got for two or three bucks a piece, culled homers a bit higher) or you can choose to trap your own.

I'm cheap, so I trap my own. Which is why I've been driving around town lately looking for likely pigeon-trapping locations. I just received two commercial pigeon traps made by SW Cage (available from Gundog Supply). I'll be talking more about the traps and my pigeon-trapping experiences in a future blog, but for now I have to figure out where and how to place them. That's where you come in.

I need some suggestions on where to trap for maximum skyrat catch rates. Any ideas? Downtown buildings, old grain elevators, underpasses or bridges--I've seen a few pigeons in these spots in my town, (which doesn’t have a huge pigeon population to begin with) but I'm not sure I've seen enough to make placing a trap worthwhile. Do you have a surefire, under-the-radar pigeon-trapping spot or technique? I'd love to hear it.

Study: Dogs May be Evolutionary Reason Humans Beat Out Neanderthals

Sarah Smith — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:12:52 -0400

by Chad Love

We all know that dogs have been hanging around the campfire for a long, long time, and that as a result they have become quite distinct from their wolf ancestors. But now some researchers are positing that the human/dog connection goes way deeper than we ever beleived. In fact, dogs may have been an important clue in one of the biggest evolutionary mysteries in science: how and why did early humans thrive even as the Neanderthals disappeared?

From this story in the Atlantic:
One of the most compelling -- and enduring -- mysteries in archaeology concerns the rise of early humans and the decline of Neanderthals. For about 250,000 years, Neanderthals lived and evolved, quite successfully, in the area that is now Europe. Somewhere between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago, early humans came along. They proliferated in their new environment, their population increasing tenfold in the 10,000 years after they arrived; Neanderthals declined and finally died away. What happened? What went so wrong for the Neanderthals -- and what went so right for us humans?

According to the story, some researchers now believe early humans may have had significant help from their recently domesticated friends. Anthropologist Pat Shipman argues that early humans owe much of their evolutionary success to the domestication of dogs, basically making early humans more efficient and effective predators, which in turn gave humans an important leg up on their Neanderthal rivals.

From the story: Shipman speculates that the affinity between humans and dogs manifested itself mainly in the way that it would go on to do for many more thousands of years: in the hunt. Dogs would help humans to identify their prey; but they would also work, the theory goes, as beasts of burden...The possible result, Shipman argues, was a virtuous circle of cooperation -- one in which humans and their canine friends got stronger, together, over time.

The Atlantic piece is a great summary of the research and worth a read, but the original story on americanscientist.com is a fascinating read as well and worth the time for anyone interested in our evolutionary relationship with dogs.

Food Plots for Bird Hunters: How Should I Plan My Covey Garden?

Sarah Smith — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:31:10 -0400

by Chad Love

Wildlife food plots are an integral part of many a deer hunter's strategy, especially on smaller acreages where a few small food plots can make a big difference in your hunting success. But what about bird hunters, or, for that matter, gundog owners looking to improve bird habitat on their land or training grounds?

Now, obviously, planting food and/or cover plots on large public WMAs or hunting preserves is fairly routine, but what about those of us small landholders who are just looking to get a few more birds around our houses or small acreages? Could a few small, upland bird specific food plots make a noticeable increase in the birds you hunt or train on?

The folks at Pheasants and Quail Forever think so, which is why they're selling food plot seed designed specifically for bird hunters.

From the Quail Forever website:

Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever has launched the expanded Signature Series of food plot mixes for spring. PF/QF biologists across the country have developed a tremendous variety of grain and green-browse mixes to meet the food and cover needs of pheasants, quail and wildlife. These proven, field tested mixes will now be more readily available to chapters and retail customers throughout pheasant and quail country. High-energy grain food plots are an essential wildlife management practice. When designed and placed correctly, these areas reduce bird mortality and help bring hens through the winter in peak condition for breeding. The nine Signature Series grain mixes include sorghum blends (Blizzard Buster, Covey Rise, Winter Shield, etc.), and diverse recipes like Winter Survival Mix, Rooster Booster or Dove & Quail Mix (blends of corn, sorghums sunflowers, buckwheat, millets, and more) that fit almost every planting situation.

Since many of our members are active big game hunters, we have also developed an expanded line of five Bird and Buck Green Browse Mixes. These forage offerings are irresistible wildlife magnets that attract and hold big game. They also create a leafy, insect rich structure that provides high quality brood habitat for upland birds. PF/QF Clover & More, Whitetail & Gamebird Mix, Deer Kandy and Whitetail Forage Brassica Mix make great bugging areas for pheasant and quail chicks, while hauling the deer and turkeys under your bow-stand.

The folks at QF tell me all the varieties are selling very well. Intrigued, I recently ordered a 25-pound bag of Quail Forever's "Covey Rise" seed mixture and I'll be planting it around my house and on my in-laws' quarter-section farm in the hopes of luring and holding a few more quail this fall, not so much for hunting, but for the enjoyment of having more of my absolute favorite bird hanging around the yard, as well the opportunity and convenience of being able to let the pup get into a few more wild quail prior to the season.

It will be an interesting experiment. I have absolutely no experience planting anything other than a vegetable garden, and I have no powered implements with which to plant, so I'm soliciting advice. My half-baked plan for a couple small one-acre plots is to chain an ancient, rusty, seized-up discer to the back of my truck, weight it down with some scrap iron, put it in four low and simply drag it around and around until I've sufficiently loosened the soil, then broadcast the seed by hand. A real farmer I 'aint... I'll also have to build some temporary fences to keep out the cows, but that shouldn’t be too much trouble.

And if all goes well, I'll have some nice cover later this fall in which to run the dogs and maybe shoot a few birds out of. But it's me we're talking about here, and when I'm involved things seldom all go well... See any potential pitfalls with this plan, aside from destroying my transfer case? Any suggestions? Anyone else ever planted a food plot for the birds and dogs rather than the deer? Have any of you ever used the ATV-based ag implements? How did it all turn out?

Getting Older and the Important Things in Life

Online Editors — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:29:04 -0400

by Chad Love

I woke up a few days ago to a beautiful, sun-kissed, dead-calm spring morning (a rare combination in these parts), so I did what any sane person would do: I went fishing. I abandoned the wife, the kids, the dogs and the rest of the world and felt not one pang of guilt. Sometimes you've just gotta be selfish. I hit the road with no defined plan, and eventually found myself on one particular piece of water that I sometimes use for training dogs. It's not a bad little pond for fishing, either, so I broke out the fly rod.

Alone, with neither dog nor fellow human for company (I tend to do all my flyfishing solo, to minimize uncontrollable laughter at my casting "style") I soon found myself in a contemplative mood. I recalled that this little pond was the spot where, a number of years prior, I first started training with the man who would, more than anyone or anything else, stoke my interest in gundogs, not just as a tool for hunting, but as a means to its own alluring and obsessive end.

And for many of us, that's what it becomes, something that grows to be of equal importance with the hunting itself, if not more so. Recently I was talking with a buddy of mine about the chicken-and-egg nature of gundogs and hunting. Our basic question was, what comes first: the interest in hunting or the interest in dogs? And how much does the one stoke interest in the other?

I suspect, for most of us, hunting was the initial catalyst for our subsequent interest in dogs, but over time I believe the dogs actually become the primary interest and reason for hunting.

That certainly was the case for me. My first real, purpose-bought gundog was a lab, bought as a pup off an ad pinned to my local tackle-shop's bulletin board. At the time I was about as clueless on how to train a retriever as a guy could be, and honestly didn't have a helluva lot of interest in dog training as a pastime. I just knew I was tired of wading for my ducks and figured a dog would take care of that nicely. Plus, at that time I was an obsessive, hard-core bass fanatic and couldn’t see myself spending time anywhere but on the water with a rod in my hand.

But something clicked, some switch flipped with that first mallard she dropped in my hand, just as something clicked the first time I watched my long-ago first pointer instantly transform from a flowing bit of grace into a quivering mass of instinct and intensity. It just clicked, and its been clicking ever since, louder and louder. Age will do that to you, I guess. Whatever the reason, I find myself casting off things which used to be of some importance to me in favor of things that still are.

I use to bowhunt, a lot. And while I still shoot and hunt with a recurve for the sheer primal romance and artistry of it, my days of spending week after precious fall week in a stand holding a compound are over. Same with most of my big-game hunting. I'll never stop deer hunting, simply because I love venison, but my dreams of a Booner or a Pope & Young buck and other big-game glory have dissolved into visions of dogs, feathers and lonely roads. I doubt I'll ever shoot an elk, a bear, a caribou.

I used to, a long time gone, entertain the notion of becoming a professional bass angler or a guide. And while my passion for fishing remains, (there's still a bluefin and a slat-run striper out there for me somewhere) I no longer think spending 250-300 days on strange water is a grand idea, especially in the fall.

I suppose this internal winnowing process is something we all - hostages to age and the awareness of its inevitable destination - eventually go through, and we balance what remains as best we can. Which is why I found myself on that glorious spring day flailing away with a fly rod on the same pond where I'd learned so much about dogs, thinking about the man who taught me.

He died not long ago, that old man who once, when we were training on this very pond on a spring day much like this one, good-naturedly scolded me for thinking out loud about fishing when I should have be thinking about water blinds. "Water's for dog training and drinking, in that order." He was joking, of course. Sort of. I never knew him to go fishing when he could be dog-training, but that off-hand quip has always stayed with me.

We never got the chance to take that last hunt we talked about, and as I threw my awkward, ragged loops across the surface of the water that had seen so many dogs, both his and mine, I wondered what he would have thought of me wasting such a perfectly good training day on fishing...

New TV Channel Created Just for Your Dog's Entertainment

Sarah Smith — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:05:44 -0400

by Chad Love

So you think the media merchants of mindless pap are content to only lobotomize us into drooling, slack-jawed consumers? Think again, fellow zombies, because now they're after our dogs, too. Welcome to the future of canine entertainment, and the end of civilization as we know it.

From this story on businessweek.com:
Gilad Neumann wants to be clear: He does not want to turn your dog into a couch potato. But if you’re going out for a few hours, he hopes that soon you’ll leave your television on and tuned to his new cable channel, Dog TV, the first channel directly targeting canine viewers. “Veterinary associations like the Humane Society and the ASPCA have been recommending for dog owners to leave the TV or radio on when they leave their dog home alone for many hours,” says Neumann, Dog TV’s founder and chief executive officer.

However, “not every video that you leave your dog with is appropriate,” he says. “[Anything that contains] fireworks or gunfire could scare your dog and create more stress than no TV.” Dog TV’s programming, on the other hand, is meant to soothe your dog’s abandonment anxiety—and spare your furniture—while he or she is alone.

That's right. Dog TV. It's here, but only if you live in the lone test market of San Diego, California and only if you have Time Warner Cable or Cox Media. The channel went live in San Diego on Feb. 12, but if it takes off, the Israeli company behind Dog TV hope to take it nationwide by the end of the year and start charging $4.99 per month for the privilege.

So what, pray tell, does Dog TV consist of? Oh, completely awesome(less) stuff like this. According to the story, that's the kind of stuff your dog wants to see.

From the story...Dog TV, after all, isn’t for humans. For one thing, the colors will seem off, since they’ve been calibrated to suit dogs’ limited vision. (Essentially color-blind, dogs can only see shades of blue and yellow.) “We’re constantly doing … you can call them focus groups for groups for dogs,” says Neumann. “We’ve noticed, for example, that dogs are not thrilled about barking on the channel, so we’ve removed almost all barking.”

Really? I think maybe they need to expand their "focus groups" past the dog park, because I'm pretty sure my dogs want to see programming like this.

So...if that's the kind of stuff non-sporting dogs like to watch, and if there's a market for it, might there be a market for a channel dedicated to sporting dog programming? What do you think your dog would like to watch? Would you pay for it?

And while we're riffing the possibilities, what about subliminal dog training programs? Hour after hour of exciting gundog footage that's not only entertaining old Spot, but subconsciously teaching him important training concepts? Might that be the future of gundog training? Training DVDs and programs, not for us, but the dogs?

Hmmm, I just might be on to something there...

Share Your Gun Dog Tips, Win a FireKnife

Sarah Smith — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:43:49 -0400

by Chad Love

Who wants to win a really cool knife? I mean it, I've been playing around with one for the past couple weeks, and I gotta say the new Swedish Fireknife is a very well-designed and comfortable knife, so much so that mine is now a permanent addition to my knockaround/training bag. It's light, ergonomic, razor-sharp and the blade design lends itself well to a variety of tasks. The question is, who wouldn’t want to win one?

All you have to do is continue sending in your training tips to fsgundogtips@gmail.com for the chance to win. I've got several of these knives to give away, so the more tips you send the more chances you have to win one. Your tip can be about any aspect of training, ownership or hunting with your dogs. It can be a useful piece of gear (homemade or otherwise), a time-saving piece of advice or a novel or unusual way to teach a concept.

Our first winner, Bill Maggart, gave us a cool tip to help introduce a pup to water. I thought using Cheetos to lure a pup into the water was a pretty creative way to overcome an issue many puppy owners struggle with, and this week's winner from reader Lee Nelson is similar in that it uses a treat in an unorthodox way to help us out with a task that is sometimes difficult with an active dog: trimming toenails.

Ever have a dog that fights you non-stop while trying to do his periodic claw trimming? Maybe a bad past experience or one of those who just can't sit still. Rather than fighting with him, found the key is total distraction. What dog doesn't love a good treat? I'll take a slice of very fresh white bread. You know the kind. The type you can wad up into a tight dough ball. Slather it up with peanut butter. Open the dog's mouth. Stick the slice up in the roof of his mouth, peanut butter side up. He'll be so busy trying to get it down with his tongue, he won't care what you're doing! The only challenge to this technique is to stop laughing long enough to get the deed done! Enjoy!

Interesting. I'm lucky in that all of my dogs are used to me trimming their toes, but some dogs can get happy feet when you're trying to trim, and it's no fun when you accidentally cut into your dog's quick because they're bouncing around so much. Curious, I decided to try this tip out on my pup this morning, and I gotta say, it worked like a charm.

Now, I know some of you expressed concern with the last tip about giving a dog human food. Personally, I think that as long as you're not feeding your dog table scraps every day and buying them candy bars, chips and beer on a regular basis, occasionally giving them a treat like Cheetos or a bit of peanut butter isn't the end of the world. I can certainly think of worse things for a dog to endure.

Congratulations to Lee Nelson (Lee, I'll send you an e-mail shortly...) and remember, please keep those tips coming.

A Call to Action: CA Battle Over Hunting With Hounds Heats Up

Sarah Smith — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:42:14 -0400

by Chad Love

Gundog owners are used to low-grade attacks on our way of life. Not even the loony fringe believes outright bans on hunting dog ownership can work. Yet, there are any number of ways that anti-hunting and anti-pet ownership forces can nickel and dime us with laws that, on the surface seem fairly benign or even well-intentioned. I mean, who isn’t against puppy mills, irresponsible dog owners and animal cruelty, right?

So these groups trot out, mostly on the local level but increasingly on the state level as well, proposed legislation like spay and neuter requirements, dog limit requirements, "kennel licensing" requirements, breeding restrictions, etc., that would make owning, breeding, training, and hunting with dogs as difficult and expensive as possible.

But gundog owners in California need to sit up and take notice on a piece of legislation. The battle over hunting bears and bobcats with hounds is heating up in the Golden State, with round one going to the anti-hunters. But this is much more than just another piece of anti-hunting legislation. Hunting dog owners in California - all hunting dog owners, not just houndsmen, need to fight this.

From this story in the Mount Shasta News:

Hundreds on both sides of the hound hunting debate testified before the state senate’s Natural Resources Committee in Sacramento last week before a bill that would ban the practice was moved forward to the appropriations committee. The vote was 5-3 to approve the legislation, which would make it illegal to use hounds while hunting bear and bobcats in the state of California.

Sounds grim for Golden State houndsmen, but the legislation, known as SB 1221, still has a ways to go before it can be signed into law. It now goes to the state senate appropriations committee, then if passed goes on to the full senate floor, then to the state assembly and the governor's office. If California sportsmen can get mobilized, maybe they can halt its passage. If not, then all hunting for bears and bobcats with hounds will be outlawed, and then what? Emboldened, will they come next for our beagles? Coursing hounds? Coon hounds? Working terriers?

If you live in California and you own a hunting dog - any kind of hunting dog - then you need to start calling your elected representatives, making placards, sending letters, whatever it takes. The right you save may be your own...

Planet of the Dogs: K-9s Groom Humans as Personal Well-Being Tools

Sarah Smith — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:58:38 -0400

by Chad Love

A few years back, the world got its shortpants in a wad over the beating IBM's "Deep Blue" computer administered to world chess champion Gary Kasparav. They bunched even tighter last year when IBM's "Watson" computer thoroughly trounced the best human "Jeopardy!" players on the planet. In the wake of these and myriad other examples of the growing superiority of the silicone chip-based servant over its carbon-based creator, there was much bloviating about the nature of sentience, logic, intelligence, reason, and whether computers would eventually overtake humans in all these heretofore exclusively and uniquely human categories.

To which I say (to myself, since no one listens to me): What a waste of time and apparently not-so-unique-after-all thought. Seriously. That's the problem with academics; they're too damn academic. Devious cunning and opposable thumbs got us where we are today and devious cunning and opposable thumbs will always insure that computers will never become our robot masters, so forget the Matrix.

But dogs, on the other hand, well, I can easily see them going all Planet of the Apes on us. If you ever stop for a second and think about it, I mean really think about it, I believe you'd come to the conclusion that there's not a damn thing a dog can't be trained to do, and do it better than pretty much anything else out there. Dogs can find people buried under tons of rubble, they can sniff out bombs and drugs, they can be trained to detect cancer, pick up shed antlers, help guide the blind, I mean, the list literally goes on forever. And although they do seem to lack our devious cunning and handy extra digit, dogs are our superiors in virtually every other way imaginable. We may be the "masters" in this eons-old relationship, but who's really controlling whom here?

According to some recent research, dogs have evolved not so much to please us, but to groom us as their personal well-being tools.

From this story on scientificamerican.com:

By sharing an environment with humans, dogs left behind their ancestral environment and found a place in a new one. No longer would they have to hunt to eat; humans would come to provide for their care and feeding. It is probably no accident that the relationship between dogs and their owners mirrors the attachment relationship between parents and their children, behaviorally and physiologically. Indeed, humans who have strong bonds with their dogs have higher levels of oxytocin in their urine than those with weaker bonds.

But it isn’t only the source of their food that changed as wolves became dogs; their entire social ecology changed. Instead of sharing social space primarily with other wolves, dogs came to treat humans as social partners. This is one of the critical differences between a domesticate and a wild animal that is simply habituated to the presence of humans. Domestication is a genetic process; habituation is an experiential one. Domestication alters nature, habituation is nurture.

Several years ago, scientists at Eotvos University in Budapest wanted to determine whether the social-cognitive differences among dogs and wolves was primarily genetic or experiential. To do this, they hand-raised a group of dog puppies and a group of wolf pups from birth, resulting in roughly equivalent experiences. Any differences between the two groups’ social cognitive skills, then, would be attributable to genetics.

What the researchers found was that despite being raised under identical circumstances, wolves and dogs exhibited completely different behaviors in terms of problem-solving. When given a task that was essentially impossible, dogs almost always looked to their humans for cues, or "help" if you will, while wolves did not.

In one simple task, a plate of food was presented to the wolf pups (at 9 weeks) or to the dog puppies (both at 5 weeks and at 9 weeks). However, the food was inaccessible to the animals; human help would be required to access it. The trick to getting the food was simple: all the animals had to do was make eye contact with the experimenter, and he or she would reward the dog with the food from the plate. Initially, all the animals attempted in vain to reach the food. However, by the second minute of testing, dogs began to look towards the humans.

This increased over time and by the fourth minute there was a statistical difference. Dogs were more likely to initiate eye contact with the human experimenter than the wolves were. This is no small feat; initiating eye contact with the experimenter requires that the animal refocus its attention from the food to the human. Not only did the wolf pups not spontaneously initiate eye contact with the human experimenter, but they also failed to learn that eye contact was the key to solving their problem.

Other experiments in the research projects had the same result. The rest of the story is a fascinating read and well worth the time for anyone interested in dogs. It reinforces the notion that dogs truly are distinct from wild canids. They aren't just friendly wolves, but the unique genetic result of thousands of years of mutually beneficial domestication, if that's what you want to call it. They've "trained" us as much as we've trained them, a fact the researchers point out

It’s not that wolves are unintelligent; it’s quite the opposite, in fact. Wolves are cooperative hunters, skilled at negotiating within their own social networks. It’s just that even after being raised by humans, wolves simply do not see humans as potential social partners. The dogs, however, quite rapidly took a social approach to solving each problem they were given. In one sense, this is a remarkable example of tool use. Only in this case, the humans were the tools, and the dogs the tool-users.

So remember that, and be kind to your dogs. Your smart, deeply-intelligent, human-training, always-watching, always-adaptable dogs. Treat them well, or in a few more millennia of canine evolution it won't be HAL 9000, Skynet or some malevolent toaster we have to worry about, it'll be our canine masters.

What Once Was: The Lost Souls of Sage Grouse Hunting

Sarah Smith — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:39:13 -0400

by Chad Love

I was cruising the web not long ago when I came across a story (hat tip to the excellent Setter Feathers and Groused Tales blog for the link) about the state of Wyoming's decision to completely close sage grouse season in the eastern part of the state.

From this story in the Casper Star Tribune:

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has announced a plan to shut down all sage grouse hunting in the eastern portion of the state this year. At Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, we view this as a symbolic gesture that will do little to help the dwindling grouse population in the Powder River Basin. Instead, we’re encouraging the Game and Fish Department to focus on the real threat that is causing population declines in the first place: irresponsible types of oil, gas, and coal-bed methane extraction.

In March, the Bureau of Land Management released the results of a sage grouse Population Viability Analysis that predicted the functional extinction of sage grouse in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin upon the next major outbreak of West Nile virus, as coal-bed methane well density increases to eight wells per square mile. The study modeled sage grouse population changes in response to increasing coalbed methane development and other factors, and projected that of the 370 sage grouse leks (or strutting and breeding grounds) active today in the Powder River Basin, only six leks would remain in the wake of a West Nile epidemic. This is dire news indeed, as the loss of the sage grouse population in northeastern Wyoming would eliminate the key link between populations in Montana, the Dakotas, and Canada with the heart of the sage grouse range in southwest Wyoming. And if this happens, endangered species listing would almost certainly follow.

Ultimately the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission voted to not shut down the season, but increasingly, stories about upland birds and their habitat read less like news and more like a series of dirges. We can argue the relative merits of why, and who is or isn’t to blame ad infinitum. Smarter guys than I can take up that banner, but I have to admit that there are times when I look at my dogs and see not fur, flesh and bone, but ghosts. Big, goofy, loveable, tail-wagging, face-licking, depression-killing, utterly perfect ghosts. But ghosts nonetheless, apparitions that seem to grow just a tiny bit fainter, more translucent, somehow less there, with each new piece of bad news for the birds they were born to hunt, as if Fate had intertwined the two in some cosmic Gordian knot. Tug on one, tug on the other. And I admit, there are days when I feel somehow less here as well, for I am--as a bird hunter--every bit as entwined in that knot as the birds and the dogs and the lonesome places I so love. There's a beautiful symmetry to it, when you think about it: Birds are defined by the land, dogs are defined by the birds, and we, at the top of this metaphysical food chain, are defined by the totality of it all.

And when it all goes away, when what we love and choose to define ourselves by just disappears, as it sometimes seems like it surely is, do we become less than what we once were? Ghosts chasing ghosts chasing ghosts across the haunted, empty remnants of what once was? Sometimes it feels that way, like what I'm really doing as I follow my dogs across a vast arc of sky and grass, is mere ghost-chasing, searching out the scattered vestiges of something (birds, life, meaning, existence) that is rapidly slipping toward the past tense. How else can you honestly describe it? I have a friend in Idaho. Like me, he has a young setter, and like me, he wants to get his pup on a sage grouse, just once, while there is still time. I have another friend in Kansas with an aged pointer, a veteran of many, many years of those ghost hunts. He would like to get her on a lesser prairie chicken, just once, while there is still time, just like I would like to get my setter on a lesser prairie chicken, again, just once, while there is still time.

So we will try to do that this Fall, my friends and I, to etch that metaphorical notch on our souls and the souls of our dogs while there is still time to do so, with the full realization that what we do is pure ersatz. The fuzzy outline lingers, but the substance has passed. And soon enough, so too will the outline. So in a very real sense, we will be ghost hunting this fall, my friends and I. But we will do it, anyway, because that is what we have chosen to be defined by. And when that last and utterly final opportunity--ersatz or not--passes, when the door finally slams shut forever, as it in all likelihood will, I wonder if we will grow that much dimmer with its passing?

It's Going To be a Bad Year For Ticks

Sarah Smith — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:07:27 -0400

by Chad Love

Do you have a favorite parasite in your life? Some mooching blood-sucking, free-loading friend or relative who's sucking you dry, but just won't leave? Then send them a gift-wrapped hint with one of these awesome and cuddly plush dolls from www.giantmicrobes.com.

Since this is a gundogs blog, how about a giant tick plush doll? Or perhaps a cute little flea? If that's not creepy enough, how about a darling bed bug? A louse? Maggot, maybe? Yes, it's fairly disgusting, but today I have bloodsuckers on the mind. Why? Because I just got in from a walk with the dogs, and picked up an astounding number of hitchhikers. It's going to be a bad tick year. Blame rain and winter warmth.

I reside just a few miles east of the 100th Meridian, that historical dividing line between the arid shortgrass prairie that lies west of the 100th and the semi-arid mixed-grass country to the east. My area averages a little over 20 inches of precipitation a year. Last year, however, was anything but average. In 2011, according to the rain gauge at my house, we received slightly less than 12 inches of rain for the entire year, combined with Mars-like summer temps for record-setting lengths of time. As a result, virtually all of my dog training, duck hunting and bird hunting got cooked away last year.

There was, however, a small silver lining: Not once did I get bitten by a mosquito, nor did I ever find a tick on any of my dogs. Granted, I have my dogs on heartworm and flea/tick medication year-round, regardless of the weather, but still, it's unusual to not find any ticks at all, even on treated dogs. The mosquitoes (and subsequent heartworm risk) is easily explained away: no standing water, no winged vermin. The lack of ticks last year? I'm no expert on pestilence, but I suspect the lack of moisture and the heat had at least something to do with it.

But oh, what a difference a year makes. This year, according to the rain gauge at my house, we've received almost 13 inches of rain (more than all of last year) since the end of January, when the skies suddenly opened up and began making up for lost time. The lakes and ponds are full, the prairie is lush, and big chunks of the southern plains that last year resembled the planet Dune now look more like Ireland.

But there's a price to pay for all that moisture. Huge, primordial clouds of mosquitoes, with larva-infested standing water everywhere. And all that lush grass? Every blade of it covered with blood-sucking little buggers, just waiting to hitch a ride. And it's not just where I live. While it may seem a cruel joke for all you northeasterners under winter storm warnings right now, but this past nationwide non-winter means flea, tick and heartworm season is going to be especially bad this year for gundog owners.

I live in a relatively not-too-bad tick area, and I normally get by with just the monthly dose of my preferred topical flea/tick medication, heartworm meds and that's it. In mild years I find I can even stretch that out a little farther between dosings, because that stuff 'aint cheap. But not this year. Based on what I've experienced so far, I'm thinking I may have to combine a topical treatment with a collar to keep the ticks off my dogs. I can only imagine how you guys in the northeast and south are going to have it this year.

What's the flea/tick situation in your area this year, and what's the best way you've found to deal with it? Topical treatment? Collar? Combo? How about treatment of your yard/kennel area? Any tips or suggestions?