Friday, January 19, 2024

Cutter's Final Retrieve


First of all, I think you should know that Cutter is still alive and kicking and doing quite well. At twelve years old, however, it's likely that he has taken his last hunt. That hunt was the final day of the 2023-24 waterfowl season. I would like to share that hunt with you, realizing this may seem like a premature obituary, but it's really just a way of reflecting on an amazingly quirky buddy that has been by my side through some pretty awesome hunts, some frustrating episodes of squirrel chasing, a lot of whining in the truck and other things I have no explanation for. I hope you all enjoy and would bet, most of you will relate. 

My last post was filled with optimism, as a long-awaited storm was on its way across the Rockies and into the Montana Plains. Cutter and I had only gotten out hunting for waterfowl two times this year. We certainly could have gone more but with the warm weather and absolutely no snow on the fields, dragging a bunch of decoys to the river, setting them up and sitting in a blind for hours would be like panning for gold in the irrigation ditches coming out of Helena's holding reservoir. But with the temps forecasted to dip well below the level of pissing icicles, including at least 2 to 4 inches of the white puffy stuff, the ducks and geese would come. The only question was if the weather would change in time to push the birds to the upper river before the end of the season. 

The season ended on Friday the 12th of January. The forecast was for the temperatures to start dropping Wednesday afternoon and continue to drop through the weekend. Thursday's high was supposed to be negative 7. Friday was only going to get up to negative 13. In actuality, it never got above negative 24 on Friday. You know the expression, "too little too late?" One might say, "too much, too late." 

Our "epic" last push of the season began on Wednesday. We set up decoys at around 2pm. Geese were starting to move, and few mallards were also showing up. I opted not to pull the trigger on a few geese as I am a little more protective of the Cutter dog and would hate to cripple one and have him try to chase it down. He's pretty good at being called off of cripples but every once in a while, his stubborn gene kicks in and off he goes. 

It reminds me of a day a few years ago, when I was hunting with a buddy in the same blind. A little back water at the end of an island is a great place to drop birds as the current peters out and gets shallow. However, it's not that far to the main channel and if a cripple gets out in the heavy water, a dog might not catch up to it until somewhere in North Dakota. On this day, we dropped a mallard that made it to the main stem. Cutter went after it and in a few minutes, managed to kick his way out of sight. With only about 45 minutes left before sunset and Cutter not responding to the whistle, I apologized to my buddy and told him I would have to go after my f'(%$ dog. 

I had to cross a channel that was much deeper than I anticipated in order to chase Cutter down. I found out at the exact halfway point, that I had a hole in the crotch of my waders. I gritted my teeth to a point I thought they would turn to powder as I continued across the channel. I blew the whistle as loud and hard as I could, which normally would call Cutter back, but it didn't. I blew and blew until the little cork ball inside the whistle disintegrated into tiny pieces.  

"Cutter!!" I yelled in between the f'bombs I was throwing under my breath. Let me rephrase; between the f'bombs that were increasingly become more and more audible to anyone within a hundred yards. 

Right before I completely lost my shit, I turned back to look upstream towards the blind and there he was, already heading back, head bobbing above the grass as he ran. I'm not sure how he got passed me without seeing him, but he did so, I crossed the channel again, took on another shock to the groin as a liter of water seeped in, and sloshed my way back to the blind. 

A couple days later, a similar scenario presented itself as another cripple headed out to the main current. A different buddy was in the blind that day as Cutter headed out of sight. I took my replacement whistle in my hand, pursed my lips on it, and blew two long sharp blasts. Then I sat down and looked for more ducks.

"Are you going to go get him?" my co-hunter asked with obvious concern. 

"No, he'll be back," I assured him. 

I watched as my buddy strained to try to get a glimpse of the black dog, hoping somehow, he would be ok. He looked at me, then back down the river and back at me. 

"Get down," I demanded as a group of ducks were making the turn. 

As they made their final approach, we pulled up, unloaded our guns on them, and watched as a couple greenheads splashed down in the slack water. As I reloaded, I nodded to my buddy in the direction of where Cutter disappeared. 

"Fetch 'em up!" I yelled and as Cutter reached the blind, he didn't even stop to say so much as a, "Hey guys, I'm back." He just launched himself into the river and went on to do what he was obviously born to do. 

At twelve years old now, I'm definitely not going to push him. I won't let him get out of sight. I won't even let him chase cripples if they get out in the main current, which is why I'm even more selective in my shots. That probably means fewer birds but that's ok. It's not worth the risk. 

Five years ago, I was totally confident that Cutter would get nearly every duck and goose that would make the main current. With his hearty frame and huge paws, the river has never been a problem. I've seen that dog complete some of the craziest retrieves. I've pointed out ducks floating by on the opposite side of the river that must have gotten away from another hunter, brought him to the bank, pointed his nose in the right direction and commanded, "fetch 'em up!" And then watched him swim the 80 to 100 yards across the Mighty Mo with the confidence of knowing I wouldn't send him over there if there wasn't a bird. Somehow, like a Vegas magic show, even without the bird bringing attention to itself he would locate it, grab it and bring it back. 

I've also watched him chase a duck downstream and have the instinct to swim out past the still live duck and push it back towards the shoreline where he would trap it in the rocks and as the duck dove to try to allude him, he would shove his face down in the water and after a few seconds, pick his head up with duck in mouth, still kicking and flapping, and again, trot it back to the blind like it was just another day in the life...

I'm not too proud to admit either, that I've had days on the river where we didn't even pull the trigger and still walked away with birds that Cutter would find that other hunters lost. Sometimes the birds were still alive and sometimes they had expired. He would just get bored of the lack of action and sneak out of the blind before anyone would notice. A few minutes later, here comes Cutter with a mallard in his mouth, drop it in the blind and take his place; butt down, head up, waiting for the next group of birds to drop in, if any birds were flying at all that day. 

On that last Wednesday, we were set up in our spot and after a few geese rolled through, a drake mallard dropped out of the sky taking me by surprise. Not able to get the gun up in time for a good shot, I let him land. Unfortunately, he didn't fully sit down until he was about 50 yards downstream of the decoys. That's pretty typical for late season birds as they've probably been duped a few times and although they want to sit down due to the wind and cold, they are very skeptical of just about any spread of decoys. 

After a few minutes, feeling pretty confident he wasn't going to swim back upstream to the decoys, Cutter and I snuck out of the blind through the red twig dogwood that covers the bank, to put a sneak on him. 

"No, Cutter. Heal!" I whisper/shouted to him. "Get over here," as I pointed to the ground to the right of my foot. 

Cutter would spin and bound back to my side, smack my leg with his nose and snort in defiance. Then he would test me again by ranging out just a little too far so with a gruff and a little more edge to my voice I would call him back again--always cognizant of how loud I was as to not spook the greenhead that was right along the bank only a few yards away. 

Crouching hunched over trying stay out of the duck's site; at some point neither myself nor Cutter had the patience to get any closer. I stood up to see the nervousness of the drake on the water--spinning and bobbing and snapping his head around to locate the danger he was sensing. Knowing he was about to jump, I pulled my Weatherby to my shoulder, clicked off the safety, and let him get airborne before dumping him. Cutter was already in the game as he now, a little more gingerly, slid into the river and chased down the drake. 

One of Cutter's quirks is he likes to be the one to bring the bird all the way to the blind. It probably has something to do with me scolding him if he dropped the bird before getting all the way to the blind while we were hunting it. But now, no matter where we are whether in a blind or jumping ducks a hundred yards away in a back channel, he is going to bring it all the way back to the blind we are set up in. That retrieve was no different. Before I could get halfway back, he had already placed the duck in the blind and was on his way back to my side, just in case his services would be needed again. 

On the particular stalk, which was totally unexpected, another mallard had landed just downstream from the decoys while we were retrieving the first. As I approached the blind with Cutter, the commotion of wings flapping and a mallard quacking startled me, causing my head to snap back to catch a hen busting out away from the bank. It's late season and the birds just aren't on the river yet, so I decided to take the hen and with one shot, dropped her in the slack water at the end of the island. Cutter was happy to do his thing again, and again, brought the hen directly to the blind. 

The rest of that afternoon was pretty slow. I passed on a couple more shots, missed a couple geese but as the sun set, I was still hopeful the next couple days would get better. More ducks and geese did come to the river but with the temps in the negative 20's, the wind howling 30 mph, and the condensation billowing off the river, sitting over decoys wasn't an option. On Thursday, Cutter and I only lasted for about an hour and a half before calling bullshit. We got one goose. All the birds that were on the river were hunkered down and without anyone else dumb enough to brave the weather to kick birds around, they weren't moving. Even if they were, the decoys were freezing up in a matter of seconds and the slush that was forming on the surface would drag them down stream, so I found myself chasing plastic and breaking off ice more than actually hunting. The fog was so heavy, visibility was less than forty yards and once Cutter's teeth started chattering, I knew it was time to go.  

I'll be honest, it was more than a little disappointing. It's not so much the desire to kill birds or even put birds in the freezer. It's that I know Cutter and I only have a little more time together and duck hunting is really one of the few things we can actually get out and do together that is fun for both of us. He's a horrible fishing companion. He can't sit still and just enjoy the ride if he's in the boat because all he wants to do is chase birds. He will literally sit in the back of the boat for hours and whine until I can't take anymore resulting in me throwing him in the river. At that point, he'll swim for a while, realize it's an impossible proposition to go about it alone, and then whines to get back in the boat. 

And wade fishing is out of the question as well because he'll sneak off and the next thing you know, he's chasing either deer or a goose across the run you're fishing, which almost always results in me developing a nasty bout of turrets. In the spring, one of his favorites is to pull eggs out of a goose nest and bring it back to me to which I have to go find the nest and replace the egg, hoping we didn't spook mom from coming back. The problem is, Cutter has caught birds before, and he thinks he can catch every bird and every squirrel that crosses his path regardless of whether or not we are fishing or hunting.

There was a day, early spring, where I thought I would try the wade fishing thing again with Cutter. We headed to the Mo and parked at the Spite Hill Fishing Access Site. The parking area and river are far enough from the road so he could do a little exploring without much danger. The entire 45-minute drive, he whined. He knew where we were going. He knew I would be distracted. He knew he was going to be able to run and play and chase things and he couldn't contain himself. Again, turrets. 

By the time we got to the FAS, I couldn't take it anymore and as I opened the door, I wanted him to get as far away from me as possible. He bounded from the back seat, just about knocking me over, and disappeared into the grass as if somehow, he had been Googling "ducks" and the Google Assistant was yelling at him to "Turn left!! They are right there!!!" 

"Screw that dog," I thought as I pulled on my waders, rigged my rod and headed towards the river. 

Out of nowhere, here comes the black dog, bounding back through the grass towards me. As he came into full view, I noticed he wasn't alone. Fully in his mouth with wings folded and head bobbing out the side, a full-sized greenhead was holding on for dear life as if he was a six-year-old riding the zipper at the State Fair for the first time. 

"Bring it here," I yelled, almost losing my shit. 

Cutter ran straight to me and dropped the duck at my feet. The drake flipped over onto his feet, shook his head and I swear, looked up at me as to say, "Dude, control your damn dog," and then promptly went airborne, flying directly across the river and landing as far away from this tyrant of a dog as he could without losing his position in the swamp. 

This wasn't the first time he had done that. One other time, while I was getting gear out of the boat to set up during an actual duck hunting trip, he went off into the brush and brought back a fully live and capable pintail. He also dropped that duck at my feet and again, the duck flipped up on its feet and took off. Cutter just looked at me with absolute contempt and I imagined him cussing me out in his head for letting the thing get away. 

He's also caught grey squirrels and ground squirrels and even a muskrat; all of which were just a little too complacent, thinking this dumb lab had no chance to grab them before they escaped either up a tree or into a burrow or submerge under water. In every instance, the rodents didn't fare well and wound-up being fox food, but the ducks were never hurt. In fact, there was never even a displaced feather on them. As frustrating as it was that he would just go rouge and chase things, it was also fascinating that he knew not to hurt the birds but absolutely despised the squirrels and muskrats. (It's probably because the rodents fight back and have teeth. Regardless, it's pretty amazing how soft of a mouth Cutter has when it matters.)

Cutter didn't start out loving to hunt. In fact, as a puppy, he was gun shy. Yeah. A duck dog who can't stand the sound of loud noises. It wasn't just guns either. Whenever a thunderstorm came in, the booming of the lightning strikes would send him to the basement and into the bathroom shower. It was almost like in a past life, he died in a tornado or something. He knew exactly where to go, which as kids, was drilled into our heads every spring in the Midwest.

"Find the lowest point and get into a closet or bathroom that has additional framing to prevent the house collapsing on you," was what every weather forecaster, teacher and parent would tell us. 

Everyone knows that, right? I'm not sure how a dog who was only a year old and never spent time in Tornado Alley would, however. 

I didn't know about the guns until one day when he was just about a year old, I took him to the river to jump ducks. We snuck up on a few woodies and when I shot two of them, I turned to Cutter to get him to retrieve the birds and he was nowhere in sight. I looked around for a couple minutes before finding him, curled up in a ball in the grass, shaking like B.B. King's vibrato on Lucille. I wound up stripping down to me skivvies, wading out across the channel and picking up the ducks myself. As I got back to Cutter and showed him the birds, he had about as much interest in them as a sipping rainbow trout has for a hopper in March. 

I started doing some research on the probability of breaking him from being gun shy. Some folks say it's impossible and some folks are a little more optimistic. I actually thought I might have to give him up. I couldn't see myself owning a dog that can't hunt. I mean, Cutter was a sweet puppy and was easy to house train, didn't chew up shoes, stayed away from the garbage and was quite loyal but a lab that won't hunt? That's a lot of food over the duration of a lifetime and a boys got to earn his keep...

I talked to a couple dog trainers who thought that I could absolutely break him. One, however, told me it might take several years, and I would have to pull back and slowly re-introduce him to guns. The other told me to just force it on him and eventually, he would get over it. I took the hybrid approach. 

The idea was to associate the shotgun blast with fun and birds and finding his purpose. I took him out near Wilsall, MT to hunt Hungarian partridge. Huns often get up quite a ways out and it only takes a couple pellets to drop one. If Cutter was a little further from the gun blast when he saw the birds, maybe it wouldn't startle him so much and he would be fixated on the birds, not the gun. I also dropped down to a 20 gauge versus the 12, which doesn't carry as much boom. 

The first covey of Huns busted out of the prairie grass about thirty yards out. Shots rang out and a couple birds dropped. One of them had enough left in him to flop around as it tried to regain flight. Cutter curled up in a ball and laid down. 

"Let's go, Cutter!" I yelled. "Good boy, good boy! Fetch 'em up, Cutter!"

I ran over to Cutter and picked him up off the ground and dragged him to the flopping bird. Immediately, his head perked up, and his interest shifted squarely on the bird. 

"Get 'em, Cutter!"

He stood up and cautiously nosed over to the bird. As it tried to escape, Cutter tried to drop a paw on him. When he missed and the bird scooted off, he picked up the pace a bit and tried stabbing it again. Again, he missed and then the chase was on. He eventually got the bird in his mouth and then paraded around with it until I called him back and had him drop, praising him like the he was a toddler, and he made his first poopy in the training toilet. 

A week later we were on the Missouri, set up over decoys in a channel just downstream from Craig. The weather was good, and birds were on the move. As the first group cupped in and committed to the decoys, I called the shot early and we all dumped our guns, throwing epic air balls. With all the shooting, Cutter found a little nest in the grass and curled up. He obviously wasn't into the noise and his confidence hovered slightly lower than a peewee hockey goalie facing Gretzky on a break-a-way. 

A few minutes later, a single greenhead made his final approach and didn't leave the channel. As the shot rang out, the duck dropped right in front of the blind with a big splash. 

"Fetch 'em up, Cutter!" I enthusiastically yelled. 

I grabbed Cutter and threw him into the river and then walked with him out to the floating duck. 

"Good boy!" I praised. "Good boy, Cutter! Fetch 'em up!"

Cutter grabbed the duck in his mouth and headed back to shore. Again, he paraded around with the bird and eventually, I made him drop it with a disproportionate number of "atta boys." As the next shots rang out, instead of cowering in the nest of grass in the back of the blind, he would initially duck down for a second, but then his ears would perk up and he would wait for the splash and then, game on. From that point forward, shotgun blasts meant birds and birds were fun. 

Friday morning, the last day of the 2023-24 season, was even more brutal than Thursday. The wind wasn't as much the issue as the cold. I did throw a couple bags of decoys in the truck and Cutter and I did take a drive to the river, but there was no way in hell I was going to set up and sit for any period of time in negative 26 degrees. However, the ducks and geese did start to show up and as we drove along the frontage road, I took note of all the little nooks of open water in back channels where ducks and geese were huddled up. In some of those spots, public access to the river afforded some opportunities to get out and jump shoot. It's something we did a fair amount of in Minnesota with all the puddles and potholes in the Pilsbury National Forrest. It's not my favorite type of duck hunting but you gotta do what you gotta do. 

The first spot I located was while looking across the river from a well-known fishing access site. A bunch of birds were huddled up on an iceshelf just below a fairly steep bank. The bank would offer cover and the iceshelf only extended out from the bank a couple yards. I felt pretty confident we could get on them and we did. As the birds took flight, I pulled and dropped two greenheads. Cutter jumped in and brought the first one back. Turning to go after number two, he jumped into the water and started heading downstream for it. It was stone dead, drifting along with the current--normally a pretty easy retrieve for Cutter. As he began to close on the bird, I could tell something wasn't quite right. 

Cutter pulled off the bird, which is very unusual. 

I yelled, "Back! Back!"

He never even looked back towards the mallard. He just came right to shore. The cold was too much, and his energy level was being sapped too quickly to make the double retrieve. It's a bummer to lose a bird. It would have been worse to lose the dog. We chased it down stream in the hopes it would eddy out but eventually lost sight of it in the fog and had to give up. 

We quickly made it back to the truck and cranked the heat. Cutter's fur was now a glistening silver-grey with ice crystals hanging, much more brilliantly than the dust particles that tint his jet-black coat grey after he rolls in my flower beds--another enduring trait I've had to get used to over the years. Another group of birds were hunkered down in a shallow channel just upstream that I had staked out earlier. I knew we could put the sneak on them, and the retrieval would be much easier, so we took a few minutes to warm up and then parked the truck.

Cutter still has the enthusiasm of a rag-horn coming into a good cow call in September so when the door opens, he jumps. However, as he hit the ground at this spot, it was hard to tell if his whining was coming from the excitement of hunting down more greenheads, or if it was the reluctant anticipation of jumping into the nearly frozen river again.

"Let's give it one more try buddy," I tell him with an empathetic head ruffling. 

I load the 12 gauge with 3-inch BB's, and we head towards the river. The contour of the channel and the fact that it is lined with the thick red twig dogwood shrubs, willows, and an occasional Russian olive is ideal for the stalk. The only concern is that one of the ducks or geese would hear something and alert all the others before we get in range. Cutter has now run off most of his nervous energy, so getting him to heal isn't a problem. He sticks close to my side and sneaks along with me. 

The channel is less than 20 yards wide. A riffle has been keeping the water from freezing. It's hard to say how many birds are holding up there but I know if I do my job, I could easily knock a few of them down. We sneak closer and through the brush, I see iridescent green heads start the nervous bobbing and jerking back and forth as if to ask each other if now's the time to get the heck out of there--almost as if they're all just waiting for the sentinel to sound the alarm and then all hell will break loose. 

I straighten up and rush the birds and yes, all hell does break loose. What I thought were a dozen or so mallards with a handful of geese turned out to be several dozen mallards and more than 20 geese. I pull the shotgun to my shoulder, drop the barrel on green and pull. Out of the corner of my eye I see a drake splash in the shallow water as I'm already on the next one. I pull and another greenhead drops. One more rushed shot thunders out across the river without hitting home but I know I have two down and I know they have dropped in the channel and before even telling Cutter to fetch 'em up, he's already located the first and charging towards it.

Cutter saw both ducks drop, which sometime confuses him. As he picked the first one up, he brings it to the opposite side of the channel and drops it on the iceshelf. The bird is stoned dead and isn't going anywhere so Cutter goes after number two as it drifts along with the current. That duck is also dead, so he picks it up and slowly walks it across the riffle to the near bank. I pick the bird up and he just looks at me, waiting to see if I'm actually going to make him go after the first duck he left on the shelf.

I wave my hand, gesturing in the direction of the duck and say, "fetch 'em up, Cutter." 

He looks at me as if to ask, "Are you crazy? I left it there for you. You go get it."

"Come on Cutter. Fetch it up!" I command with a little more sense of urgency. 

Cutter sits on his haunches, looks back across the channel and then back at me. He pulls his head back and sticks his chest out like a petulant child, folding their arms across their chest, pouting and shaking their head as if to say, "no f'n chance." 

I feel the blood pressure in my ears as the thump, thump of my pulse against my eardrums gets a little louder and a little faster. I take a deep breath. I hate when Cutter acts with absolute defiance and quite honestly, a complete disregard of the dynamic between us. I'm the master. I'm the one pulling the trigger. I feed you. I give you a house to live in. You sleep on the end of my bed! Now you're going to defy me?!! 

There are times I wish our relationship was more objective or maybe pragmatic or robotic. I shoot, you retrieve. I say heal; you get your butt right next to me. I blow the whistle, you circle back. I say come, you come. It's really that easy. 

I take a breath and look down at my defiant dog. It is brutally cold. I'm bundled up in pack boots, 13 layers of smart wool, fleece, wind jackets and wool. Cutter has his fur, a modest amount of fat and the natural oils that prevent the water from reaching his skin and that's it. 

I kneel down next to him with a little bit of re-found empathy. He doesn't have the words to say how utterly ridiculous it is that we would be hunting on a day like this, but the message is now loud and clear. I rough up his fur a little and I say, "Let's go, Cutter. One more time and we're ought of here. Fetch 'em up." 

Cutter slowly dips his feet into the river and works his way across the channel at a pace only a tortious could admire. It's his way of saying, "Fine, I'll do it but I'm not happy about it."

As he drops the duck at my feet, I tell him, "Good boy, Cutter. Let's get the fuck out of here." 

He understands fully what I just told him, and he beats me back to the truck by about a hundred yards. I open the back door and tell him to load up knowing I'm going to have to spot him with a little lift. As we drive away, I think more about the dynamic between us and if that's really what I want in a dog. 

When we look at all the different breeds of dogs that are out there, bred for specific traits like pointing birds or retrieving them it's astonishing to think about how we humans, have manipulated this genus over thousands of years. Some dogs herd sheep. Some dogs protect them. Some dogs kill rats or tree racoons. Some chase lions. Some wrestle cattle. Most of these traits have been forgotten with the exception of the working-class dogs like hunting dogs and cattle dogs, but the other important trait that sometimes is forgotten--often when I'm in the field with Cutter--is that in every case, or just about every case, all these different breeds were also bred to be companions. What that means, is they inevitably will come with personality--personality that sometimes reflects their master or their master's over that evolutionary span. 

Cutter has a personality much like a kid. He gets distracted easily. He sees a squirrel on the other side of the fence and loses his shit and sometimes, I have to get in my car and chase him down. He dreams and often kicks me hard enough to leave bruises. He barks and whines during those dreams, waking me up at 3am. He whines in the car non-stop, anticipating the fun stuff he thinks we are headed out to do. He always thinks we are going hunting and acts like a spas, pushing through the door to beat me to the truck even though every time, I tell him to wait. He is a puppy at heart although his body is telling him different and he lives for those days on the river, or in the cattails chasing birds much like I do. So no, if I'm going to be totally honest, I don't think a robot would serve me well. 

 A few days later, Cutter and I headed back up to the river to collect some gear I had forgotten as we hastily left the river on the Thursday before season closed. It was so cold and windy, I just wanted to get out of there and I left a bag with a bunch of shells and a few pair of gloves and a folding chair. The river was sick with mallards, goldeneyes, and geese. They all finally showed up, just a few days too late. 

As we crossed the island to the blind where I had forgotten my gear, we jumped a few dozen birds right in front of where we would be set up--chip shots as the ducks and geese reluctantly left their protected roosts and I counted the shots and birds in my head that would have dropped had the season not closed a few days prior. Cutter looked back at me with confusion. He doesn't understand calendars and seasons. He only knows birds and wonders why there weren't any gun blasts coming from me. (We never did find the bag or the chair as someone must have been dumber than me, hunting that island in negative 26 on the final day, and found it before I got back there. If you're reading and this sounds familiar, please give me a shout.)

I'll be honest, I don't know if in fact, it was Cutter's last season. He's twelve but looks like he's five or six. His hips are in good shape, but he gets really sore after a day on the river and the cold hits him a little harder than it used to. If you asked him, he would answer with an emphatic "No!" But much like an aging football player, he doesn't know when to say when and it might not be up to him. I'm sure we'll probably get out for some token hunts, and he will be happy to play the role, but I'm sad to say his best days are clearly behind us. It was a pretty amazing run though. Best hunting dog I've ever been blessed to hunt over. 

Keep 'em where they live...

P.S. If you want to check out Cutter in action, visit my YouTube Channel: https://youtu.be/ZlbH89OM9pc


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