The Corner

The Sneakers Chronicles

The Corner

    In previous pheasant seasons I had avoided "The Corner." The Corner was no place for man or beast. Thick briars, taller than a Laker's center, grew rampant amongst abandoned farm machinery. The remains of a rusty barbed wire fence coursed down its length, The Corner was no place to drop a bird. Also, because it is situated cheek-to-jowl with a U.S. highway the risk of your dog running down a winged bird across the road was very real. This was a spot where a bird hunter really did need a retriever.

   So whenever my dog, Sneakers, a beagle-cross with no history of retrieving pheasant, tended to hang out in that part of the field, I had cast him elsewhere. But this year some of the pheasant stocking had taken place in a sorghum field that abutted The Corner. It became apparent that the birds were using the tangled mess of The Corner for cover. Reluctantly, I allowed the dog to work it.

   "Find the birds," I intoned, as we moved out of the field. In a short time his tail began the rhythmic swish, swish, swish indicating he was actively on scent. Nose to the ground, Sneakers worked across a path separating the field from The Corner, then turned and angled back toward me. His swishing tail became a faster, robust whoop, whoop, whoop!

   Maybe it was the memory of the summer ducks that caused me to relent this year...to let Sneakers finally work The Corner.

   During the summer and early fall we walked Mill Creek daily. Mill Creek has a good population of wild ducks and one of my neighbors attracts scores more with a steady supply of commercial feed. And this year a large white barnyard duck, with clipped wings, had shown up.

   One evening as we surveyed one of the many trout pools, the dog suddenly flushed a hen. Normally his efforts would have been in vain as the duck simply motored across the water and was aloft before the dog could get near him. But this duck only managed to cross the stream, with Sneakers right on his tail feathers. I fully expected him to dispatch the fowl, but instead he mouthed the bird and swam back across the pool to deposit the hapless duck at my feet. When I examined the duck I found it had a broken wing. I praised Sneakers, released the bird and put the incident down as an aberration. The dog had, after all, killed several ducks on fishing trips in previous years.

   Curiously, two days later then same thing happened. Sneakers scented the same duck, caught it, and brought it back to me. Slowly it began to dawn on me that perhaps all those hours of throwing the ball and calling the dog back might be showing up here on the stream. Maybe retrieving could be added to his field skills of scenting, tracking, casting and marking. I began to lay plans to develop this newfound skill.

   But during the next several weeks it became evident that Sneakers had his eye on the lone domestic barnyard duck. He would work his way up and down the stream banks, flushing all of the wild ducks, until he found the large white, orange-billed domestic. He never killed it, but managed to pin it to the bank until I could come up and separate the two. In their last encounter he captured it across stream and spent the next fifteen minutes or so trying to bring it back to me. The large duck weighed nearly as much as Sneakers, so this was no easy chore. Both duck and dog were exhausted when I finally wadded across to release it.

   Still thinking about the hapless white duck, I noticed that Sneakers tail was now revved up to a giddy WOP, WOP, WOP. We were at a briar bush in which he had trapped and dispatched a winged cock after a hundred yard chase the previous year. It was obviously a favorite hiding place for birds.

   With his distinctive "yip" and the blur of beating wings a hen was aloft. Momentarily I saw Sneakers wheel and line up on her flight as I lifted the 16 gauge. A good clean hit folded the bird's wings and she arced down.

   Plumb, dead center, smack dab into the dreaded briars of The Corner! Dead bird...but irretrievable! Drat.

   I hoofed it over to the edge of the patch. Sneakers had already located the bird. With his black and white coat I could just barely make him out against the snow cover and the hundreds of briar stalks.

   "Bring the bird," I called more out of desperation than with any real expectation of success. "Bring the bird." Reluctantly, I realized I'd have to go in.

   Try as I might, I could not get into the patch. Half crawling, hunched over with a hundred barbs shredding my clothing, I tangled with the rusty fence. By the time I managed to get back out I had raised a sweat and run through several dozen cuss words. Figuring that I might be able to work around the patch and come out on the other, highway side, I slipped away. A ten-minute hike later and looking at the other side, I realized that it was no more accessible and turned back.

   As I turned the bend to get back to where I started, I was surprised and delighted to see the little 13-inch dog calmly sitting alongside The Corner with the pheasant between his front legs. Classic retriever pose. Classic nonchalance. A Class dog.

   Who just happens to hunt with a not so classic hunter.