About 27 years ago, my brother in law RAY, who is a died in the wool outdoors man bought a Springer Spaniel - Katie.
About the same time his wife started to have children - my sister if you want to get technical.
Well they decided that their careers were more important to them then their children or their dog so they brought both up to my mom's house to be raised by my mom and my sister Jackie.
Ray only came for the dog in hunting season and my sister had to use her babysitting money to pay the numerous vet bills and food bill.
This dog had no obedience training.
Because it lived in the house, it treated the house as if it was it's own dog coop. When the UPS man or the garbage man came to the house - it would practically tear the curtains off the windows.
It would attack anyone that it did not like.
It was always coming into heat, round about hunting season.
It had several false pregnancy's and had to have numerous operations by the time it was 5 years old.
We took it hunting and in a thick field it was great. It would stay a normal distance in front of you and would flush out the birds and all was well. It would sometimes retrieve and sometimes it wouldn't.
Sometimes it would take a bird and run in the other direction and eat it. It all depended on what kind of a mood she was in.
No amount of obedience training would stop her from doing what she did. She slept on my sisters bed at night and ate off the table and made messes and got into trouble and no one wanted to put up with her when she got old and sick.
In a open field - forget it. She would run for miles and would chase everything in sight. At least once a year, she would find a porcupine and would attack it and would have to go to the vet and would have to get all the quills removed. It was all a part of going hunting with Katie.
I think the thing that took the cake was one day when my brother in law came and got her and I ended up hunting in the same field as he was in and when it came time to go home - the dog jumped in the truck with me and refused to get out.
When Katie turned 10 - she had arthritis really bad and couldn't run anymore and my brother in law quit coming up to get her for hunting and my sister had her put to sleep and a week later they got another dog. A German Short hair.
My mom refused to let it come to the house after all the episodes with the last dog and my sister spoiled it long before my brother in law had a chance to train it and it is afraid of gun shots.
You can run the chain saw at the camp all day long and it will just sit there and look at you funny. As soon as you pick up a gun, it runs for home!
