Cedar

A time for all events in life; Ecclesiastes 3:2 says it like this…”A time to be born, and a time to die”…in verse 4 it goes on to say, “A time to weep and a time to laugh”. So it goes…nothing new under the sun. This past month of January was a tough one, shoulder surgery early on and frankly some pretty crappy weather circumstances. Now I can live with both of these but this month had just one more thing…one more event that kind of dampened things a bit more than usual; I knew it was inevitable in fact I told both boys that if you are going to own a great dog…there’s a great chance that unless you are unlucky or quite old yourself, you will outlive that great dog. Such was the case on MLK day this month of January as on one of the few sunny afternoons I made my way out, shovel in hand and started to prepare a place for a great dog.

Cedar hailed from the very southeastern corner of the Cornhusker State. I picked him up while on a hunting trip on the fall of 2000. He was special from the first day…spunky and full of life, ready and willing to please me at each and every turn. I was excited to make it home and show the new pup to my boys and they were both asleep that fall morning when I came in and tossed the pup directly on top of Harrison; for sure Harrison was only 7 at the time, but he still remembered how he felt (Cedar) as he was plopped down on his chest. There is just something special about a new puppy…maybe only a new child can actually one-up a new puppy?

I knew that he was indeed a special dog within a short amount of time because he was a person pleaser. He would sit in his kennel and follow me as I went from place to place in the yard, heaven forbid that I ever even started to walk towards the dog trailer…that became a frenzy whereby he knew we were off on another adventure to Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Northern Indiana or…like this past fall, to North Dakota. In fact, Cedar was well traveled and at the same time was an awesome traveler himself. All business as we would pull into a rest area, no nonsense, out to do his thing and back into the dog trailer for he knew that the end of the journey meant pheasants…and that was his specialty!

On one of our trips to Kansas I took the penultimate Cedar pheasant shot as dad and I were hunting a walk-in located just south of the little town of Larned. This was a large field of over 200 acres and so as it was that was too much grass to bite off in big chunks. I decided to hunt the furthest southwestern corner of this parcel; within this chunk there were a few “yes-nodders”, oil wells going about their day making money for the person who owned the oil rights. The road into this particular well left about 50 yards of fine Kansas Big Bluestem that could be controlled with a couple of dogs that were under control. Cedar always made the ‘under-control’ hunts and thus we moved slowly along the road edge, heading away from the oil well itself when I could tell that we had crossed a wily old ringneck. My dogs have their own thermometers and Cedar tended to be a hot trailing dog, thus I knew we were probably in shotgun range at that point. The afternoon sun had just started to fall below the adjacent tree line, casting a shadow upon the grass that divided darkness from sunlight in a very distinct fashion. As it would play out…Cedar locked in just a few feet from the gravel…but still very much in the bright Kansas sunlight. Dad was close by so this gave me the back-up I needed to get pretty aggressive. I took almost an entire roll of film and continued to move closer, lower until finally I could see Cedar and his focus…he was telling me that this pheasant was right beside the two of us. At the time I knew I had to have taken a great shot…so, I stowed away the camera, backed up a step or two and a thunderous roar exploded from the grass about 15 inches in front of Cedar’s nose. I can still remember the sight of this long-tailed Kansas rooster trying to escape; in vain he didn’t make it and as usual Cedar made a glorious retrieve to hand. I walked back to where the flush had happened and could see that my right knee was down and my left knee had to have been hovering over the clump of grass that was hiding our trophy pheasant. All I ever got from this great dog was a slight eye-roll in my direction (I am sure that if he could talk he would have been screaming at me to make the flush and get the job done!).

These past two seasons were both special because as a dog ages and starts to move past the ten year old spectrum…well, it all becomes a big crap shoot. This year I knew it would be his last…he was 13 and all signs were leading to his slowing down…at least physically. On our last morning out in North Dakota the stars all aligned, Cedar simply acted like he was a young dog and on that day made several nice points, two of which resulted in pheasant kills for me. The last might have been his best work in years as it was just Cedar, Macy and I and we were working our way back to the truck, edging a very rural road…when Cedar eased into a point. The cover was minimal but yet I have learned through the years to always be ready. I watched as he once again started hunting…then again a second time he paused. Once more he was moving at his elderly, slow, methodical rate…then bang, he nailed it. No question here, we had a bird. Macy slowed behind him and then slammed to her own impressive point. I knew that I had only a snap shot if we did have a bird because of the high angle of the road…but I decided having a photo was worth more than a rooster and snapped several nice pictures of Cedar leading the charge. I hadn’t yet housed my camera within my hunting coat when an irritated North Dakota rooster cackled out just feet in front of Cedar. I made what I thought was a good shot, topped the hill and there was Cedar, tail draped in his mouth, returning yet another pheasant to my hand!

Yes…Monday, January 13 was a tough day for all of us. Jonas very nobly helped me as we laid Cedar down beside a number of other great dogs. Few words were spoken in regards to Cedar; anyone who had ever hunted with him was indeed present in dog greatness. As I look around my room it is filled with photos from various stages of his life…right up to the very last pheasant he ever retrieved for me…just this past December in northern Indiana. Like the others…he has earned a part of my heart that will never fade. Sad, sure…but to have missed out on the dance that this great dog and I have had over these past 13 seasons…well, that  is something I am not willing to do without. I turn him over to the great dog heaven…wherever it may be and I move on…to other sunny Kansas days…all in search of yet another way to Enjoy the Great Outdoors.