I was up in the Teanaway river watershed last Saturday with my brittany Jack looking for some grouse. I'd just about given up on finding any grouse when we stopped near the top of Red Top so I could take a few pictures. I let Jack out to run while I was messing around with my photography. He ran to the edge of the timber and froze up. It almost looked like he was on point. He must have stood there motionless for a couple of minutes. Knowing my dog as I do, I could see he was scenting the air and puzzled over what he was smelling. I thought his behavior was really odd, something was wrong.
The place where I wanted to setup my camera tripod was a hundred feet down the FS road from where I was parked. I headed that way with my gear and called Jack to head that way with me. He took off ahead of me, slowly, his tail tightly clamped down on his butt. Jack is ten years old and I've NEVER seen him behave this way. What in the world could he be scenting I thought to myself. He almost looked frightened and was clearly acting submissive! He's been in the woods all his life, accustomed to elk, deer, bear, and cougar. I took my pictures and then commanded Jack to kennel up. As I drove off thinking about my dogs behavior I came to the realization that he was probably scenting wolves. That would be something new to him, something he'd never run across before.
That got me to thinking about what I would do if my valuable bird dog was attacked by wolves? I figure that if my hunting dog comes across a wolf pack in the woods while on a bird hunt, I'm certain the wolf pack would kill him as quick as they could. I can't have that happen. I'm also betting that if I had to kill some wolves to protect my bird dog, it's going to be a big pain in the a$$ with the Feds. I decided the best thing to do is just avoid the possibility altogether. So I won't be coming back to the Teanaway area with my bird dog. Now I have to wonder, how many other areas am I going to have to put off limits as these damn wolves spread out throughout the state? This isn't good.
