The three big German
wirehaired pointers
shot out of the dog crates, did the usual hunting dog's quick
pee and poop, then tore off into the dry cattails. Within 200
yards of the long strip of shoulder-high, hard-to-walk reeds
and weeds along a frozen river bank, we came to a clump of golden
canary grass just big enough to hold a South Dakota pheasant.
There all three dogs, two boys and a girl, were stuck motionless,
intense, and staring hard into the bushel-basket-size stand of
cover.
A big ringneck suddenly erupted 10 inches from one dog's nose,
gained altitude cackling along the way, then leveled off to fly
hard across the frozen river. One shot, a puff of feathers, and
a rooster thumped on the ice. All three dogs skidded to a stop
and one of them scooped up the bird, and, a second or two later,
delivered it to hand. Nice dog work. Classy, efficient, fast,
functional, and happy. Done by dogs that obviously knew what
they were doing and loved every minute of doing it.
"All this is nice, but there is nothing unusual here,"
you might say. There is, however, something different. All three
of these wirehairs are "rescued dogs."
"Rescued from what?" you ask. Abject abuse, outright
abandonment, just plain bad luck. The life-altering experiences
that can land a dog on the street, into an animal shelter, or
into the gas chamber at |
he local dog pound.
Bill Mitchell, the owner of these three dogs and three others
just like them, loves German wirehairs as good companion dogs
and as hunters. And, his wirehairs love him because Mitchell
gives these dogs a good home and an ample opportunity to do what
they were born to do hunt pheasants. Mitchell owns and
operates a hunting preserve in the northeastern corner of South
Dakota a few miles from the little town of Hecla.
On a hundred year old family farm that covers thousands of acres,
he hosts several groups of pheasant hunters from the first of
September to the end of March. "We never hunt without the
dogs," Bill says, "and that's one reason we have this
many dogs because once the season starts they are working every
day. We run them in braces and sometimes trios so they can take
turns in the field and rest on and off throughout the hunt."
In two days of pheasant hunting here, I watched these wirehairs
point, track, and retrieve. They seldom ran past any tight-holding
birds and never failed to trail and bring in any crippled roosters.
That's quite a performance, I thought, for dogs that someone
at  |
one time didn't want, gave away, or just
let go. And, it was an impressive display of ability for dogs
that, when they were growing up, had little training as hunters
and almost no experience in the field.
Mitchell acquired these unwanted wirehairs over a period of several
years starting out with just one dog that he heard was available
through a rescue program run by a German wirehaired breeding
club in California. "I called one of the rescue workers,
asked her what they had, told her what I needed, and gave her
some idea of what kind of life the dog would have on my farm."
Things worked out just right with that first dog and the
rest is history, with the remainder of the wirehairs coming to
their new home over the next several years.
What is the "dog rescue program?" Every breed club
within the American Kennel Club now has a rescue program. Each
of these programs works to rehabilitate, retrain, and "re-home"
abandoned dogs of the breed represented by the club.
Breed club members active in the rescue effort volunteer to claim
and care for dogs brought to them by individual owners or through
animal shelters. In each case, for a variety of reasons, these
dogs are in need of new homes and a new life with a new owner.
Sounds simple enough doesn't it? But don't run to the phone to
order your new dog. There's more to this program than a brief
description can reveal. First, none of this is free. Those who
drop off unwanted dogs are expected to make a reasonable donation
to cover the expenses in relocating the unwanted animal. And,
anyone wanting to adopt a res |
