I recently was given reason to remember a "little girl" that changed my
entire life, her name was Jenny.

She led me into the worlds of competitive dog training and bird hunting,
worlds that absorbed the vast majority of my time and efforts most of my
adult life.

As with all memories at my age, memories of her bring both a smile and moist
eyes.


I present two

First:

I had a girlfriend whose grandparents had 80 acres in Orland, Ca. They
were in their 70s and very set in their ways, but they enjoyed our visits
because we were a good labor source to help with farm chores that had gotten
tough in old age. I looked forward to visits in the Fall because the
area was in the middle of the state's best hunting region.

Jenny had become a very accomplished pheasant dog, one you learned to
always believe over your own impulses, you let her tell you where to hunt
and realized you were just their to shoot her birds for her G And
99.9% of the time she was an extremely well mannered dog, too, always eager
to do the right thing.

But, grandma had pet Peacocks and I guess Jenny had gotten a little too free
when it came to chasing long tailed birds on our pheasant hunts. One day
as she and I walked back to the house from chores in the barn I heard a
frightful shrieking and squawking. I whipped around to see Jenny about 3
feet off the ground in mid air chasing a peacock male that was taking
flight. I barked a 'NO" and Jenny turned towards me as she landed. But
I'd been a bit slow and she had her mouth absolutely crammed full of peacock
tail feathers, you couldn't have gotten another one in there if your life
depended on it.

Grandma had heard the noise and came out the back door to become instantly
outraged at the damage that had been done to her beloved, beautiful ( well
not quite as much now ;-) pet bird. That bird had indignantly, probably
painfully, flown to the top of a telephone pole, btw, and he stayed there
two full days!

I don't think Grandma ever really forgave Jenny, or me, before she died.
I know that I didn't help matters back then as I fought back laughter at the
sight of that little dog and that huge collection of feathers. Well,
Grandma, I'm smiling again now at the memory and you're probably turning in
your grave ... but really, it is a very funny sight.


( I wasn't a fly tier back then .. our I'd have had a lifetime supply of
peacock ;-)

Second memory:

I wrote this up many years ago for a dog newsgroup

http://tinyurl.com/2flbqk