I Was The Dog

Last night at dinner, Miss Healthypants thought this story was really funny and said I should blog about it.

So, I'm blogging about it. . .

When I was a wee lad growing up in south Texas, my mom and grandfather really enjoyed hunting doves and quails. I wanted nothing to do with guns (and still don't) but I and my brother were often taken along on these hunting excusions.

They would find a flock of these birds flying about and BANG! - - you'd see one fall out of the sky. Since I wasn't about to hunt them, it was my job to scurry out in the field and retrieve the dead bird. (This lasted from about age 7 to 11 years old.)

So, essentially, I became a pretty good bird dog. I could also retrieve fluffy rabbits when needed.

Sometimes, the bird (or fluffy rabbit) wouldn't be all the way dead yet and I'd have to "do the deed." I really hated to see them suffer.

Dove and quail hunting usually take place in the late afternoon or evening. We'd arrive home at "dark-thirty" which, as every Texan knows, is a half hour after sunset. (It's illegal to hunt after sunset.)

It was also my job to clean the birds when we got home and I became pretty good at it. We would only keep the breasts as the rest of the little birds are too boney to deal with.

A dozen or so would go in the freezer and every so often, we'd have fried doves for dinner. They have a really dark flesh but frying them like chicken with some cream gravy makes for a pretty good meal.

So, that is my experience in hunting game. . . I was the dog.