Some friends were over the other day and I was showing them our various new dried animal skins. —Two minks and one pheasant—from recent roadkill finds. I like having representative pretty things around.
We found 2 lovely minks on local roads in the past month, in perfect shape, nice big ones, so I skinned em out and dried/preserved them with Borax. Borax seems to do a good job. I did a big turkey hide last spring with it and it’s still fine.
Anyway, everyone was passing the skins around and oohing and ahhing. The kids liked them, too.
I set the pheasant down and after awhile someone noticed our Daisy dog standing there, looking pleased, and mentioned it to me.
What I saw made my heart grow weak.
Ah, what might have been…
A gundog with a bird.
What a glorious sight.
…If only she hadn’t been an abused rescue dog, gunshy and stickshy from the word go.
(I thought I was getting a great bargain. A valuable German Wirehaired Pointer for free! Beware, beware…you get what you pay for. I worked for years with her. Got plenty of great advice, from dog shrinks, trainers and such. We got the training down pat. She quickly and happily learned 34 commands…but never could abide a sound, noise, click or sight of a gun or stick or bow-and-arrow or inner tube or hiss. I trained her to eat around noise but the lessons melted away outdoors. A sound and steady $500 puppy is SUCH a bargain…)
…We could have had so many lovely dinners. Eagerly charging over field and stream. Bringing home the bacon. And she would’ve had so many more giblets of her own…
…What might have been.
