Loss of a team member

My fall is filled with upland hunting for grouse and woodcock using my dogs to find and retrieve the birds. The dogs are a key part of the experience and my team not to mention my everyday life. Sadly dogs do not live as long as we do and one of mine died this weekend. Mae the flying pointer succumbed to age and the heat Friday evening.

Hard to imagine but she has lived in my kennel since I started guiding bird hunters at Libby Camps after leaving the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in 2002. A lot of birds were pointed in those years and Mae was always eager to get out there and find them.

One of my favorite Mae stories was a cold rainy day with a father and son pair who wanted to hunt no matter the weather. Mae hung in there hunting with all she had until she could not go another step. I carried her back to the truck, dried her off and gave her my sandwich. In an hour or so she was whining to go again!

A remarkable dog sadly missing from my kennel today.