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by Chris Robinson
The Department of Defense defines a "warning order" as "a
preliminary notice of an order or action which is to follow." I’ve
noticed when afield with my dogs, hearing certain noises, words
or phrases are often a preliminary notice of an action to follow.
Sometimes, the action which is to follow from these noises, words
and phrases is an adrenaline rush ranging all the way from a quickening
of the heartbeat and respiration to full-blown, flat-out panic.
Take the words "Uh-oh" for instance. By itself "uh-oh" seems
pretty harmless but it is almost always the precursor of something
that isn’t going to be particularly good. Just how bad the
action to follow will be depends upon the speaker’s tone
of voice. "Uh-oh" can be the prelude to something as
innocuous as "I forgot the leash." Or it can be as grave
as "gethehellouttahere," the equivalent of the blaring
klaxon of the diving alarm on a submarine followed by the shouted
command "Dive! Dive! Take her down, fast!!" because life
and limb are in serious jeopardy. Or it can be something in between.
An example of the "in-between" happened to me one time
while judging retrievers doing an upland bird hunting test. The
area we wanted the dogs to hunt ran parallel to a crick. All the
English majors reading this can stop reaching for their pencils
to make the correction right now. That is not a typographical error.
Further upstream, this body of moving water was a creek but where
the test was set, it had definitely become a crick. What, you ask,
is the difference? A creek is a pristine, sophisticated thing,
sparkling and burbling through scenic landscapes over clean, gravel
bottoms. A crick on the other hand, slogs along through pastures
and gurgles through culverts beneath roads. You never know what
sort of bottom a crick has because no one ever sees it. The water
has been rendered opaque with mud, slime, livestock effluent and
God-only-knows-what-else which is probably what led to the naming
of that most dreaded crick of all—the one you hate finding
yourself up with no paddle. The easiest way to explain the difference
between a creek and a crick is to put it in human terms. Creeks
attend the symphony on Saturday night in white tie and tails. Cricks,
on the other hand, might be persuaded to go to the Grand Ole Opry,
provided they didn’t have to get cleaned up.
What turned this creek into a crick was that it flowed past a duck
pen on the game farm where the test was held. Several thousand
ducks each day used it as a combination bathtub and toilet. As
a result, the water downstream from the pen, where the upland hunting
test was set, was an evil green duck sewer upon which floated a
mass of discarded feathers so thick it appeared you could easily
cross the crick on the feather carpet. About the length of two
football fields downstream from the test site, the crick had to
pass through a culvert under a gravel road. The resulting bottleneck
slowed the al-ready plodding flow to the point where the water
was barely moving at all giving the fea-thers and duck waste ample
opportunity to reach a high level of fermentation. The stench that
wafted from this cesspool was so awful that the few crows brave
enough to get near it were frequently observed experiencing gagging
fits.
Anyway, what happened was that one of the
dogs running the test disappeared over the edge of the bank and
failed to reappear. Not certain whether the dog had fallen into
the crick and been liquified by the various toxic components in
the water or was just pottering around in the tall grass and weeds,
I walked over to the bank to look for him. Unfortunately, this
particular portion of the bank had been undermined either by the
water flow or by a truly masochistic muskrat because only something
with that sort of warped psychology could possibly spend any time
near, let alone in, the water. When I stepped on the undermined
bank my judging partner saw it beginning to crumble and said "Uh-oh."
An instant before I could scramble out of harm’s way , the
bank gave way and I found myself waist-deep in the putrid stream.
I waded out of the reeking mess covered in duck goo and feathers,
looking like a bilious version of Big Bird but spouting language
that particular Muppet would never have used or at least not in
proximity to its Sesame Street® audience. As I climbed up the
bank, my judging partner took one whiff, wrinkled his nose and
shouted, "EEEEUUUUWWWW! GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!!!!!!" Not
even a complete change of clothing could totally eradicate the
stink and I noticed that my co-judge spent much of the rest of
the day trying to make sure he was standing upwind.
It has been said that after prolonged exposure your senses dull
and you can tolerate even the most awful stench. Don’t believe
it! Despite the fact that the test committee served one of the
most appetizing-looking lunches I saw in more than 15 years of
judging, I was unable to enjoy it due to the malodorous smell wafting
from those areas which had been immersed in the crick and I noticed
that anyone within 20 feet downwind of me was experiencing similar
difficulties.
However, as bad as the dunking in the crick was, it was merely
an olfactory assault. On another occasion, when I heard "Uh-oh," it
was definitely preliminary to "getthehellouttahere!" This
time, judging pointers, part of the back course at this test bordered
a brushy marsh area. As my co-judge and I rode past the area, there
was a sudden crashing from within like some very large animal was
moving toward us heedless of any obstacles such as full-grown trees
in its path. "Whazzat," I hissed at my co-judge. "Dunno," he
said.
This lack of knowledge lasted only another second or two before
it changed to "uh-oh" when an enormous pair of moose
antlers appeared above the brush moving rapidly in our direction.
Needless to say the "uh-oh" was immediately followed
by "Getthehellouttahere!" at maximum volume with spurs
sunk home on the flanks of the equally alarmed horses who blew
out of the area like someone had lit their tails on fire. Secretariat’s
1973 Kentucky Derby, the fastest on record for that mile and a
quarter event, would have been a mere morning gallop compared to
the speed at which the two horses put distance between us and one
very angry bull moose whose attitude, as he charged after us, made
it clear he was not interested in exchanging pleasant howdy-doos.
Speaking of horses, if you are judging pointers
and the wrangler says, "If you’ll grab his ear, twist it and hang on
to this end of the twitch, I think I can maybe get a saddle on
old Marshmallow for you" you can bet there will be an action
to follow. When I was young, thin and convinced of my own immortality,
I rode jumpers and also galloped racehorses. While I rode some
very nice horses during this period of my life, I also got a leg
up on some really fractious animals. These unruly horses frequently
needed the kind of riding skills usually associated with professional
bronc or bull riders. But in all the years I rode jumpers and racehorses,
including some that even the most ardent horse lover would describe
as "nasty," I never encountered a horse so consumed by
sheer malice as was Marshmallow. He would have been considered
too rank, indeed too dangerous, to be included in the National
Finals Rodeo. Instead of "old Marshmallow," his name
should have been "Old Nick" because he surely was possessed
by the Prince of Darkness.
It goes without saying that spending the day with Marshmallow was
not my idea of a "walk in the sun." It was, instead,
the equine equivalent of a back-alley brawl. A pair of adventure-filled
trips around the course contained about enough excitement for a
lifetime for most folks. I informed the test chair that since there
was no combat pay awarded for this judging assignment, unless there
was a different horse wearing my saddle before the start of the
next brace, he would have to find another judge.
There can be other bulls in the field besides bull moose and these
bulls can also generate warning orders. My hunting partner and
I were trudging wearily across a harvested cornfield one day with
one of my Brittanys. It was late in the day, we had hunted hard
and everyone, including the Brit, was dog-tired. However, we only
had a hundred yards or so to go before we would arrive at the truck
so the end was in sight. Then my hunting partner uttered the "preliminary
notice of an action to come."
"Wonder where those cows came from." What cows? There
hadn’t been any cows in the field when we started across
it. But, there they were running toward us and leading the stampede
was the herd bull. "Holy bleep! That’s a bleeping BULL!
RUN!"
It’s amazing how much energy two bone-tired people can summon
in the face of a thundering herd of cattle led by a bull. You’d
have thought it was the first ten minutes out of the truck in the
morning as we displayed both Olympic hurdler speed and agility
jumping corn rows on the remaining 100 yards to safety. However,
once we slid under the electric fence and ducked behind the truck,
the only real question seemed to be which one of us was going to
go into cardiac arrest first. The gasping, wheezing, panting and
coughing coming from the two "sprinters" and the equally
winded Brittany made the lee side of the truck sound like all the
bilge pumps on a destroyer had worn out simultaneously.
"Duck" or "get down" do not usually need a
follow-up order but they do re-quire a following action. During
a hunt test once I yelled "Get down!" at the judge who,
like me, seemed to be coming into the line of fire just as I grabbed
my dog and hit the dirt. Fortunately, the dog and I were burrowing
into the ground a split second before one of the gunners whistled
a load of birdshot about three feet over our heads. It was truly
a change-your-skivvies-moment. The gunner was immediately relieved
of his duties which was fortunate because once we realized that
the dog, the judge, the horse and I had all survived the incident
with our hides unperforated, neither the judge or I were in any
mood to exercise restraint. As it was, some pretty salty language
erupted from both of us which the test committee, after being informed
of the circumstances, said was "justified."
"Is the gauge on that tank accurate?" can be preliminary
to a following action especially when the answer is "yes." This
is particularly true when it reads "E" and you, a hunting
partner and a couple of retrievers are a good mile-and-a-half down
a lake from the landing in a duck boat that is roughly the size
of a Los Angeles-class submarine but unfortunately does not possess
the sub’s nuclear power plant. It also, as we discovered
about two minutes after I asked that question, when the outboard
motor coughed, strangled and died from lack of fuel, had all the
paddling characteristics of a fully-loaded grain barge. We finally
managed to beach it on the near shore but not before a half-dozen
blisters had popped on both hands. After that rotten start, I didn’t
think the day could get any worse. I was wrong. I promptly lost
the coin toss which determined who was going to hike back to the
landing with the gas tank, go into town, get it filled and hike
back to the boat.
Although I have never been able to prove it, I strongly suspect
my hunting partner, the owner of boat, motor and fuel tank and
therefore responsible for making sure the latter held enough gas
for the trip, was using a two-headed coin. I know it was his idea
that we toss a coin to decide who would walk and who would stay
with the boat. I should have learned, during the years I collected
a paycheck from Uncle Sam, that officers in the United States Marine
Corps are not "officers and gentlemen" when it comes
to a coin flip to determine who’s going to handle the "s" part
of a s*** detail.
While we may have only been about a mile-and-a-half from the landing,
it was at least five miles back to the truck when you had to walk
along the shoreline. Then it was a 20 mile trip into town for the
gas followed by another five mile hike down the lakeshore to where
the duck boat was stranded.
Meanwhile, the two dogs, knowing a good thing when they saw it,
decided to stay with the boat. Not only had this provided ample
opportunity for basking in what warmth the autumn sun generated
as well as some serious petting, ear-scratching and tummy-rubbing
time but during the five hours or so necessary to complete the
refueling mission, the boat owner had managed to shoot his limit
of ducks. This meant the dogs had also experienced the Chesapeake
Bay Retriever nirvana of plunging into icy water to swim after
a dead or, even better, a crippled duck and bringing it back to
the shooter followed by the sheer unalloyed pleasure of shaking
the frigid, muddy, stinking water all over the person holding the
shotgun.
In payment for their services, they had been awarded all of my
meatloaf sandwiches. The boat-owner’s reasoning for giving
my sandwiches and not his to the dogs was that since I had been
gone for several hours and it was long past lunchtime, I had most
likely had stopped to eat while in town getting fuel and therefore
wouldn’t be hungry when I returned. That these assumptions
were in error became obvious when my howls of anguish at finding
a barren lunch compartment in my packsack reached his ears. I was,
in fact, starving, leg-weary, foot-sore, blistered and cold. I
was also cranky because I hadn’t fired a shot since the best
part of legal shooting hours had been consumed by the refueling
mission. Pouring gasoline on my crankiness fire was the prospect
of still more hard labor ahead as the boat had to be run back down
to the landing and horsed on to the trailer since the landing didn’t
have anything resembling a boat trailer ramp. Did I mention that
the boat weighed about as much as a Los Angeles-class submarine?
No? Well it did.
So, field rookies, when you hear things such
as these, you need to pay close attention and be prepared to take
immediate action. Even if your survival doesn’t depend on
it, preserving your sanity probably will.
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