When we were just out hunting, we took our dogs collars off. We felt that the tags made too much noise, dangling around. They are chipped and they still had their e-collars on. We will rivet I'd tags on their e-collars if we go again. So I see how it happens. We have good control of our dogs, (They listen to us, they are trained to.) but if you didn't I can see how it could happen.
I didn't know Tank's name but he responded to basic commands, Here, Sit, Kennel, ect. The area where I found him very often has pheasants on the road & in the ditch, I suspect he just got a noseful of birds scent and just couldn't resist going after them. Damn lucky he didn't get hit on the road.
Can happen to the best of them, Dan O. I used to live NE of Devils Lake, an area that gets a ton of NR waterfowl hunters each Fall. It was not at all uncommon to see a strange and obviously lost lab or chessie, often with an e-collar and/or vest, running out in the fields around my farmstead. I reported every one I ever saw, but never got a single one to come to me.
A closer to home example... My labs are finished and trained to respond to vocal, whistle, and silent hand signal commands (not just 3 hand casting), but back in October I was hunting solo mission with the Wrecking Crew on a PLOTS and darned near lost one. This particular piece has heavy cover, much of it higher than a dog's head. The Crew flushed a rooster which I hit, it sailed over a hill about 50 yards ahead with all three in hot pursuit. It looked like a routine cripple retrieve and walked up the hill expecting to see them with the bird. I was surprised to find they were nowhere in sight. Found Harley & Jetta down the bank by the river about 100 yards away and they returned as soon as I called them in. Boogie was nowhere to be found. I started whistling & paging her, no joy. Not long after I saw birds across the river a good half mile away flushing, and I strongly suspected Boog had followed the sailing cripple across the the river then lost sight of it and just kept going on the line, flushing birds as she went.
I kept going to the property line, whistling and paging to no avail. I then headed back to the truck a mile away. As I got to within a quarter mile, I saw Boogie running toward the truck from the cross road at the property corner a half mile SW of me. She had apparently gone all the way to the east side of the PLOTS and was flushing the birds I saw, then ran south along the fence to the SE parking area, which she knew as we hunt this spot fairly often. Not finding us or the truck, she then ran a mile west on the road, and from the crossroads saw the truck parked a half mile north and ran to it. When I got to within 200 yards or so, Boogie heard my whistle then saw us, and immediately responded. Clearly she got herself so far out she couldn't hear the whistle, and no doubt felt the collar paging but couldn't see me because the cover was so thick & didn't know where to come back to.
are missing this guy, message me. I'll check with the vets in town too.
