Too Smart For Her Own Good

[brittman]

So I was out pheasant hunting with my two Britts the other day. Second walk is with my young 1 year old Britt. It is on a public hunting area (1st visit ever) with a quarter-mile walk-in access trail.

She hunts well with several points (hens) and a couple "false" points. Bell on - we head down into a small cattail slough. I know there are pheasants around because of the fresh [PoorWordUsage].

Wind is picking up now - 15+ mph. A bird flushes and the bell sound disappears. I call her in - hear her bell sound and then quiet. Another point? Well I look for her - nothing - and then start calling her name. I walk the perimeter of the hunting area - nothing ....

OK now I am worried. I decide I will go back to my truck - get some shells, food and water, cell phone and my older dog. We will hang out where she was last seen.

As I am heading back to the truck (about an hour out from when she left me), I start to remember the three times my older dog lost me when she was one years old. Each time she was at the truck when I got back.

So I get back to the truck and there she is sitting beside the truck. Well the greeting was intense and happy. No scolding or yelling -

I suspect she lost me, could not pick up my scent or voice and when panic set in - she decided to head back where we started. She had moved about 1/2 mile back.

It ended up much better than it could have.

[BLACKJACK]

I've never had them disapear for that long but I know its a panicky feeling when they don't appear. This time of year I try to run silently but if they are gone for a few minutes in the cattails, I dig out the whistle and start blowing it. No rooster is worth losing your dog over!!!

Look at this way, if you were going thru grass twice as tall as you, it would be easy to get turned around!!

Glad you found her!!

[Shane683]

I had something similar to this happen to me last spring with my lab. We were walking in a wooded area along a river and I don't know if the dog took off after a rabbit or what, but I looked around and called for about 45 minutes and then decided to head back to my truck and there he was. I think he was pretty scared too because he wouldn't come to me until I was about 50 feet away. Then we were both very happy. Glad your situation turned out well too.

[Cootz]

I don't know what goes through my labs head sometimes. Me and a buddy were hunting up north in a big cattail slough and we each had a lab with us. A Flock of birds fly's overhead and we each get one. The one I shot drops on the opposite side of the cattail island in front of us. No big deal, just a fifty yard retrieve. While my dog goes for that one my buddies dog is chasing down the cripple. They both start coming back about the same time but my buddies dog reaches the boat first with mine about ten yards behind her. I grab my buddies dog and help it in and turn around for mine and to my surprise he isn't there. I look around and I can't see him. As I'm looking, I hear him in the cattails BEHIND us. He must have swam right past us thinking we were in the NEXT cattail island. So I start yelling his name and he doesn't turn around. This goes on for about ten fifteen minutes and I start worrying. So we start the motor up and drive to the other side of the cattails and start yelling. And I can hear him swimming away from us again. I finally figure out that my voice is bouncing off of the opposite side of the slough every time I yell. I bet it was about twenty five minutes in total before he finally got to the boat. Another time we were in North Dakota hunting some potholes and I downed one that sailed a ways in and sent him in. He must have gotten turned around again cause I saw him come out the other side about 300 yards away and go start running away from me. He got about six hundred yards away before he finally saw me waving my arms with a jacket in each hand for him to see me. I could just see him standing there going "which way did he go, which way did he go?" until his eyes met mine. Then he ran all proud back to me with the bird in his mouth thinking nothing was wrong at all.

[ole matty]

i have springer. shes is good dog but sometiem shes so stubborn when shes right on bird. if we hunt near unharvest cornfield she will go in and stay there for 10 to 15 mins to flush them out of cornfield then she will running back and makin look "why didnt you shoot?".. one time was hunting about 500 acres of cattails. it was not good experience she went in cattail for over a hour.. never again.. might need more training or time for me to get shock collar..