Wrote this tribute soon after I lost my first retriever. One year later, I still get misty eyed when I think about the old pup....
It wasn't like I picked her, it was more like we found each other... with a little help. I had the pick of the litter for watching some lab pups for a friend and I chose Paige. My wife chose Maggie, the smallest pup in the lot and as soon as Lisa noticed her, I was intrigued by her. She got tackled a lot by her siblings, but she never quit fighting until she had successfully righted herself and chased off her bigger siblings. I liked her attitude immediately, little did I know how much that would play into her personality and reputation over the years.
We were both rookies but I had a big plan to make her a great retriever and trial dog, one that would impress my friends and show up the competition. At 8 months she showed her first signs that we were locked for her life...strangely missing from her sisters side, I went looking and found her under the ice in my fish pond. I attributed that to her general hatred of water in the following training season, and I quickly started to doubt myself and my dog's ability. It was troubling to have a retriever that appeared apprehensive of water. With the help of friends, online and in person, I tried the best I knew, and we taught each other along the way. My requests for help led to friendships that I owe her thanks for everyday. After Paige's leg injury cut her hunting short, Mags and I grew an ever tighter bond day by day.
Her first retrieve, she was asleep on the bank on a hot afternoon teal hunt, when a single came in and was dropped at the edge of the water, she woke up, slowly sauntered out and plucked the bird out of the water without getting wet, calmly dropping it at my feet. At the time I was thinking her lack of excitability was a curse, but it made her a pleasure to have in the blind and in the boat.
The more I worked with her the more I began to consider her a professional hunter. She had no interest in a bumper, and rarely followed through on training. I cannot count the times I threw a bumper in and sent her and she stopped at the water's edge, raised her head up to get a good look , identified the thrown object as a bumper, and then turned to look at me as if to say..."seriously its a piece of plastic." In fact I had to force fetch her to get her to hold anything besides a real bird...but low and behold on her first action packed hunt, with the guidance of her fellow k-9 echo, she put on a retrieving show.
I'd like to claim that was the last time I doubted her, but I would be wrong, made most clear the day she retrieved her first goose. Sitting in a blind with Carl and Echo and we knocked three honkers down, one "submarined" to the thick cattails as a cripple and Carl and Echo deferred to Mags for her first cripple chase. Once at the spot where I was sure the goose was...she insisted on going out in the field instead of into the cattails. I scolded her several times but she kept trying to go the "wrong" way. Carl shouted words of encouragement from across the barrow pit and related that it was common for them to get out in the field...almost simultaneously, Mags had enough and left me all together with her nose on the ground. To my amazement I spotted the goose 200 yards away running for its life, she tracked it by scent for another 150 yards before she too saw the goose and it was on! A few minutes later after a few feathers flew and she was standing proudly on the chest of her first cripple goose! I checked it on google earth years back and noted it in the 300+ yard range...but today I will claim it was closer to 1000 yards...just ask Carl, he saw the entire thing.
From that day forward, even the mere sound of a canada goose turned Mags inside out. We had a lot in common in that way, we both loved to shoot ducks, but there was just something about those big birds that gets in your soul.
Together we taught ourselves to hunt public ground flooded timber and she became an expert at that as well, sitting sometimes several yards behind me and learning to mark splashes , she even got to the point where she would leave me and be waiting on her log pile when I arrived on the long walks in. That was the site of an unfortunate accident in which I ended up with a concussion and disoriented. She refused to leave my side as I bordered hypothermia and wandered aimlessly through the flooded timber. Despite several chances to get herself on dry ground, she never left until I was on dry ground and I can honestly say she flat out saved my life, no question.
She was there and picked up first birds for my brother and nephew and she became famous after attempting to tackle a big buck in the timber....leading to a battle that sounded bad, and occurred in total darkness...and water. I had guests there that day and I scolded her hard for scaring the crap out of me. I thought I had lost my dog and when she finally did come back...shaken and with a antler mark just under her eye I sent her to the truck...my intention was for her to stay the day, but I wasn't a duck hunter without Mags...I hunted for her...and we were a team...good or bad, so naturally her "timeout" was a few minutes and we were off to show our friends our special leaning tree hole.
During a flood she disappeared at the house one afternoon, an hour later I found her swept into a brush pile stuck by the current...refusing to let go of the prized possum she had captured. On a dark morning on the swollen Sangamon River she pulled a seal dive off the front of the boat at speed and was only saved by the quick reaction of Carl shutting the motor off as she bounced along the bottom of the boat. Yet she popped up and swam right back to the boat like it was no big deal. Mags had a tendency to have those experiences that were coined "black cloud events" by friend and mentor Ron Green. In that way I guess you could say we were bonded for life as fellow black cloud enthusiasts. Come to think of it, maybe she just acted that way to make me feel like it was her that needed me and not the other way around.
She had a nose like no other, proven time and again when she dug cripple birds out of the thickest cover known to man or dog. Further put on display for our guests on a teal hunt one September where we sailed a goose off into the fog and several hundred yards later after tracking on water and in the jungle of the river bottoms, she drug that ole bird out proud as could be. Her sibling Max, came from the same litter and went to live with friend Marc. Though they hunted together only a few times a year...after the standard sibling squabbling...they amazed me at how quickly they would work together to run a cripple mallard out of the brush and into a waiting retriever.
We spent time on the big water and my greatest memories were her swimming out in the fog 3 times to make three big bird retrieves, and the day at Mr. Green's lake, when she climbed up inside the bank to drag out a young mans live greenhead, his first duck ever! Oh yeah, and the time she ate a skillet full of bacon while I adjusted decoys.
In her later years she never ceased to amaze me with her techniques. A flock of birds in on the little pond, she would literally check the carnage...if there was flopping she was in the pond....if they were dead, she went downwind and waited, plucking each bird without so much as a wet foot. I used to chuckle, those trial guys that I dreamed of being would yell at a dog for something like that. In our world bank cheating was the fastest way to a cripple, and she knew that. She applied the same concept to trips across the water...if she could grab more than one bird on a trip she would.
She established herself in the warrior category in more ways than one, a specific hunt comes to mind where she picked up a three man limit of gadwalls and each time she came out of the water her coat would turn to an instant layer of ice in the bitter air, but each time the guns went off she was eager and ready to go back for more. She broke ice for us on more than one occasion, fought mud, cold, jagged sticks, and rocks...all with an absolute determination to get the bird. On a solo hunt in the timber, I once witnessed her leap off her perch and attempt to catch a folded mallard in midair, crashing into the water, going completely under and coming up with that bird in her mouth! Her toughness and will for life was brought to the forefront again, when she was diagnosed with Blastomycosis at age 6, and went through a terrible time with treatment and loss of appetite. But she refused to let it beat her and a year later she was picking up birds again.
Of course I must mention her attitude. I fully believe mags was a dog that thought she was a human...that didn't like dogs. Every person that hunted with her and saw her with another dog knew what I meant, as she never backed down from a fight, and typically wooed unsuspecting nice dogs into range before latching on their face. I always took a proactive approach keeping her away from other pups, but she always found a way, like the day I saw an approaching big male yellow dog and threw her in the bed of my truck closing the tailgate....the next thing I know she is launching over my shoulder off the tailgate and on top of the poor dog. She lived up to her nick name "camp bitch"...peaked by a hunt in Greene County with a man who warned me that his golden was known for hurting other dogs and was a fighter....by accident they got together and Mags sent the poor ole boy running over the levee with his tail between his legs. In fact the only dog she ever "gave in to" was the a fore mentioned brother Max. Yet after many, many warnings to an out of state traveler...she never so much as curled a lip at her new friend Jasper...I contend to this day, she did it only to make me look like a fool ...something I am sure labs have genetic mapping for.
She "hated" her best buddy Echo, but she hated it more when he didn't pay attention to her. He tried and tried to make her his girlfriend and she ripped his face off repeatedly, but the second he would give up, she was prancing by flirting. She took it to the extreme on hunts as she would go out of her way to walk by Echo's end of the blind with a bird in mouth just to taunt him. I am sure she is tormenting him again now.
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| Maggie with her boy |
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| Maggie and her last duck |
She went on two more hunts this past fall, with plenty of excitement but no birds in the cards. She spent most time lounging in the sun on her favorite spot in the pasture and forcing herself up to greet me every time I came home despite the sore shoulders and legs. She displayed dedication and devotion that most humans are incapable of.
Her illness came fast, from a slight tendency to not eat to suddenly being unable to walk over night. The trip to the vet was an experience I do not wish on anyone, and to see a five year old helping dad and the grandpas bury "his" dog in the middle of the night in February leaves no words. As we put Mags in her final resting place the tears flowed, the crisp clear moonlit night gave way to traveling snow geese overhead, and I tried to take comfort in the fact she was already on the good hunt, with her old pals.
Only those that have had a good dawg in their lives can understand. She was never a pet, never even just a friend. She was/is part of my soul, my heart, my life. A member of our family. She taught me more than most humans, and I valued her more than most humans. She played a huge part in making me who I am today. I can say without an ounce of shame, I loved a dog and her name is Maggie Mae and I miss her more than anything.
Mags, gone but forever holding a place in my heart, Rest in Peace ole girl, I pray I see you again some day.
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| Keeping a watchful eye in the timber |
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