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Although I freely admit a bias towards English Setters and Britts, there are other dogs that have made my life better. Some of them weren't actually mine but the impact was the same. Here, then, is a semi-chronological list with a brief history of what... or at least how... I remember them.

Ring 1942 to 1950

Ring, Me and Sis in 1942

Ring was a collie of some sort. I never knew exactly what, or even that different kinds of collies existed. He was my constant companion from as early as I can remember until my dad died and we moved to town.

Ring was a farm dog and he didn't take to city life very well. Mom gave him to another farmer. That was the first dog I cried over. Mom always said that Ring took better care of me than she did and illustrated the statement with the story of how Ring found me when I wandered off during a snow storm at about age 3. Ring led them to a distant stock shed where I was playing and totally oblivious to the fact I was lost.

"Old Ring" probably has a lot to do with why dogs and I get along so well now.

Tippy 194? To 194?

Tippy

Tippy and I were only friends for a few years. I have no idea what kind of dog he was, where he came from or where he went. I only remember the terror I felt when Tippy got his head caught between two boards while chasing a rat in our barn. I also remember that Tippy was a good dog and we liked each other.

Dad died in February 1950. We moved from the farm to town and mom didn't want a dog to look after. She had enough trouble keeping up with me. Eventually, she got one of those little She-Waw-Waw dogs. You know... the kind that yip constantly, are totally neurotic and should have been left in Mexico. I don't even remember his name. I just remember that he bit me through the lower lip with no provocation. That probably has a lot to do with deep-seated dislike for small, neurotic dogs that constantly yip.

Once mom re-married, the new stepfather didn't like much of anything. He didn't like the fact that I wanted to stay in my room because it "run up my electric bill." He absolutely wouldn't tolerate a dog that might need food and water would certainly "run up my water bill."

1963 brought graduation from Oklahoma State University with a degree in snooker, a minor in lusting after the ladies on the fourth floor of the student union and a couple of credit hours in engineering. Since money wasn't really a problem, I knocked around awhile before landing a menial job at Tinker Air Force Base. Moving to Midwest City was quite a change.

Keith was a friend from Texas. He lived in the house I occupied during my last two years at O.S.U. and I stopped to say goodbye while making the last moving trip from Cushing to Midwest City. Don't ask why I thought Stillwater was "on the way" between Cushing and Midwest City. Drugs were still several years away from becoming popular but I seemed to frequently suffer these temporary lapses of logic and reality. Maybe that's why I never did feel like I needed chemical assistance.

"My wife is pregnant and Blackie is going to have pups. We just can't deal with all this at the same time. Why don't you take her with you and let her out somewhere along the way. She's a good dog. She should be able to find a good home."

Sounded good to me. So, Blackie and I, and my 1950 Chevy pickup load of junk, headed for the big city. Blackie was a cocker spaniel and as black as an insurance salesman's heart. She sat on the passenger's side as if we had been taking trips all our lives. That lasted until we hit the Stillwater city limits whereupon she stretched out on the seat and laid her head in my lap.

I found the perfect place to dump Blackie... right behind the house I was moving into. I don't remember what happened to Blackie's puppies but I vividly remember how glad Blackie was to seem me come home every evening. She would make a mad dash across the back yard ending with a flying leap into my arms. There would be a little face licking and then we would play for awhile.

Blackie lasted through a short marriage, an extended messy divorce and moving back in with mom and Evil Stepdad. Along the way, she developed one bad habit.

Mom went to my sister's house every morning. She got "brother in-law" up, fed and off to work. She repeated same with sis, then got my niece up and off to school. Mom found Blackie standing at a busy intersection, about a quarter-mile from the house, one morning. She let her in the car and took her to my sister's. This immediately became a daily occurrence. Until the morning Blackie wasn't there.

We looked everywhere for Blackie. I looked for a very long time. Blackie was never seen again, but, on one trip to the dog pound, I saw a young English setter with big, sad eyes that obviously said, "I really like you and want to go home with you. Won't you please take me?"

Queenie 1968 to 1987

Queenie Still had Style in Her Later Years

"Evil Stepdad" wouldn't hear of it. He was quite happy that Blackie was gone. After all, Blackie ate up all those table scraps... some of which might have made leftovers... and thereby "run up my grocery bill." I would need to get a 1-900 number to relate what he said when I volunteered to buy dog food for the adolescent setter. Let's just say that spending actual money to buy food for a dog was not on his list of approved expenses. But "Evil Stepdad" wasn't the king of his own castle.

I came home the next evening to find a most excited setter anxiously waiting for me. I still don't know which of us was the happiest.

I later found that Queenie was from outstanding bloodlines but was dumped because she was thought to be gun shy. She was, but not permanently. She grew up to be the dog that taught me more about bird hunting and dog training than I ever thought possible. We had nearly nineteen years (she hunted until she was fifteen) but that wasn't nearly enough. Queenie was walking across mom's back yard one morning. Mom happened to be looking out her kitchen window and saw Queenie fall. She was dead by the time mom got out the door.

Freckles 1970 to 1971

Queenie and Freckles

Freckles was one of Queenie's only litter of puppies. She was beautiful dog and seemed to have an enormous helping of talent. I wanted only the best for Freckles and I thought that meant professional training. Several months after she went to the trainer, I enquired about her progress. The trainer told me she had died. He had left her tied to a tree. When he returned, he said he found she had climbed a nearby fence and strangled because the rope was too short for her to reach the ground on the other side.

I had trouble believing that story then and I don't believe it now.

Stubby 1972-1975

Stubby Loved to Pose For the Camera

Wife number two had one of those little neurotic, constantly yipping creatures I think of as a "loud rat in a dog suit." It had to go. She wanted a small dog. I wanted a bird dog. We compromised on a Brittany.

Stubby came to us as a puppy of three months and the instincts to become the most nearly perfect bird dog that ever lived. For me.

She was small, even for a Brittany. She was as dainty as she was timid. She was equally at home in the back yard or on the couch. She loved people, had very good manners and went everywhere with me.

Her hunting style was to snoop around my immediate vicinity. She always took the path of least resistance. If there was a cow trail through the grass she was on it. She went around the weeds and brush instead of through them. She looked like anything but a hunting dog but she found birds. Lots of them!

Her theory seemed to be, "Why run all over the place looking for quail when you can just trot over to where they are?" It worked. She was pure death on singles and downed birds. I never lost a downed bird with Stubby on the job and that includes several I didn't even know I shot. She was particularly proud of her retrieving abilities, seemed to enjoy finding singles but really got turned on by finding a covey the other dogs missed. Stubby hunted with some very good bird dogs and always held her own.

Stubby's life was way too short. I was keeping an English setter for only a few hours. It was a, "leav him at Smith's house and I'll pick him up later," deal. The phone rang and I went inside to answer it. I was only gone for a few minutes but, in that short time, the setter had opened the gate. The setter was snoozing on the front porch and Stubby was in the street dead. Hit by a car with a driver that never stopped.

Puddin' 1973 to 1987

Puddin' Was Hard to Hold Still, Even For a Portrait

Stubby had one litter of puppies before her trip to the vet. Puddin' was the ugliest of those puppies and the only one we couldn't sell. She was big, frizzy-haired, full of life, hyper-excitable and full of love. Her demeanor was almost the exact opposite of Stubby, as was her hunting style, but she had her mother's instincts for hunting.

Puddin's first trip out of the back yard was her first hunting trip. She was nine months old and had been totally ignored as far as training was concerned. She puttered about aimlessly while the other dogs found the first two coveys. She was nowhere around. She was following my footsteps when Queenie found the next covey. When the shooting was over, she was nowhere around. We didn't see her until we found the next covey. We found her because the other dogs honored her point. She found six more coveys that day and countless quail in the years to come.

I held Puddin' while the vet put her to sleep. She had developed an illness that was untreatable and the vet, one of the best in town, said it was time. I could never do that again. Nor could I ever go back to that particular vet.

Puddin' didn't fare well after Stubby was killed. Star and her pup had escaped from a friend's kennel. She was found several months later; about 30 miles away from the place of her escape. He wanted the puppy, not Star, so he gave her to me. Puddin' perked up almost instantly and we were off on quite a new adventure.

Star was an escape artist. She dug out. We buried heavy fence wire. She climbed out. We put up an electric fence top. She still found a way to get out.

She visited Queenie at mom's house. She lounged on our front porch. She begged food from "Evil Stepdad" when he came home from work around midnight. Sometimes she would just lay in the leaves on the other side of the fence. Should she decided she wanted in the house, she would climb the fence and knock at the front door! (We finally saw her making the knocking sound by bumping the storm door with her butt.) She knew our working hours and was always in the back yard when we came home. She only got caught when one of us came home at the wrong time or someone told us what she had been up to during the day. Star and Puddin' became "garage dogs" at night. That was the only way we knew where she was.

Star was a pretty good hunter before I got her. Somehow, between hunting seasons, she became gun shy. She loved to hunt. She always wanted to go hunting. Sometimes she would make it through the first volley of shots but leave on the second, and sometimes she got back in the truck as soon as she saw a shotgun.

She didn't like thunderstorms either. That made Spring and Fall in Oklahoma quite an adventure.

Star developed an illness that seemed to be responding to treatment but we awoke one morning to find her lying dead on her bean bag.