The End of One Hunting Career and The Beginning of a New Partnership
By Joe Spoo DVM

Was it really going to end like this? That thought kept going over and over in my mind as the fourth-year University of Missouri veterinary student led my Chessie down the slippery hospital corridor for her MRI. My nervous dog struggled to keep her unsteady back legs under her—legs that previously had powered her through icy water and cattail sloughs, legs that had launched her into the air on many a dramatic retrieve…legs that were now reduced to unsteady limbs prone to failure without notice.

In a twist of irony, eight years ago, almost to the month, my wife and I had driven to Missouri to pick Emma up from a breeder in Springfield. I could not get over the fact that on this trip I had driven her back to Missouri to likely determine whether her hunting career was over too soon, a career that entailed hunting much of the Midwest and included a very impressive life list of waterfowl and upland birds, including ducks and geese of the Mississippi and Central Flyways and more intriguing birds, such as rail, snipe, pheasant, Hungarian partridge, ruffed grouse, woodcock, prairie chickens, sharptail grouse and the diminutive bobwhite quail. She was a dog that lived for one thing, and now she was a shell of that athletic dog, struggling to remain upright while going to the bathroom. What must she think when I took the other dogs training? Could she feel slighted that not only did she no longer get to retrieve her favorite dummies, but also had to be helped down the 10 stairs it took to just get outside? Was she mad at me that she was now essentially under house arrest, scolded when she jumped up or wanted to play due to my fear she would suddenly go down with an episode of paralysis?
It’s funny what your mind must pick up on that your heart won’t let you see. On a prairie bird hunt eight months before our trip to Missouri, I had dropped a rooster along a dried up slough. Unknown to me at the time of my shot, it was a slough with a six-foot drop-off that Emma sailed off to make the retrieve. She crashed to the ground and rolled prior to picking up her third pheasant in a 45-minute flurry of action. Back at the truck I examined her and pulled a small branch that was imbedded in her forearm and found a small cut on her back leg that I’d need to address back at the motel. All this would have been quite normal in the years leading up to this hunt, but for some reason this time I was sick. Something about this season, this hunt, kept causing a swell of uneasiness that I’d been fighting. Emma was not right, but I could not put my finger, or a diagnosis, on it.

That night from the parking lot of the motel I called a prominent setter breeder to discuss his upcoming litters. I saw that day that Emma’s fires burned as bright as ever, but in the next few years I would have to slow her down. I planned to continue hunting Emma along with my five-year old setter Maggie for the next couple of seasons. With my love of chasing prairie birds, I thought it only natural to add another setter to the mix, as I couldn’t see the need for two retrievers. This plan would allow me plenty of time to bring the pup along without a rush, or at least that was the logic I used to quell the building fear that this long-term partnership was coming to an end.

Now as I sat in the Missouri Vet School waiting room I couldn’t help but wonder, was I lying to myself last fall? Was she worse than I wanted to let on, and had I pushed her too hard? This dog had been my constant companion for the last eight years and had been the only living creature with a desire to be out chasing birds that paled my own in comparison. In a sad commentary of the husband I must be, during the first five years of our marriage I spent more nights away from my wife than I did this dog; hunting together consumed all of my free time. Now, once again, we were away together, but this time we were at our second university in a two-month span for an MRI we hoped would give us the answers that had been so elusive.

The options we were looking at were not promising. Recently there was evidence of a condition called degenerative myelopathy cropping up in Chesapeakes. Dogs noted to be affected shared her common ancestors, with the disease striking them at the age she now was, which caused further worrying. Degenerative myelopathy is an insidious disease that attacks nerve tissues, much like MS in humans, and ends with many afflicted dogs put down with very willing minds and very weak bodies. The one fixable problem on the list of possibilities was a disk protruding on her spinal cord, similar to what is described as a ruptured disk in people. Of course, with her age, cancer also was a possibility.

As I waited, I kept reliving the last season over in my mind. What would I have done differently had I known those hunts would be her last? As a veterinarian you’d think I’d know better than to expect these dogs to live forever, but I don’t. Each dog I’ve ever owned I’ve loved and cared for too deeply and become too attached.

Dr. Coates aroused me from this self-torture and invited me to watch the MRI. I perform many surgeries every week and still never get used to my own dogs under anesthesia, but I had to go, I needed to know. As I watched her through the glass windows laying on her back with tubes and monitors protruding, I had to fight back the tears and try to concentrate on those interpreting the results of the massive MR machine.

As the images of Emma’s spine cycled on the screen, most of her disks looked well within normal ranges. Good news, but still no answer. As they got to the end of her spinal cord, they found what they suspected to possibly be her problem, a very small protrusion in the area of her sciatic nerve. However, while they conversed I got the impression neither the neurologist nor the radiologist was overly confident this explained all of her symptoms. This meant more waiting and watching to help determine the diagnosis, but there was a ray of hope that maybe it was a fixable problem. We would have to wait for months to ensure it was not degenerative myelopathy, as the course of her symptoms would rule this disease in or out depending on how long it took her to become paralyzed. These would be agonizing months, as the course of her symptoms were a roller coaster ride with some days of effortless movements and some days when it was a struggle for her to stand.

Meanwhile, the one bright spot in all of this was that the pup I called about in December was turning out to be a phenom. During just her second exposure to birds the pup worked the field with class and then slammed into a point at over 30-yards from the pigeon. My training partner, who has had multiple dogs invited to NAVHDA’s versatile championship, turned and commented, “You might have your dog of a lifetime with this one.” She was pointing birds and retrieving like she had been doing it for years. She came with a contagiously happy personality, and I couldn’t help but wonder, was this my compensation for having Emma taken from me early?

A month later I again loaded a dog into the truck for a long trip. As fate continued to plague me, Maggie had just come into heat. We would be meeting up with one of the country’s premier grouse dog trainers, who was in North Dakota at his summer training grounds, and the last thing I wanted was for one of my dogs to be a distraction at camp. It was technically a business meeting related to my consulting work; however, to me it was much more, as the only dog that could make the trip was my eight-month-old puppy. It was a chance to see if Belle, the name the new pup had acquired, would continue her amazing progress. So, we pointed the truck north for her first hunting adventure.

With the miles ticking away I couldn’t help but over-analyze this current situation. Emma’s first hunting trip was also one to North Dakota, albeit for ducks in southern North Dakota and not sharptails near the Canadian border. So here I sat with an eight-month old puppy co-piloting as we headed north on a hunting trip, while the dog that taught me most about hunting over a dog held down the couch at home.

Maybe it is the spiritually-based scientist that I consider myself to be that causes me to always look for deeper meaning in situations—meaning to explain the great mysteries of this world, meaning that doesn’t exist, but meaning we look for to make us feel that we matter and that there truly is a higher purpose. For months I would struggle to find meaning as to why my constant companion of eight years, with the flames of desire still burning within her, was trapped in a failing body, and why this eight-month-old puppy was shining so brightly and hunting long before I ever imagined having her in the field.

The trip was nothing short of phenomenal. I called home to make sure I had not died and found heaven. I was in country of gently rolling short-grass prairie and endless pockets of wetlands. The wildlife and birds were present in near-plague numbers. This was country Emma lived to hunt, with the opportunity to be sitting in a duck blind at sun-up and to chase upland birds all day.

When we arrived at camp the daytime temperatures were reaching well into the 80s, and so that first afternoon was spent watching some of my host’s field trial prospects run during the last hour of daylight. Belle and I would be forced to wait one more day for our first hunt. I barely slept that night waiting to unleash Belle on this new life adventure. At first light we were up for coffee and a light breakfast before heading out. The hot afternoon temps had yielded to cool, crisp mornings, which were perfect for this young dog. The first few fields I followed without a gun watching this graceful little beauty work the cover like a seasoned pro. When she stopped and pointed a distant flushing group, I knew I had a keeper, and it was time to break out the 16 gauge and get down to the business of creating a bird dog.

I’d love to tell you how magic occurred that day with a calendar-worthy point and me connecting with a wise-old sharptail, but I can’t. The confident little puppy worked the cover boldly and intelligently, she was having fun and clearly working for us and not just herself. Often it is tough when a dog is this young to tell if they have all the pieces of the puzzle, but with this dog I knew, I could feel she had it all. She pointed multiple groups on this trip but unfortunately my shooting was horrific. The first pointed, shot and retrieved bird of her career would have to wait for a week later on a beautiful prairie chicken back home in South Dakota. No, this trip the game vest was very empty; however, it was still bursting at the seams with pride and love for this amazing little puppy.

On the road home my mind took over again, searching for answers to the events of the previous 12 months. Was it all a matter of balance in the universe? Did one dog’s amazing abilities have to end for another’s to begin? Was Belle the yin to Emma’s yang? The light to compliment the darkness of her last days? I kept going back to that phone call at the end of last season—deep down did I know? Had I been fooling myself thinking Emma would be hunting with me again?

We were greeted at home by a disgruntled setter and Chessie who had been left behind. Although I would have gladly cleaned birds that evening, it was one time I was thankful for a lack of birds in order to stave off Emma’s further dismay. She stood guard while I oiled the gun and the two setters, reunited, wrestled like puppies in the backyard. To look into the yellow eyes of a Chessie is to look into the probing eyes of an intelligent, loyal dog, and it was a look I would never get used to, and especially over the rest of the hunting season as those yellow eyes kept asking why. Why did I leave her? Why did she hurt? Why couldn’t she hunt? They were the whys I wanted an answer for as well, but ones we would not get. After all of the years of medical training and the nights of praying for this dog, this was one of those times without an answer.

Seven months after our trip to Missouri, in early spring, we had a second MRI performed on Emma to evaluate once and for all if it was a disk issue or whether it was indeed degenerative myelopathy. The MRI turned up no abnormalities with her spinal cord which was devastating news to me, as it confirmed my fears of degenerative myelopathy. I was deeply saddened that my pride and joy was going to have to spend her last days struggling to fight her own body into motion.

I was also haunted by the fact I had not allowed her to hunt the entire last year; at the time I thought it was in her best interest, but it was time we’d never have back. All was not lost thanks to the spring snow goose season underway at the time of her second MRI. I wasn’t able to get her another retrieve but she had the time of her life once again being out in the field waiting and watching the birds she loved to chase.

We are currently shopping for doggie wheelchairs, and though it will be a struggle, I hope to some day bring you the story of a Chessie successfully hunting from one. As long as she never gives up neither will I. That being said, when the difficult time comes when she says “no more” I will honor that dreaded decision and allow her to pass with the dignity she deserves.