I’ve been struggling finding good chukar numbers around home, so I traveled down to Southern Utah to look for Gambel’s quail and chukars. It was a spectacular day with fresh snow on the ground. The quail were a bust, but we did find a fair number of chukars. Problem was, that like Homer’s Sirens, they called us from just a ways up the hill, then a little farther. Before I knew it, I was at the top of the mountain, it was getting dark and they were calling me from just the next mountain over.

 

 

With these last three storms we have gotten a fair bit of snow. It’s been fun to romp in, but the cold does present challenges in caring for dogs. First, with no electricity to the kennels, it’s hard to keep free-water for them to drink, and second, it’s cold, especially for short coated dogs.

If it is cold enough to freeze the water fairly quickly, we only fill the water bucket up about 3 – 4”. That’s enough water for them to drink immediately before the rest freezes and it leaves room in their water bucket for more. A couple more times during the day we can carry out water in a bucket and add another 3 – 4” of fresh water. This way they have several opportunities to drink. At night we bring the frozen water buckets in to thaw. Usually a couple hours in the house and you can dump the ice out. (We have metal water bucket and don’t like to bang them, as they get dented up.) If you do have electricity near your kennel, you can use the heated dog bowls. Be careful to ensure that the dog cannot get at the cord. I have heard numerous stories of dogs pulling the water dish around the kennel and exposing the unprotected part of the cord and chewing it and getting shocked. Also watch anywhere they can get at extension cords.

As for the cold, we use the K-9 Kondo Dog Den and have really liked it. We have found that grass hay (like timothy or brome) works the best for insulation. Unlike wood chips and straw, it doesn’t compress and doesn’t soak up water and stay wet and get moldy. Blankets don’t work because they will jam the two-way swinging door, plus the dogs tear them up for fun. In some parts of the country, like ours, grass hay can be really hard to come by. Around here everything is alfalfa, which is not a good choice, as it gets wet and matted. So we keep a close eye out for grass and stockpile a couple of bales. Some folks like cedar shavings. We have never used them. Since they are much bigger shavings, they may be better than pine and aspen shavings as far as not soaking up and holding water, but since dogs smell on the order of 150,000 times better than we do, We don’t like cedar for its aromatic properties. Whatever you use, make it deep so the dog can make a nest and be well insulated underneath.

In the evenings once we are home from work, the dogs are inside the house with us and really enjoy laying by the heater. Any non-house dogs we have staying with us are kenneled in the garage at night in dog boxes. The garage is insulated and we have a small heater in there, so even on the coldest nights it stays at a moderate temperature. The dogs seem to enjoy this, plus it gives us another couple of times to interact with the dogs.

                                                          (Photo: Me looking for our lost dog during a blizzard.)

We went out to cut a Christmas tree and took the dogs. Lilly, a cute, caffienated French Brittany was with us as we looked for a tree, circling out and back like when we hunt for blue grouse. After cutting the tree we noticed she had been gone for a few minutes longer than usual. We immediately started looking for her. That’s when the blizzard blew in and started dumping snow. We looked for four hours in the blizzard before it got dark. We went home and I got better geared up for snow and went back up looking. I spent the next two days covering every inch of the area to no avail.

I feared the worst. I didn’t know if she had gotten caught in a trap, eaten by a lion, or what. It just wasn’t like her not to come around after just a few minutes. She had just vanished. God smiled upon us and this little dog. Two days later I got a call from a land surveyor working in the area. He found Lilly trotting down the road toward town.  We were so glad to see her and she us. Needless to say, she hasn’t left my side for a week.

 

 

I was able to take advantage of the light snow so far this year and Utah’s new extended blue grouse season the other day and get out and shoot a limit of duskies. Most years by this time the high country is locked up with snow and the season blue grouse season closed at the end of November.  It was still a long hike in and once we got to the highest elevations where the grouse were there was six to twelve inches of snow. Some of it was hard enough to walk on; otherwise it was post-holing all the way.

Sometimes late in the season once there is snow on the ground the blues have all taken to the trees and you don’t flush any from the ground. When this is the case I’m sure you walk under a lot of grouse and they just hold still and let you walk right by; those that do dive out of the tree tops, usually from the backside going 80 mph downhill. They make for a very sporty target.

This time I caught about half of the birds on the ground and half in trees.  The highlight of the day was when Lilly, a young French Brittany I am working tracked and retrieved her first bird, a bird I barely hit through a narrow window in the pine boughs. I watched Lilly work down the air-born scent cone along the flight path of the bird, and then disappear over the edge. She showed up about two minutes later with a big cock blue grouse in her mouth looking very proud of herself.