feigning injury

We entered field trials only once, when Starbuck was fairly young. It was a whole day event and it was difficult to keep him occupied until his turn to run as the smell of birds was in the air the entire time.

The event was not a competitive one, more just for the fun of it and to get the dogs (and hunters) ready for the upcoming season. A cart would take the judges upslope to the trial area and they would plant birds if necessary. They would radio down to the starter when ready. Two dogs and their handlers were sent out in each heat.

Starbuck was paired with a large Weimaraner and they both got out of the gate fast but the Weimaraner shot out ahead with its longer stride. He turned off and may have scented something not too far from the judges. The Buckster kept going and after a while, I wondered if he was going to come back, kind of like the scene in Chevy Chase's Funny Farm (3:20 into the clip).

The Weimaraner's find turned out to be the judge's cart, as the planted birds were formerly in it. Starbuck was out of the judges' sight but just as I caught up to him, he put up a covey of quail. He watched them sail off in a multitude of directions. He looked back at me and then toward the judge's cart but unfortunately, they weren't watching him. If I can anthropomorphize, he had a look of disbelief that no one (other than me) saw his prowess.

As we headed back downslope to where the judges were, Starbuck started to limp a bit and then more vigorously right as we got to the cart. I stopped to take a look at his affected leg and paw but couldn't see anything. The judges said to put him in the cart for the ride back to the starting line. I rode along to watch over him.

As soon as I took him out, he ran back to the truck, drank water from his bowl and started to play around the truck. I looked at his leg and paw once more and, again, there was nothing, nor any signs of a lingering limp. I began to wonder if he was actually feigning injury because of a) getting a free ride back, b) not wanting to participate, seeing as his find went unrewarded (he did get a biscuit) or c) there would be no implied shame for the majority perception of him not finding anything if he was injured in the process.

I guess I shouldn't complain, I got a free ride too.

two pairs beats four of a kind

It seems the larger a company gets - or the more departments it divides itself into - the more difficult it is for it to get from the inkling of a need to product. The classic cartoon with the various departmental views of a swing humorously depicts the problem.

So it was with dog boots. Before, about 5 years ago, you could only buy dog boots in sets of four, all identical in size. Maybe all of the dogs I've seen are freaks of nature and there really are dogs with four equal-sized paws.

Maybe it's all the inbreeding that accounted for Starbuck's front paws being larger than his rear paws. He waddled around with his ill-fitting boots, like one wearing fins on land. He ended up casting the boots off and ran around tracking mud wherever his happy, bootless paws took him. I assumed wrong that the size difference would be accounted for when you bought a set of four. Makes you wonder if the key personnel in the dog boot industry interact with the end user.

The last time I was in a pet store, while the Buckster was still alive, I noticed that there was a neatly stocked display of dog boots, sold in pairs. There was even a place a dog could sit down and try them on.

made in the shade

As mentioned in a previous post, it was sometimes difficult to distinguish the Buckster's motives, finding birds or finding a place to rest. His body language for birds or rest was very similar for both, with a degree of stiffer, more deliberate movements, intense sniffing and a telltale tail. Usually, his nose lead him in a certain direction and he would check markings along the way. Most of these markings were where birds may have been earlier in the day, ground roosts or feeding areas.

Sometimes, these tracking missions would take us on a long and circuitous route to a familiar resting spot. I usually didn't notice until I was almost at the spot and Starbuck was already there, resting. He was usually pretty intuitive about when we needed these stops, though as my lag time increased, it must have been pretty obvious to him.

The picture above was one of his favorites. This spot was one of the view that didn't have much of a view. It was intended to be more of a short, intermediate stop, one on the way to a better place for the lunch stop. As you can see, the shade is suspiciously sized to his body size and shape, not leaving much for the rest of the party (me). And, there is no other piece of shade for miles, only a bunch of smaller bushes and twigs sticking out of the ground in a relatively barren portion of the landscape. Hence, the only shade afforded me was that which was cast from my cap's visor; not much in the blistering tropic heat of the locale.

That's not to say he was insensitive. As he looked over from his oasis and noticed my predicament, he trotted over, turned around and dug a pile of cool earth onto my boots, the perfect dog solution to the problem at hand.