The Hunting Dog

Mark grew up in northern Utah, near sprawling fields of wheat colored grass that stretched far and wide beneath Ben Lomond Peak in the days before Interstate 15 came through with asphalt, exhaust fumes, the rattle of trucks. The land was prime pheasant hunting turf. As a child, my husband roamed it with his long-legged father, and then as a teenager, with his beer drinking buddies and their dented Ford pick-up trucks. There were always dogs. Dogs named “Lucy” or “Trucker” or “Katie” — dogs that were born to run, noses to the ground, oblivious to anything else once they got a scent in their snouts.

Over the years, Mark and I have had two wonderful pound dogs — retriever and lab mixes who grew old pleasantly napping the days away — but my husband just had to have a hunting dog. Forget the fact that he’s been out hunting only a few times in the past 10 years. Forget the fact that he leaves the house for work at 7 a.m. and returns at 8 p.m., while I work from home, and therefore would be with the hunting dog all day, not hunting, but writing at my computer. Or trying to.

Despite these troubling facts, we suddenly had an appointment with a breeder of German Shorthair dogs. Pointers. Bird dogs. Hyper. My husband assured me that this Shorthair man purposely bred his dogs not only to point with aplomb any feathered foe, but to be mellow family dogs. You know — easy to live with, nice to the kids.

We met the breeder at a truck stop. Of course, we fell in love with the 8-week-old, soft, cuddly, sleepy, little brown one with the white star on her chest and three little flecks of white on her head that looked like drops of paint. Damn.

Now this dog thinks she runs the place. And run she does. Our hunting dog runs from one end of the house to the other, using couches, ottomans and even kitchen countertops as mere stepping stones to launch herself further and farther toward whatever her goal is at the moment — jumping on visitors at our door, attacking lacrosse sticks, tennis racquets or boots in the foyer, or getting her nose into all of the little delicacies one finds in the bathroom waste basket — used Kleenexes being her favorite.

Her name is Sophie Lucille. My sons chose it, and I approved. Already living with three males, I wanted my girl dog to have a girlie name. Now she has a thousand nicknames, too. “Sophie-girl.” “Sophers.” “Sophadelic.” Or “Princess Sophie of the Many Collars,” because she now has four.

Her primary collar is pink, which I think stands out brilliantly against her rich liver-colored hair. Second, she has a Dog Watch collar for the yard so she won’t run into the road or chase the neighbor’s cats. The third collar is my husband’s choice — a training collar for hunting. Yes, some might call it a shock collar. We choose to call it her “BMC,” or “Behavior Modification Collar.” This one’s for taking her out into the field to teach her not to wander too far, to “come around,” “whoa,” and not to chase birds, just to point them. When a verbal command falls on deaf puppy ears, a little jolt around the neck tends to get Sophie’s attention.

Meanwhile, at home, Sophie started stealing food off the kitchen counters. Scratching the wooden French doors that I’d spent hours staining by hand. Giving our leather couch what my friends call “the distressed look” by scratching all the color out of it while trying to make herself a cozy sleeping spot. While I cried (and I did), my kind girlfriends told me that people pay big money for that look, and maybe I should hire Sophie out. She’s eaten two library books, a corner of the living room carpet, a dozen houseplants and countless toys belonging to my sons, including one beloved teddy bear, which we got in England, for which I’m still trying to find a replacement.

I started putting the BMC on Sophie in the house. I became a maniac — wearing the remote control zapper around my neck like a piece of punk jewelry, lurking around corners trying to catch her at the exact moment of her bad acts so that I could “correct” her behavior with a push of the button. One morning, my husband found me sitting in bed like the deranged, wild-eyed woman I had become, holding my coffee cup in one hand and pointing the remote zapper with the other, just daring Sophie to jump up on the bedroom window one more time. My husband took the zapper away from me and quietly left for work.

I don’t like the person I become around Sophie sometimes. I want to be more like the healthy-skinned models in the LL Bean catalogs, looking trim and self-assured in their barn jackets and leather boots, striding through golden fields with plaid thermoses and woolen blankets under their arms, their clean, smiling dogs at their sides. Or like Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa” — wearing a crisp white shirt, a shotgun slung across my shoulder as casually as a purse, khaki pants notched tightly around a slender waist. These elegant, savvy women look like they know their way around the great outdoors. I imagine their dogs come running to them with a whistle and sit beside them, statuesque in their stillness, just waiting for the next command.

Instead, I have purchased a fourth collar system — a civilized little device, with disk sensors that I can leave permanently around the house — under the leather couch or my desk. The devices send out little beeps and then electrical impulses if Sophie gets too close to them. Last summer while we were on vacation, my friend Virginia house sat and took care of Sophie. I assured her that leaving the sensor disks around the house would prevent Sophie from messing with Virginia’s personal possessions. After Sophie had demolished Virginia’s prescription reading glasses, one of her shoes, a computer cord and a cell phone, Virginia sent us a picture via email. It was a photograph of one of the disks, with the battery pack ripped out, wires askew like Medusa’s hair and little teeth marks all around the perimeter of the plastic.

I’ve learned that exercising Sophie is the key to maintaining my sanity. If she gets to run for an hour a day, I can live with her. If not, life is just miserable for both of us. This realization has caused me to haul myself out of bed, or away from my desk or even off the ski slopes in order to feed Sophie’s demon addiction for running. One day last winter I didn’t return from skiing until 4 p.m. Sophie had been home alone all day. Even though all I wanted was a hot tub and a hot toddy, I knew that if I didn’t get her highness out for a walk, life trapped in the house that evening with Princess Sophie would be a living hell. So out I went, into a raging blizzard, with wind howling, wet snow swirling and blowing into my eyes and mouth, the damp, stinging chill needling my fingers and toes. In full winter ski gear — parka, hat, gloves, ski pants, even ski goggles — I trudged through the sagebrush hills near our home, stumbling through the snow drifts, while Sophie bounced over them like a pogo stick.

Through the swirling chaos, I made out the faint outline of another figure — a human in a snowsuit accompanied by a little brown dog. “Julie! I yelled through the sideways-blowing snow, “Is that you?” It was my neighbor, also exercising her husband’s German Shorthair. Like two Eskimos, we greeted each other with a tired embrace and a grunt, and fell into step side by side, the dogs rolling over each other in the snow. Shortly thereafter, we made out a third form ahead clad in red. It was yet another neighbor, out with her husband’s bloodhound … the dog who serves as the neigh-borhood alarm clock with his early morning bellowing.

“Excuse me,” I said, as a tangle of frenzied dogs took me out at the knees. “But do you realize that we’re all out here in a blizzard WALKING OUR HUSBAND’S HUNTING DOGS?” After the dogs had exhausted each other by chasing rabbits and pinning one another under clumps of sagebrush, we parted ways, grumpily trudging home and wondering if the BMCs might work on the husbands. Now there’s a thought.

Julie and I did take note of the advantages of the group doggie dynamic, however, and joined forces to tire each other’s puppy out. One day we took the dogs out to the Rail Trail to let them run together while we cross-country skied. I had Sophie on the leash while I put my skis on. As soon as I stood up, and before I could get the leash off my wrist, she sprinted. The skis slipped, pulling me head over heels and bindings over bottom. Amid multiple curses, I slowly pushed myself up on my hands, hauled my nose off the hard-packed snow, and lifted my aching head to see where Julie was. It quickly became obvious that Julie has better balance than I do. When her dog took off, Julie held onto her leash for dear life, bent her knees in a crouch, and was already a half-mile down the trail, being pulled by her own little brown locomotive. She must have been going 20 mph. I didn’t see her again for an hour. Her dog slept like an angel that night. Unknowingly, Sophie had actually helped invent a highly useful new sport, which Julie and I now practice regularly: “Ski Joring with Shorthairs.”

Sophie is a smart one, I must say. She and I have a bit of a “which girl is the real alpha bitch” thing going on. When she doesn’t get her way, her jowls drop into a defiant pout. We have stare-offs that would send chills down your spine. And did you ever really know where the term being “bitched out” comes from? I do. Just listen to a girlie German Shorthair who wants what you have on your dinner plate. She’ll yip, growl and screech in a high-toned voice, verbally giving you “what for” with a pissed-off look on her face that can only be translated as, “Take THAT, girlfriend.”

Maybe I’m just jealous. There was a day when construction workers in pickup trucks would slow down when I was walking down the road and comment on my haunches. Now they stop to whistle at Sophie. “Wow. Good lookin’ dog.” “How’s she pointing?” “Where’d you get your dog?”
I envy the purity of Sophie’s instincts. She knows just what she’s supposed to be doing in life. Her purpose is literally in her blood, no questions asked. And Sophie is a beautiful girl, with yellow-green eyes and a gleaming coat the color of dark chocolate. She’s all muscle and lanky legs with the softest oversized ears. When she’s out in the field, she looks like she’s supposed to be there. Her shiny dark coat looks so pretty against a stand of golden aspens or the auburn tint that field grass gets in fall.

I realized I loved her the first time she got sick. The first few hours of her lying sleepy-eyed on the couch were a dream. I couldn’t believe my good luck. But then I realized her eyes were goopy, she felt warm to the touch, and she wasn’t eating or drinking. I rushed her to the vet who said she’d probably just eaten something bad. (Gee, do you think?) But for two days I was beside myself, cuddling her in a blanket, bringing her ice cubes to munch on to keep her hydrated. I sighed with relief the day that she trotted through the house with purpose, tail wagging, a gleam in her eye. My son exclaimed, “Oooo! Sophie has a BIG ball in her mouth.” It wasn’t a ball. It was a cantaloupe. From the kitchen counter.

Here’s what Sophie has taught me: In the same way that she’ll run like a maniac around a meadow and then stop on a dime, silent and focused, to point a bird (or a cow, or a bicycle, sometimes), I have learned to slow down and see some of the little moments that present themselves. I’ll look out the kitchen window in the late afternoon, and she’ll be pointing a bird in our courtyard birdbath. She stands eerily still, like a statue, tail stuck straight out back, front paw in a ballerina-like pose. On the Rail Trail, she chases dragonflies in the ponds that form after a rain, bounding in and out of the water after their iridescent blue and green shapes, her floppy ears lifting up and down like the wings of a bird taking flight. And when she runs full-tilt through the fields, she is graceful and strong, a sight to behold. Birds fly up out of the grass and scatter into the air like ocean waves spraying off a rock or fireworks exploding into a night sky.

In the mornings, after Sophie’s been out to pee, I crawl back into bed, pull up the covers and lie on my stomach to protect my face and vital organs. Sophie jumps up onto the bed with full force, stepping on my head in the process and leaving muddy footprints across the bedspread. She circles, and her little short brown hairs scatter about the white duvet cover like needles dropping off a Christmas tree. She curls into a ball by my side and stretches her long neck and snout out to rest on the small of my back. She’s warm. I don’t make her move, and we both fall back to sleep.

Kristen Gould Case is editor of Park City Magazine. A friend gave her a baseball cap that says “Dogs Rule.” Sophie ‘customized’ it by chewing the bill and leaving teeth marks all over it. People think the hat came that way and keep asking where they can get one just like it.