The day I have been waiting for has finally arrived! Pheasant hunting season in Minnesota opened Oct. 16, and there are a few things your hunting dogs need before you get out in the field.
Many dog owners will let these items slip until something bad happens, and then they have to deal with them in the aftermath.
Trim toenails
The first task is to trim your dog’s toenails. Most dogs live in the house and are not able to wear their toenails down as they can do over the hunting season.
Long toenails can end up breaking off in the habitat. They don’t often come all the way off, but they break back into the fleshy part of the nail and bleed more than you would think.
A dog can come up lame for several weeks if the nail break is significant. There is almost nothing you can do for this problem after it has happened, and only time will heal the damage.
Cutting your dog’s nails is something best done on a schedule. If they get too long, you cannot cut them back to the proper length all at one time. You will have to do a trim, wait a week or two for the cuticle to back up, and trim them again. It might take three to five trimmings to get the nail to a length that is not prone to damage.
A broken nail is one issue, but I have seen dogs whose nails got so long that they actually broke down the bones in the dogs’ foot to a point where they go lame permanently.
Care for eyes and ears
Two other things you need to do in the season on a regular basis is ear wash and eye wash.
Dogs that are in and out of the water on a regular basis can get several different kinds of infections or parasites.
Ear mites and different bacterial or yeast infections are quite common if regular preventative ear maintenance is not completed.
A gentle squirt of ear wash and a gentle massage is all it takes in most cases to keep ear issues at bay. I do this about two times per month over the entire hunting season and once a month in the off season.
When’s the last time you rinsed out your dogs’ eyes after a hunt?
I do this after every hunt and try to do it before the dog gets back in the truck, if possible. If not, they certainly need to get rinsed when they get home before they get fed.
I have washed as many as 10 different native grass seeds out of my dogs’ eyes after a hunt. You could not even see them present in the eye socket. I just use sterile saline.
Non-medicated contact solution can also work. Never buy a product that is under pressure. It would be awful if the pressure in the can injured the dog while you were trying to do something responsible. Only a squeeze bottle is recommended. I keep this bottle in my hunting coat and not in the truck. A bottle of eye wash that is 3 degrees from freezing is not to be used on your dog.
My dogs seem to actually enjoy a fresh flush in their eyes after a hunt. Can you imagine the discomfort they must suffer from those seeds under their eye lids? Even after the flush I continue to watch for rubbing or pawing at their eyes. Sometimes it takes two or three flushes to remove all of the debris.
High energy hunting dogs need care, and even if they are a house dog most of the year, they cannot be tended to like a house dog when hunting season comes around.
Watch for injuries
After each hunt do a thorough body scan of your dog. Cuts and other injuries can be repaired a lot easier if done right away.
A cut or tear that is more than a day old will require the vet to cut back the skin to reach new health cells before a stitching can be successful. It happened to me many years ago. Try to avoid this mistake if at possible.
The dog and the hunter have an interdependent relationship. We need the dog to find, flush and retrieve our birds. The dogs need us to shoot the game in order for them to get their prize, which to them is the retrieve.
If the dog does bad, we don’t physically suffer. If we do bad, the dog certainly suffers. Be a great dog owner and pay attention to the details that many dog owners don’t concentrate on enough.
My fourth dog comes home from my training partner on Nov. 5. Until then I will hunt with the three I have.
The only thing better than one Labrador is two, and so on and so on till you get to four. Four is a magic number at my house. Life is good. Life with lots of dogs is better.
Scott Rall, Worthington, is a habitat conservationist, avid hunting and fishing enthusiast and is president of Nobles County Pheasants Forever. He can be reached at scottarall@gmail.com. or on Twitter @habitat champion.