Dog Time

A lifelong friend just turned 60 this week, which I don’t say because he’s old.   I am now there myself and I would hate to think that I am old, but rather “on the way.”  We have fished and hunted together over the years, less lately – but we started when we were 15.  We ran around in the woods a lot back then, refraining from spring and fall sports in school so we had more time for chasing game, shooting guns and exploring the natural world.  Then college happened followed by marriage and kids and careers and yes, divorce.  Less time in the woods, but I remember distinctly one moment while chasing stocked pheasants in southern New Hampshire when we were in our late 20’s.  Each of us was running what we thought were good field dogs – me with a springer spaniel and him with is ridiculously oversized chocolate labrador – neither of which was worth a damn in the real world.  I said to him “if we are lucky and we stay healthy we can enjoy 40 more bird seasons.”  Our lives diverged as we pursued our careers, his in education as I stuck with the great outdoors as a Maine Guide with wildlife and forestry degrees and a passion for conservation.  My life morphed into running a traditional fishing and hunting lodge in the woods of Maine, which can mean a lot of things, but mostly I take people fishing and hunting, breed and train bird dogs and share my passion for the Maine woods with my clients.  For 44 years I have been a Maine guide and twenty-two of them I have owned and run Weatherby’s Lodge in Grand Lake Stream.  Twenty-two years seems like a long time to be doing one thing.  Maybe its not. I think in this business, it is long, but it has gone by in a flash – a lot like raising children to adulthood. One year blending with the next.  The same challenges each year – who is going to cook?  Who is going to guide, who is going to clean cabins?  What needs to be repaired?  Will people come stay?  Well, the best news is that people keep coming – more than ever – which means we are doing something right I suppose.  Or we have everyone fooled.  But how do we measure the time if the years blend? How long have I really been doing this?  What is a year when your work is your life?  I think back to my comment almost 40 years ago about hunting seasons.  I think maybe seasons are a better measure of time than years. Maybe, but even the seasons blend.  What I have recently realized – as my two new eleven-month-old English cockers wrestle on the floor of my winter home is that it is the dogs.  I measure my life by the dogs I own and hunt with.  And it seems to me the more dogs you have owned, the more evident it becomes how long you have been doing a thing.  Good dogs and not so good dogs.  We love them all – for better or worse.  I’d like to believe I have become more discerning in my dog pedigrees, training and breeding over the years, but I, nor my dogs, are not perfect by any means.  There is a rhythm to owning dogs.  Puppies to adulthood to hopefully fond memories.  I have had to say goodbye to many dogs over the years and it never gets easier.  My current matriarch is singly the best dog I have ever owned.  I bred her mother, my first cocker, and due to post birth complications, I bottle fed the litter.  Kept one of the pups my kids named Curly Fry.  She is a machine in the woods and 10 years old now.  Then there is Gus, my wild child male who is credited with five litters of great pups.  Now it is grand pups and great grand pups. I have placed pups from Oregon to Louisiana to Nova Scotia.  I figure a generation is about 14 years on average and even they blend.  So, if not years or seasons, I think dogs are a better way for me to measure time.  How many more will there be?  Am I done now with the two new pups?  I have three working, one in progress. My plan will be to breed them if they perform, but not sure if I will ever take on a new pup.  Time will tell.  As for my long-time friend that I once hunted stocked pheasants with in New Hampshire –  he has a labradoodle.