Cotton and the Dog Boys

It was a beautiful October Sunday in Iowa, opening weekend of pheasant season, 2001. The weather was cooperating this year, as was the bird population. My buddy Ed and I attended mass before we headed to the hunting fields. I like to think this helps account for our very good day. Who’s to say? Today we were hunting north of Lenox up by Oakland, Iowa on the Dewan Robinson farm and his 500 acres of switch grass. Today we were in in for a surprise. Several actually.

My son GK and I made the 32-hour drive from San Diego to Lenox this year with a new pup, Cromwell an English Setter. Cromwell was just eight months and had not yet seen a wild pheasant. Joining us at the Howland compound were Ed Hartwell, Mark Abendroth, and Scott Busch long time hunting buddies and charter members of the Southwest Iowa Sportsmen & Liars Club. I am the president and founding member. It is a lifetime self-appointment. Scott brought along Cotton his pure white English Pointer.

Scott picked up Cotton from a local dog trainer a few years before and she came with some baggage. A whole cartload of luggage as it turns out. Cotton was to have been trained as a Trials Dog. Her idiot trainer broke her with a shock collar and she would never be a Trials Dog. Poor Cotton had been abused. When she didn’t respond to commands her trainer would lay on the shock collar. He did this until she was completely broken. While not the norm sadly such training techniques are not rare in the Field Trials world and when dogs don’t make the grade their owners often destroy them. Sometimes, like Cotton they are sold as hunting dogs or pets. Little Cotton was a sweetheart by nature but of course she exhibited all the signs of an abused dog, when a stranger approached she would squat and pee or when one attempted to pet her she would shy away.

I had a particular soft spot for Cotton mostly because I just like dogs and also because a couple of years before she showed me her mettle. We were hunting up a slough and the wind was pretty stiff that day. The slough split halfway up the hill and I sent the rest of the guys up the heavy side with both dogs and I took the thin split without a dog. Naturally as I approached the end a rooster flushed out ahead of me but just within range. I raised my old single-shot and boomed off a round. A hit. The old boy waggled in the wind but continued over the other side of the hill. Darn. When I reached the top of the hill I paused at the fence line gazing across a picked bean field hoping to see my bird dead on the ground. No such luck. Then I saw something moving. Way off I could see a white shape tearing across the hillside. It was Cotton running down my errant bird. She caught the wounded rooster and brought the bird to Scott, her master. From then on Cotton had earned her place with the Mighty Hunters and a place in my heart.

Well that was then, over the years Cotton slowly began to slip away from us. She would hunt less and less. She would start out the hunt but often she would abandon the group and find her way back to the truck. But since she was one of us we never remonstrated against bringing her along on the hunt. If Cotton wanted to hunt, fine. If Cotton wanted to sleep by the truck, also fine.

Today back in Iowa we parked our vehicles in the drive of our host’s home. Dewan and Marge lived in a ranch style brick house built right off of the main highway. Behind the house stands a windbreak of mature pine trees planted to block the winter winds. We climbed out of our trucks and stretching out our road kinks as we surveyed the beautiful fall landscape that stretched out before us. A far as the eye could see were roads and fencerows dividing up the patched quilt landscape into rectangles that resembled a Mondrian painting done in browns, tans, greens, oranges, yellows. The entire world before us stood out in stark relief under an azure sky, the air was clear as we joked with each other in an easy fellowship.

It was mid-morning when we arrived at our host’s farm. We set off with Cotton and young Cromwell slogging through the heavy, head-high switch grass. Cotton hunted for a time but eventually she abandoned us for the shade of Scott’s truck. Oh well, let the girl rest. Scott hooked her to a lead placing food and water within her reach. The highway traffic was heavy so Cotton could not be allowed to roam free.

After a lunch in Oakland we piled into one vehicle and headed to the neighboring field where Babe (Dewan, our host) was picking corn. It was a small field and the yield this year in corn and pheasants was excellent. We shot a couple of birds in the morning but this hunting next to the field as it was being combined was another story indeed. As Babe would approach the end rows roosters would flush and we would shoot them. It was a plethora of roosters. Soon the day was waning, we shot eight roosters and found seven, one we could not find. After some searching we decided to be satisfied with our lucky seven.

When we arrived back at Scott’s truck Cotton was nowhere to be found. “Where’s Cotton?” was the question.

“She must have slipped her collar,” sez I.

We looked under the truck, no Cotton. We looked around the house, no Cotton.

“Maybe she is in the field behind the trees,” I offered. “I’ll drive around and take a look.”

Ed and I were in my Expedition and I pulled off the driveway into the field then bore left behind the windbreak of trees. When I rounded the corner of the trees there she was laying in some tall grass.
“There she is,” I pointed to her as she jumped to her feet.

The sudden appearance of the Expedition spooked Cotton who ran off at a full tilt away from the house. I floored the gas to get ahead of her and herd her back towards home. I didn’t want her to get into the tall switch grass. If she did we would play hell finding her. Every time I would get her headed back to home base she would swerve away trending farther and farther from the house.

“Whoo whee!” I shouted. “We’re herding dog. We’re dog boys!” I was beginning to have fun with the situation.

I looked over at Ed but he didn’t seem to be finding the same level of humor in the circumstance as I was. I would speed up and Cotton would swerve around me, or cut right angles away from me. Soon I was driving us in circles and curlicues.

The very act of what I was doing soon had me laughing like a mad man. I realized it was a totally ridiculous thing I was doing but I couldn’t stop myself. I accelerated turning didoes and doing everything I could to herd that dog back to her master. Cotton turned away from the tall grass and headed towards a picked bean field, a shallow ditch separated the two fields. I was heading for the ditch at high speed.

“Look out!” Ed shouted in a panicked voice.

“I see it,” I laughed the reply, much to Ed’s consternation.

Ed’s eyes nearly came out of the sockets when the truck left earth for a brief moment. I can still see the shock on his face when his head hit the roof. At over six-foot Ed’s head was much closer to the roof than yours truly. Cotton made it across the ditch ahead of us and hit bean ground. By this time Scott and GK joined the chase in Scott’s truck. We surrounded her a couple of times but Cotton was stopping for no man, or vehicle for that matter. We would circle her and she would slow for a moment. Scott called and whistled but every time she paused Cotton’s fear got the better of her and she was off on the run, again. Poor Cotton her ears were laid back, her tail straight down, and her eyes went from the looking forward eyes of a predator to the panicked eyes of prey.

Soon Cotton was a half-mile away from the house, all the way to the next gravel road with us in hot pursuit. Ed and I drove through the open gate at high speed trying to stop her on the road before she made it through the fencerow but to no avail. Cotton went through the fence, over the road, and through the next fence like they were not even there. Both trucks shot into the next field one after the other. Cotton was off at a high lope. Soon she was well into the next mile.

When I looked ahead and saw Cotton run into a field of picked corn I hit the brakes. That was it for me she could run to Des Moines for all that. I knew that driving over a cornfield would be like driving over a field of small logs. Scott forged ahead rolling his SUV gingerly over the bumpy ground. Finally, finally Cotton was run out. She stopped and came to her master’s whistle. She got a hug and a nice pet for her reward. We laughed and laughed. Poor Cotton seemed no worse the wear for her adventure. I dubbed us “Dog Boys” a new designation in the rodeo world no doubt.

Ah, but our surprises were not yet done for the day. Babe spied us cutting up like the fools we were and waving us over to his combine asked, “did you fellas lose something?” He reached down to the floor of the combine and presented us with our eighth rooster. Babe spied it when he made a turn with the combine on one of the rows. What a way to end the day. We were feeling particularly lucky now. We caravanned the sixty miles back to Lenox. On highway 71 driving south just before it crosses highway 34 a huge, heavy-horned buck charged across the road right at my truck. In a flash I swerved missing the buck by mere inches. The old boy slipped past the rear of my truck and dodged between my vehicle and Scott’s. How we did not hit him I don’t know. He hit the ditch at a dead run as we gasped our relief. Must have been the luck of the Dog Boys.

What a day that was. In the span of time it was one day out of the many great days of hunting I have had over the years. That day however was the kind of day that brought us one surprise after another. The years roll on. I have gone from being a fairly solitary hunter to hosting my little group year in and year out. I have seen the addition and subtraction of old friends, the inclusion of our children, many of whom now have their own. Perhaps they too will join our little band of misfits when they are ready. Little Cotton went on to a comfortable retirement in Scott’s back yard. Though she had wonderful treatment from her new master over the years she has since gone on to her reward out of this world and (I hope) to a better one. Cotton may be gone but never forgotten by her Dog Boys of the Southwest Iowa Sportsmen & Liars Club.