The first day of dove season was a much anticipated event which ended up being a mixed bag of excitement, joy, guilt and fear. I like to use dove season as a tune up for ducks. It sharpens my aim and gets the dogs out and working.
The dove migration hasn't quite gotten into full swing yet, so the hunting was relatively light. Our spot was on state land, just outside of some private property with a nice stock pond. It was a perfect spot for the birds to come into in the evening. The birds were coming in gradually as singles, or pairs every fifteen minutes or so.
The dogs were rusty from the long spring and summer of not hunting, but I was generally happy with their work for the first hunt of the season. I had taken all three dogs. Ceilidh had indicated that she might be overcoming some of her fear issues. If only I could hunt birds using a bow or other silent method, she's the dog that is both my birdiest and my most biddable. It really breaks my heart not to be able to use her in the field. I was hoping that we were getting beyond her issues.
She worked well initially, even helping to motivate Ranger to bring the birds to hand. While the hunting was light, Ceilidh was fine. She gave no indication of having any problems, and I was really hopeful that we were actually getting somewhere with her. I was hoping that just being in the environment of hunting and being able to actually fetch birds might help her to get over her fear. This appeared to be the case until the birds really started coming in.As dusk started falling, the rate of birds flying by, along with the number of birds in each group, increased. My hunting partner and I got wrapped up in shooting at birds and working dogs, and lost track of the one dog we needed to keep an eye on, Ceilidh. When the dust finally settled and we were assessing the day's results, we noticed that instead of three little red retrievers, we could only locate two. Ceilidh had bolted.
We spent the next two hours stumbling around in the dark, calling and whistling, with no luck. The next day, we took shifts searching the area. My hunting buddy's wife and a friend went down in the afternoon, looking but with no success. I went back in the evening and walked fence lines and arroyos for two hours with no luck.
Wednesday morning, I got a call from the High Desert Humane Society asking if I was missing a dog. Much to my relief, the rancher who owned the land by where we were hunting had found Ceilidh, safe and sound, sometime in between our searching shifts. He had taken her home and had called in after checking her tags. Bless Him!!!
