Josie’s Big Day
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I’ve never had a dog who was a really good fishing partner.
When I brought Josie home, I knew that was going be be a goal. My dog and me out on the river, doing our thing without any particular plan. It sounds good on paper but anyone who fishes with dogs knows it isn’t always ideal. Ive definitely had dogs who weren’t with the program. Who, for all of their sweetness, could screw up anything. I had a beagle once, named Boo, who I’d take fishing once in a while. If she wasn’t lost, she was trying to dog-paddle a class four rapid or chew the cork off my rod. I took her out one day an a busy tailwater where there were anglers about every fifty feet. I was wading chest deep to get a cast to a rising fish. Boo, wanting to be part of the action but not wanting to be wet, walked out on a tree which leaned about ten feet over the river. She got out about thirty feet and discovered that the tree was too narrow to turn around. I kept yelling, “BOO! No!” Before long everyone on the river was yelling, “No Boo! Don’t do it!” Her exit was hysterical. She lived but she lost some points for style.
A good fishing dog is part companion and part business partner. They have to have the right love of adventure but maintain enough focus to stay with the program. My grandfather trained bird dogs and his dogs were great but they were too much business and not enough fun. I want my dog to sleep in the bed with me, lick my face and eat off of my plate. I knew that to strike the right balance I’d need a plan.
Josie is a great team player and brings some real assets to the table. She also brings some challenges. She is the smartest dog I’ve ever known but was a completely wild animal when I got her. Not a stray dog or a feral dog but just wild. She has been very easy to train, it took only two days to housebreak her, but she is fiercely independent and used to making her own decisions. I learned early on that you couldn’t ‘make’ her do anything but if you could make her understand why it was a good choice you didn’t have to tell her twice.
I don’t consider myself an experienced dog trainer. I’ve trained a handful of dogs. I can work out the basics but I don’t get fancy. Josie presented me with one challenge I’ve never faced. She was uncatchable. It had earned her the name Permit on the island and I knew if she got away from me, I’d have a better shot catching a permit than putting my hands back on the little potcake. My ultimate goal was to have a dog I could turn loose in the woods while I fished, who wouldn’t need a lot of looking after. We were a long way from that when we started.
I began by creating a bond. I hand fed her for the first month. Every bite she had to take from my hand. When I found her, it was hard to get her to eat food I threw to her so that was a big step in itself. Although she has her own bowl now she still gets a bite of everything I eat. It’s part of our bargain. I make her food and she watches me wash and chop her vegetables and cook her turkey. She’s never been
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November 27, 2017 at 05:02AM