Stephen Wallace

“That is the way I wish my dog to think of me: as a companion and pal, rather than as a terrible and uncertain-tempered god. When I whistle him in he must come promptly, not with his tail between his legs, and belly to earth, but joyously and eagerly, with his body doing an Oriental shimmy in sympathy with his vibrating tail.

It required three months of daily endeavor to accomplish this, for he was a shy pup, but I made it a rule to play with him every day, boisterous and breath-taking romps which lasted for a half hour or more. But invariably, before the completion of these periods, we paused for a few minutes of schooling: never anything drastic, but such simple things as holding a ball in his mouth, or any other thing which suggested itself at the moment. The idea was not to teach him an assortment of tricks, but rather to let him learn that good times and obedience went hang in hand.”
― Burton L Spiller, DRUMMER IN THE WOODS. Twenty-One Wonderful Stories About Grouse Shooting

“There may be worse vices than dog breeding, but I have never experimented with them. Moderate indulgence may not in itself be harmful, but sooner or later the time will come when moderation fails to provide a kick. One yearns for more dogs—and more and more and more, and unless he does something drastic about it his yearnings are going to be gratified. The ordinarily sane individual has no conception of the extent that dogs will multiply under favorable conditions, when nature is permitted to run its course. Rabbits are ultra-conservative by comparison.”
― Burton L Spiller, DRUMMER IN THE WOODS. Twenty-One Wonderful Stories About Grouse Shooting

“While I have great respect for the pointing breeds, I remain a hopeless afficionado of the Labrador retriever. I love Labs; don’t ask me to explain. We just seem to understand each other and to approach the world with a fundamentally similar set of priorities, an admission with which certain co-workers and an ex-wife would no doubt agree. Because I make it a point to live in places where I can hunt a lot, my kennel has to be productive. It also has to be versatile, since any given day here on the prairie might provide the opportunity to hunt everything from Huns to geese. Sure, I could have Labs and more traditional upland bird dogs, but every place in the kennel occupied by something other than a Lab would be. well, one less Lab in my life.”
― E. Donnall Thomas Jr., Fool Hen Blues: Retrievers & Shotguns and the American West

“Reaching the barnyard, we decided that an assault en masse was the proper maneuver. The dogs were to be the shock troops, and we were to follow up the advantage that they had obtained over the common enemy. We had sundry cudgels and ropes with which to belabor the victim.

The seven dogs went through the gate in a body; and the wild boar accommodated them by not permitting them to hesitate for a moment as to which hog they were after. Incontinently he rushed them. With great valor we watched the fray from the farther side of the fence, waiting until our chance seemed secure enough to enable us to cross the obstruction that protected us. Suddenly, hurled high over the fence, the bulldog rejoined us; all the zest seemed gone out of him. Then the two hounds fled across the yard and skulked into the stable; their attitude indicated that they carried no tornado insurance. The collie stood off and barked with hollow ferocity. The two plain dogs went manfully to work, as if the matter of laying in a supply of Christmas bacon interested them personally. But one dog was trampled by the boar. The other seized the monster’s ear and hung on grimly. Yet the beast would rip him open, I knew.

Just then, Sarsaparilla, who had calmly and aloofly watched the proceedings, stepped niftily in. He approached rather fastidiously, not from dismay but from a certain curious regard for finesse. Stationed behind the hog, he looked thoughtfully at the shaggy brute; then he quietly bowed his lunatic, dolesome head, mouthed the boar’s upper haunch until he had a deliberate hold, sunk his teeth, set his legs, and began grimly to shake his head.

The boar, I think, got one glimpse of what had him; he probably imagined it a saber-toothed tiger. Savagely shaking off the dog from his head, he squealed shrilly and turned to run.

Sarsaparilla said quite firmly, “Not so fast.” The bewildered boar could not get loose. The other dogs came back. We jumped the fence, and soon we had the old marauder from the swamps securely roped. Sarsaparilla then stalked sedately off; he had condescended to help us; but he was not going to join in any of our puerile excitement.

“What kind of dog is that?” I asked his owner.

“God in he’ben knows,” replied he, meaning no irreverence; “but he got all de sense. Sometime I gwine change his name to Solomon.”
― Archibald Rutledge, Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways