Boneheaded Puppy Is Haywire Again

Boneheaded Puppy

Is Haywire Again!

 By Capt. Tony Petrella  SEPTEMBER 21, 2008—I’ll be damned if he didn’t do it all over again! Heart running off for two-and-a-half hours, I mean!

  This time, Bill Ross and I had hunted Ghost in the low area near the Manistee River looking for woodcock in the morning. Instead of masses of woodcock, she pointed just one that we didn’t take a poke at, and two grouse.

  By then, she’d been on the ground for 40 minutes, and that left eye still looks like a cloudy, blood-streaked marble. Time to give her some rest.

  Instead of heading west to a covert we haven’t scouted yet, Ross suggested that we hunt the puppy around my house “where there’s lot’s of familiar scent,” he said.

  Yeah, a good plan.

  So, as we’re driving in, I see a grouse scoot across the road. I pull over. Ross, following in his truck, does the same.

  As I’m putting the bell and beeper on Heart’s neck, a grouse goes up twenty feet to our right. Then another, and another and thirteen of them in all.

  I look at Ross. He grins and makes an “after you” gesture. Only one problem. Heart is off on his own—nowhere NEAR where all of those grouse thundered up, up and away.

  Off we go. Whistling. Calling. Pleading. I finally have the Little Guy headed off at the pass. Except he blew out of the weeds and juked past me like Gayle Sayers used to do to all those befuddled defensive backs. And ran off into the jackpines without even looking back.

  “*#@%& him,” I yell loudly. Very loudly. And stomp off toward the truck. Ross meets me there with a grim look on his face. “Wadda ya’ gonna do, skipper?”

  “Go home,” I reply. Ross just cocks his head and gives me a look.

  “Ah, hell. I can hear the beeper over there to the east. I’ll walk out there and see if he’ll come back.” He didn’t.

  “I’ll drive out on the road and see if he’ll come to me,” Ross says. “He likes ME, and he knows you’re mad at him.”

  Good plan. Except it didn’t work. “That little Shorty Pants walked out on the road and saw me down on my knees calling to him and he turned and ran away!

  “I’ve gotta go let my two dogs out. Call me later.”

  Getting into the Tahoe, I drive up and down the road, listening for his beeper. Up and down. Up and down. Finally, there’s the beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep of puppy paws covering ground.

  Out of the truck, leash in hand, I start toward the sound. “Should I whistle?” I wonder silently, “or will that make him run further away?” I whistle. He runs further away.

  Back at the truck I use the cell phone to call Kate—who’s literally up to her eyeballs in copyediting jobs for three different clients.

  “I REALLY hate to ask this, but could you come help me? Maybe Heart will come to you.” I give her directions, and fifteen minutes later the Jeep pulls up. Kate gets out clutching a leash and a bag of Greenies—one of Heart’s favorite treats.

  Off goes Kate, calling “Heart, Greenies. Come get your Greenie, Heart.”

  I finally work my way off to the left of her, skirt the edge of a mostly-dried-up bog, and hear him getting closer and closer and closer.

  Hiding behind a tree, I jump out and ambush him with a rather loud “WHOA!!!!” He’s so startled he stops in his tracks. And looks just a little bit scared—since he’s been wandering around the better part of Section 29 in the rapidly increasing heat for more than two hours.

  “Got him,” I yell to Kate—who promptly starts walking AWAY from the vehicles. So, I whistle and loudly call out “Right here.” At least SHE listened!