How To Say Goodbye to Your Gun Dog

It's never easy, but at some point, we'll all have to say goodbye to a gun dog. The relationship between a hunting dog and a hunter is different than any other dog/owner relationship. While there are people who tuck their bichons in their purses and carry them everywhere, no one gets closer to a dog than a hunter.

There is a strong bond between hunting companions. I consider people I've hunted with as good friends, even if that hunt only lasted a weekend. A good hunting dog is the long-term hunting companion who doesn't make fun of you for missing an easy pheasant shot, falling into the stream on a duck hunt, or snoring relentlessly through the night.


I say this as I have a nice long time with Boru, who is curled up at my feet right now under my desk. I have had to say goodbye to a great dog before.

Perk Perkins, Orvis CEO, recently had to put down his 14 1/2-year-old English Pointer, and paid tribute to him with an excellent piece on the new Orvis News site.

There are countless other wonderful tributes to fallen hunting comrades written by some of the best authors in the outdoor world. For some reason, though, there are never tributes so eloquently written about our human hunting partners. Maybe if those hunting buddies didn't make fun of us, kept our feet warm, and fetched our birds, we'd be more apt to pay tribute to them too.