By
Ken
M. Blomberg
"Burying Dogs"
We buried a couple of dogs this past winter. They passed away in their sleep during January, about two weeks apart.
One, a male black lab, showed up at our kennel many years ago. His name was Sam and he reminded me of my first dog, Raven, a female black lab that our family bought in the late 1950’s. She wasn’t much of a hunter, but back then, neither was I. Sam was what I call, a throwaway. A young, friend of a friend, whose name I’ve long forgotten, couldn’t keep him at his small apartment in town. We found him a spot in our lives. That was over twelve years ago.
The other, Bingo, a female German Shorthaired Pointer was ten. I’ll never forget her ability to open just about any latch left unsecured. Once free of her kennel and the fenced-in area surrounding the exercise area, she’d head for the bird pens, where she’d check out the captive quail, pheasants and pigeons. She’d always come when called and would seem quite satisfied after a good dose of the scent permeating from the bird pens. I’ll always recall her first South Dakota pheasant point and retrieve, as well as her encounter with a jackrabbit face to face for the very first time.
The loss of a dog is never easy. It’s definitely the only thing I dislike about dog ownership. They simply don’t last long enough. About the time our dogs reach their prime, they start showing signs of aging and before you know it, go downhill quickly.
While Sam and Bingo would certainly be considered old by some accounts, they didn’t last as long as many of our canine companions in the past. Back in the 70’s, I owned a male shorthaired pointer that lasted two months shy of 16 years. I also had a couple of shorthairs that lived for fourteen years. But, by and large, twelve, give, or take a year, seems to be the average survival length for large hunting dog breeds.
Checking our records, I found that on average, our males lived longer than our females. There are exceptions to that rule, but it probably has something to do with the fact that brood bitches physically pay the price producing offspring.
The old adage that each dog year equals seven human years works for some, but I follow a different general rule of thumb. When a dog reaches 6 months old, it’s equivalent to a child of 10 years. At a year and a half, a dog behaves somewhat like a 16 year-old teenager. A four year-old would resemble a 25 year-old young adult and by the time it reaches six, or seven, considered prime years for most hunting dogs, it’s 40 to 50 years old in human terms. My nearly sixteen-year-old German shorthair “Buck”, if human, would have reached 105 years old.
No matter how you compare dog years to human years, we all can agree, that the speed at which our gun dogs age is phenomenal. Closely watch as a litter of pups as they gain more than 15 pounds in seven weeks. Blink your eyes and wake up one morning to a six year-old hunting partner always aims to please. And finally, at the autumn of their life, bask in the glow of fond memories.
We buried a couple of dogs this past winter. It’s never easy, but the next generation lives on and the joy they’ll give us in the future should strengthen the memories we have of their ancestors in the past.