Originally Posted by
4evrhtn
I have heard alot of that keep your hunting dog outside nonsense. Keeping a dog in the house will not ruin his/her nose anymore than being in a pen outside where smells are stronger-trash burning, skunk spray, etc.
I have a German shorthair who I will put up against any outside dog in a hunt test. He lives for one reason - to please me... and it's because of the bond we formed from him always being with me. He is a couch dog until the orange and shotgun come out then he is all hunt.
Yup... That sounds just like my dog Amber. She is happy laying on her dog bed in the living room, and being a normal family pet/house dog.
BUT... As soon as she sees me wearing my blaze orange upland/small game hunting vest, and about to load my Rem 870 (in a camo case) into my truck, she goes crazy!
What's hilarious is how my wife and daughters were so worried the very first time I took her out into the woods with me. They said she will take off on me and be gone so far, she'll be in the next zip code!
But, believe it or not, Amber just somehow knew what to do. It was like she had a built-in instinct to hunt. She stays (at max) 50 yards from me. She's ahead of me, diagonally from me, to the side of me, etc... with her nose to the ground, sniffing everything she can sniff. She trees squirrels all the time, and jumps rabbits too with the best of them. Not bad for being a mutt (Beagle/Shepherd/Cur/
something-something... (dominant breed on her papers says "Beagle mix". Vet says Beagle & Shepherd if you pair it down to just 2 breeds).
Anyway, here's another photo from last year, when we were out rabbit hunting. We were coming back out on the main trail to the parking lot, when we got stopped by two game wardens. Nothing bad... They were just there checking on people, checking the area, checking this, checking that, etc... They even checked Amber's dog license, rabies tag, and stuff too! So, I remembered I had an old digital camera in my truck, and asked one of the wardens if he wouldn't mind snapping a photo for me. Amber was a little annoyed with them though, but they won her over with a dog biscuit!
