This week has been a tough one.
If you are anything like me, over the years, your hunting buddy’s dogs become like your own. While they may not share your house every day or steal food from your counter, they occupy space in your heart and leave gaping holes when they leave. Peanut was one of those special dogs. Not only had she become like one of my own, but she was also one of the most amazing sports medicine return-to-performance cases I’ve had in my career. She wasn’t just a dog; she was a testament to resilience and dedication. She was a dog that had become a part of my family—a dog I loved and had invested a lot of time and emotion into to ensure she could do the things she was bred and loved to do.
Brad and I have hunted together for more than 20 years. We’ve shared the joy of adding new pups to our team and, unfortunately, have suffered through the losses of multiple generations of our hunting dogs. I knew Peanut since she was a puppy and watched her grow into one of our most reliable bird dogs. She was one of those sweet dogs that didn’t have a mean bone in her body—a dog you just wanted to hug at the end of a run.
Eight years ago, I was in the clinic juggling the day when I got a call from Brad. Peanut had injured her rear leg. He wasn’t sure what had happened but said he’d try to text a video when they got back to town and had better cell coverage. I’ll never forget the moment I opened that text while sitting at my desk—I wanted to puke. Peanut had torn her Achilles. For most dogs, this would likely be a career-ending injury. Thankfully, Peanut wasn’t most dogs, and Brad was an owner willing to go above and beyond for her.
I had him rush her back to the clinic so I could perform confirmatory diagnostics. Then I got her into the hands of a good friend who happens to be one of the best veterinary surgeons in the country. It was a long road to recovery. The thin coat and skin of a pointer aren’t well-suited to things like casts followed by braces for weeks and months on end. We battled normal infections, incredibly resistant infections, and some of the most impressive pressure sores I’ve ever seen. Over the course of the next summer, though, we progressed toward our goal of getting her ready to be back out in the field.
Peanut hunted these last eight years in a custom-made brace to support her surgically repaired leg. The vast majority of owners would have thrown in the towel at some point, not wanting to be inconvenienced by the extra time of applying the brace and its various accoutrements before each run in the field. For Brad and Peanut, any such inconvenience was well worth the effort, as she continued to do the things she loved.
While Brad and I hunt together, when it comes to upland birds, it would be more accurate to say we hunt near each other. He takes a dog and goes in one direction, and I take a dog and go another. We’re rarely near enough to even know if the other had opportunities until we compare notes back at the truck. On one of our last trips, Peanut was feeling herself and ranging far and wide. We were hunting a piece where our paths intersected. I crossed over to take the defined edge back to the trucks with Vi, while he hunted her across an open flat. This presented a brief window where Peanut was out in front of me, and she slammed into a picture-perfect point. I walked in on the bird and connected. A late-season prairie chicken is about as good as it gets, and this one was even sweeter since I rarely have that opportunity over her.
When we hunted the next weekend, Brad mentioned he’d been thinking about that bird and thought it might be the last bird shot over Peanut. I dismissed his comment as crazy. Yes, she had had a rough life and was a month shy of 12, but there was nothing in the dog we’d been hunting with this season that caused me any pause or concern. On this trip, I brought along my camera equipment. I used to drag it along regularly and did a lot of photography, but with life being busy and little time to dedicate to processing, I rarely bring the fancy rig out in the field. Recently, some friends encouraged me to shoot videos of the dogs to gather more B-roll for my courses. On that particular day, I took a combination of videos of the four dogs we had along.
After the hunt, I found myself going through the footage with plans to create a montage set to music. The longer I reviewed the footage, the more I was drawn to the videos of Peanut and Brad. The care with which he applied the brace, her shaking with anticipation of what was to come, the happiness he showed watching her in the field, and the loving affection he gave her when putting her back in the truck—heaven forbid this princess see the inside of a crate.
I put the video together and posted it on Instagram, like so many others I’ve shared. The views started stacking up immediately. By the end of the night, it had over 10,000 views. As I write this post, two and a half weeks later, the video has amassed nearly 450k views and is one of the most popular I’ve ever posted. Clearly, it wasn’t just Brad and me who saw something special in Peanut.
Two days ago, I was scrambling to add additional insulation to my chicken coop before the next cold snap. My phone rang, and the caller ID showed it was Brad. While we text quite regularly, I knew a late-afternoon phone call couldn’t mean anything good. Something was wrong with Peanut. She couldn’t raise her head and was lying on the kitchen floor. Less than a half-hour earlier, she had been completely normal. My mind raced with possibilities, none of them good. I told him to get her here as quickly as possible, and we’d figure it out. Less than a half-hour later, the phone rang again. He was certain she had passed on the truck seat next to him.
When he arrived at the clinic, I helped him bring the lifeless body of this sweet girl inside. An exam revealed she had bled into the sac around her heart, likely from a tumor, and we surmise she had likely thrown a clot elsewhere that caused her death. Eerily similar to how quickly we lost Lily. The sweet dog I had shot a bird over three weeks ago, who was normal two hours prior, was no longer with us.
I truly believe that when owners suspect something is wrong with their dog, there usually is. If at first pass we don’t find an answer, I’ll often dig deeper than normal because there’s usually something. Looking back over the last three weeks, I wonder if, somehow subconsciously, Brad knew. His comment about it being the last bird over her had unsettled me at the time but proved correct. Less than a week ago, he had texted me about starting a puppy next year. I rarely carry my camera anymore. Why did I bring it on what ended up being her last trip? Perhaps it was intuition, or maybe fate guiding me to capture her final moments in the field. Was it all a big coincidence, or did his heart somehow know Peanut’s time was borrowed?
People often wonder if it’s better to lose a dog suddenly with no suffering or to have time to say goodbye and create those special “last” moments. The older I get, the more I think losing a dog just sucks no matter how it happens. Early in my career, when I struggled with euthanasia, I thought as I got older and wiser, I’d somehow be buffered to the loss or learn not to let my heart love so deeply. But as I’ve gotten older, I think the opposite is true. I understand even more the fragility of life and the brief moment of time we have on this Earth—and the even briefer time we get to share with these amazing creatures, like Peanut, whose presence leaves an indelible mark on our hearts.
This one hits doubly hard as my heart also breaks for my friend. On the surface, Brad and I have taken vastly different paths to get to this point in South Dakota. Right out of high school, he entered the Navy, traveled the world, and never looked back. He retired from the Navy and moved to South Dakota. I went the academic route: straight into vet school, marriage, and now kids, with my life path bringing me here as well. We met through one of the old hunting message boards back before Facebook and Instagram. Brad often asks how we became friends, but what overlaps is a deep appreciation and love for the dogs we chase in these outdoor pursuits. We also share common views on what’s important during a hunt and are rarely concerned about counts and pile pics. I’m an introvert and share the field with only a handful of people. Most of those days not spent by myself in the field are spent with Brad. He has become part of a space I don’t allow many people into and is an integral part of my life. The hole in my heart is nothing compared to his, and words can’t lessen the pain. I hate that there is nothing I can do to ease the pain.
She was an incredible dog who will be missed. Until we meet again, Peanut. repair options for cruciate ligament injuries and what you can expect during recovery.
