Tate

When Kristin and I got married one of the first things we did was start searching for a dog. For both of us growing up, a dog really wasn’t in the equation and it was something we had both been dreaming of for a long time. It is not a secret that since about the age of 15 my favorite hobby is waterfowl hunting. For many years I had always wanted a duck dog. Now when you first get married the budget for things like this are not huge, but I was determined to find a dog that had enough of a pedigree that would turn into the duck dog I had been imagining in my mind. I had been watching videos on how to train dogs and chomping at the bit to find a puppy. At that time I was also into reading all the posts and recommendations from retriever training and duck hunting forums as well. And all everyone said for a duck dog was get a dog with lots of drive. The last thing I was looking for was a chocolate lab. Honestly, I think this is because my older brother's friend had a chocolate lab that I had bonded with a little when I was in high school and it just never wore off. 

Then one day it finally happened. I had found a litter out of a field trial line in Wisconsin that seemed to have a great breeding lineage, should produce some chocolates, and was priced to what we could afford. I contacted the breeder and before I knew it, we had a deposit down for a male chocolate lab. It was at this point, I bought a couple of training DVDs and started gearing up for getting a dog. We got a crate, food bowls, a little blue collar, and some toys. We also got a larger crate that we could block off part of and put a blanket in for him that he could relax in as well. We couldn’t wait and the name determination was starting. 

It seemed like forever but we finally got the news that the litter of puppies had arrived and that mom was doing well, but it was quite the surprise that there were only two puppies in the litter. One male and one female, both chocolates. Thankfully we had put our deposit down early enough that we had the first pick for the only male. We said yup, we will take him and over the next 7 weeks enjoyed getting the updates on how everything was going from the breeder. Until finally that 7 weeks was up, he was healthy and ready to go to come home with us. 

When we went to pick him up to say he was cute, would be an understatement. After settling the paperwork and balance, we told the breeder who had called him and his littermate tater tots, that he would keep the name Tater Tot and be Tate for short. Although through the years he was also called Tater quite a bit as well. I remember him being tentative and nervous to leave, and we had a bit of a drive to get home. But he settled into a blanket on Kristin’s lap and snuggled and slept the whole way home. 

When he got home, from day 1 his main characteristics showed right away. His drive was definitely high. He would play so hard and then crash. He loved eating so much that we had to do things like put tennis balls in his food dish, have him eat from a muffin pan, or put his food in a ball that he would have to work to get so that he didn’t eat too fast and give himself a tummy ache. He potty trained fast, and puppy biting wasn’t too bad to get under control, but one thing he struggled with (really his whole life) was learning to be quiet. One of the things that was taught to us, because every day we were learning something new, was to use a little spray bottle with a gentle mist to the nose area for whining and barking. I can vividly remember the night, when the whining really needed to stop. He had been out for his potty break, and we knew he was whining to just get out of his crate at night. We had just started the spray bottle thing not too long ago but long enough I thought I could use it that night. Well by the time he was finally quiet, the front of his face was dripping wet and he gave me the look like, ok I get it and laid down. From that point on (until he got old here at the end) he was pretty good at being in his kennel. The one place that he really liked his kennel was the car. He always, and especially at the end, loved car rides. 

One of the first things people and training material recommended was to socialize him and that we did. We brought him everywhere we could and let him meet everyone. He would greet everyone at my grandma’s nursing home. Play fetch with anyone, as long as they throw him something. One place that soon became one of his favorites though was the cabin. It is where he learned to swim. I encouraged him in and it took him a while to get comfortable with it. But once he did, I couldn’t get him out. He liked it up there so much, he knew when we hit the dirt road going into it where we were and his excited teeth chattering would start. One time he swam so much he got swimmers' tail. It is also where he learned to ride in boats. I remember one trip that just he and I went up there for a weekend, and when we got home he wouldn’t get out of his crate in the truck. I unpacked the truck and cleaned it up before he was like, ok I will go in. 

His training had gone well. Very quickly he picked up retriever training. I did get stuck on a few things, so I found a local professional to help me. It is at this point I want to pause a little. I am not going to lie, I didn’t think training him to be a duck dog would be too tough. The DVDs made it look so easy. But Tate humbled me quickly. Looking back on all this,  I realize he trained and taught me, so much more than I did him. And for that I will always be grateful for. I don’t want to get controversial here, but he opened my eyes to so many things that I wish I could have done differently. But that is for another day. I also had made a friend with another professional trainer through a waterfowl hunting connection. He and I made a deal. He helped me train Tate. Mostly with getting used to gun noise, if I would throw marks for his dog. One mistake I made was focusing so hard on learning to retrieve that we kind of forgot manners. And boy did we figure this out the first time Kristin and I took him out “hunting”. It was at the cabin after a morning hunting with both of our dad’s that we got him out of his kennel and took him down the makeshift blind we had made that morning. A loon landed out in front of our decoys and Tate lost his mind and it took a lot to get him back in his blind and to calm down. This would kind of become a theme for him to come. 

I don’t want to rip on him too much so let's take a minute to focus on his best trait. It wasn’t long after we obtained Tate we found out Kristin was pregnant with Eli. From the minute we brought her home, he was really good with her and I think Kristin as well. Before Eli, his crate was in our bedroom, but he seemed to quickly welcome the move out into the living room. He was good about giving space but also seemingly knowing when to snuggle up. As she grew up, he was amazing about letting her climb and snuggle up with him. Eli also enjoyed watching him. I remember the joy she got watching him push the ball around trying to get his dinner to come out of it. She would sit on my lap and watch him content for quite a while. Eli also enjoyed training him with me at a very young age. Then we added another. And another. And another. And this repeated itself until we had 6. He was amazing with all the kids his whole life. He was patient and very gentle and taught them many things as well. He put up with being climbed on, dressed up, and running horse patterns. All but the last two boys have helped with training him as well. The one kid that really took to him though was Brooke. She just seemed to have a bond with him that really no one else did. She climbed and snuggled with him more than the rest of the kids and he seemed to take to this. So much so, that he would often seek her out to sit next to or on top of. It is hard to explain, but it was just there and it never really went away. 

Tate’s hunting career really started with a big trip to Saskatchewan with my dad, father in-law, uncle, and both Kristin and I. We worked hard to get him ready for this trip. He was not quite two yet. He greatly enjoyed the ride up there, and all the driving for scouting but come time to hunt, he still couldn’t quite get the sit still, be quiet, and wait part. The excitement got the best of him, and for much of the trip he had to sit the hunting part out still. He did get to make a few retrieves on the first morning in a pond after a little jump shoot though. We worked hard on his steadiness from there on out. But recreating the excitement of hunting during training was hard to do. For me and him. His first goose hunts in central Minnesota were quite funny. We didn’t get one the first time, and that was good for him. My friend and I got 7 his second hunt, and this was when we discovered the next thing he had to work on. Carrying large objects. He couldn’t quite figure out how to carry those large birds. After much work though, another friend and I had a hunt where we got two. Tate held steady when the birds worked in, and retrieved both birds. The other goose hunt that stuck out to me with him in this same area, was with my dad, father in-law, and neighbor at the time. We got 10 birds and he had made some good retrieves. Steadiness and patience were still something he needed to work on. But the last bird sailed into a pond behind us. When my friend and I walked over the hill we could see the goose dead as a doornail, but floating out in the middle. We didn’t have waders because we were hunting in a field, and I didn’t really want to go swimming either. Some thick cattails surrounded the pond, but I tried to send Tate on a blind retrieve through them. After a couple of attempts he couldn’t figure out how to get all the way through the cattails out to the open water. If he would be able to do that, he would be able to see the bird easily. We walked around the other side of the pond and found a muskrat trail through the cattails. I walked down as far as I could with my taller boots (I even went a little too far and the water went over on one boot), and sent him on the retrieve down the trail. He disappeared into the open water and after a little while appeared. With the goose in his mouth. 

Some of his better waterfowl hunts were out in western Minnesota where I used to like to hunt. One Minnesota duck opener, he made several good retrieves on a  small pond. We also had one funny hunt out there when he first started hunting as well. It had to be his second year of getting to go hunting. Two friends, my dad and I walked back to this slough, and got set up. Not much after sunrise a coot came in and landed less than 10 ft in front of him. And boy did it get the best of him. With a little howl, which became his signature excited howl, he took off after it. I tried my best to stop him and then recall him, but it was not to no avail. He chased that thing across the pond, into the cattails, and then after finally figuring out he was never going to catch it, came back across to us. This was the one thing, he just never wanted to master for duck hunting. Sitting quietly and waiting, and being steady (not going to retrieve until he was told). At our second house we had enough land and were out in the country enough that I could shoot blanks for training. All summer he would be steady training, but as soon as we got hunting and that first duck got shot. He was tough to stop. I blame myself and not him for all of this. I enjoy duck hunting so much, and his high drive would feed off of my excitement. And the excited switch would flip on for both of us. 

I will wrap up telling about his duck hunting career with his best weekend of hunting. It was a trip to North Dakota with two friends and my dad. We were out hunting potholes and the first morning was a little slow. However we managed to get a few. Two of which were divers, I believe red heads, that sailed out into the middle of a deep pond. I was sitting back with Tate all morning helping him with his steadiness as much as I could. We shot two out of the flock. He went after the first one and when he got there, it dove on him and he actually went under the water completely after it. When he came up, he was a little disheveled and he gave up on the chase. When he did this, we ended up dispatching the bird completely but by that time the second one and this one had now drifted pretty far out. Tate couldn’t see where I was sending him and balked a little at the blind retrieve. What we ended up having to do was shoot next to them. One the gunshots got him fired up. A quick tangent. Many people have dogs that are afraid of thunder. Tate used to run around looking out the windows looking for downed birds during them. Now back to the story. Two he saw where the shot hit the water. And the chase was on. He swam, I would estimate about a hundred yards out and chased down the first bird. And then went back for the second. After not getting too many birds that morning, although Tate had still been able to get a good amount of energy out with the longer swims, we went scouting the rest of the morning and wouldn’t you know it we found a pond holding big numbers of ducks. With plenty of time left in the morning, we decided to try spreading out on the pond a little bit and see if we could get a few more. The younger of the two friends and I went back into this little hole in the back, and it turns out it was book sucking thick muck and shallow. But this was where the birds wanted to be and eventually my dad and other friend joined us and we shot quite a few more birds. Tate fought hard through the muck but this was one of the only times his incredible drive turned into, I am done. With what turned out to be the last duck of the morning, he got out about a third of the way to the duck, in up to his stomach muck, turned around, came back to his blind, hopped up in it and laid down. I got what he was saying so I went out to retrieve the bird. The rest watched as it took me about 30 minutes to complete this task. I told everyone else, I am done and it looks like Tate is done, so if you shoot anymore, you are going to get them. We called the hunt, and when walking back, Tate stayed close to my dad, not moving very fast and I remember thinking. Crap, I just broke my dog. Incredibly with a good night's rest, he was ready to go the next morning. The second morning is another funny story. We did well, not great, but we had one sail across the pond. We saw it was dead so we let it float to the edge of the weed line on the other side. During a lull in the action, I began walking around the pond with Tate to go get the duck. We got about half way there. And let me tell you, Tate moved way faster than I could. When some ducks started flying somewhat close to our spread. My friend called at the ducks and Tate heard it. He looked at me, and was like well see ya later. He took off back around the pond, hopped up into the blind, ready for some action. I had to finish the walk, and go wade out to get the duck myself as he wasn’t convinced when I tried to call him back to me. The last morning on this trip was Tate’s best ever duck hunt. We shot 18 birds back in the muck hole. Although this time we were a little further back, and he figured out a spot where it was deep enough he could swim back to us. And he loved to swim. Most of the action that morning was on the opposite side of where he and I were sitting. So I could sit right next to him and help him through being steady. Although he still wasn’t totally steady, he would break out onto this little pad of cattails to see the birds going down on the other side better. He retrieved every bird, and he would find his swimming path back to the cattails where he could then run in behind us to deliver the bird. The last one he couldn’t see at all, but he got it on a blind retrieve. Although my day shooting was a little slower, because I was on the slower side, I was beaming with pride in how Tate handled that morning. 

His steadiness and being quiet with his signature excited howl, we never really found a great solution too. So I had to retire him a little early as a duck dog as he got older (and still even more stubborn) but with so much drive in him, I had to figure out how to wear him out. So I took up pheasant hunting. I didn’t really know how to train Tate for this, but one trait he always had was he didn’t really like getting too far away from people. When he was young Kristin and I let him off leash at the farm we goose hunted at for the first time. I can remember him running out a little ways and then stopping to look back for us. He pretty much always did this. So he naturally stayed close to me. This theory would get tested a little as he started figuring out the pheasant hunting game but we will get to that. I had tagged along on one pheasant hunt once when I was younger, but I had never really done a lot of it before this. So Tate and I had to figure it out. For the first couple of years, I think Tate just thought it was going for a walk while I carried my shotgun. We kicked up a few hens but never managed to get a rooster. I was bound and determined to fix this. So I planned a trip with two seasoned pheasant hunters. My father in law and my neighbor went to South Dakota with us to go chase pheasants for a couple of days. My neighbor also had a lab that was much more used to good pheasant hunting at the time. Tate was almost seven by this time. The first day was tough. We had an early snow storm come in, but by about mid day on the second day my neighbor and his dog tracked one down and got one. And Tate was out behind them when it happened, but the gunshot fired him up and I could see the lights beginning to turn on. Then later in the day he kicked up a rooster and I shot my first rooster (not including one I shot out of a ditch road hunting while on a waterfowl hunting trip). He found it and I grabbed it from him. And then I could see it all click in his head and a pheasant hunting machine was created. We had a little mishap on this trip after this. My neighbor and I tried to push a little bit of standing corn (food plot not farming) on land that was open to the public. We put the two dogs in front of us, picked a line to stay on, and agreed to push straight through over your head corn. Well it turned out the row on my side turned left while the row on his went straight. So I ended up on the side of all the corn while he and the dogs went straight. I had no clue where Tate was at that point. I was mad at myself for not seeing this coming and I was quite nervous about trying to figure out how to find him. I tried yelling for him a little bit but it was to no avail. I remember having to take a step back and say a prayer. Here is the funny thing. Had I just stayed a little calmer, I would have known to walk to the edge of the other end, because here is what eventually happened. The three of them, Tate the other dog, and my neighbor popped out not too much longer and right in front of them a handful of roosters too. I remember falling to my knees and the relief when he popped out with them, and thinking to myself I will never let that happen again. The last day of the trip, we ended up pushing thick cattails during the golden hour (last hour of the day) but we could stay walking in knocked down cattails while the dogs worked the thicker cover right next to us. We ended up getting 5 birds, but the last was the most memorable. My father in-law had yet to get a bird this trip. I was starting to connect things as well on this hunt, so I encouraged him to get out in front of the rest of us right up where the dogs were working and sure enough a big rooster popped out. He took his time, got on it, and nailed it. But the bird dropped into some thick cattail cover. I had a good mark on it, and we started after it. We looked a little while but with no sign of the rooster. Tate all of a sudden caught up to us smelt around for a bit and then poked his head into a clump of cattails and popped out with it. I can remember hearing the praise of my father in law in a joyful tone for Tate and the adrenaline still kicking in playing cribbage that night. 

It wasn’t much after that, we moved out to South Dakota (for reasons partly due to that last trip) and for the rest of his life Tate was in paradise. That first fall it took a little while for him and I to figure things out here, but not too long we got our first pheasant since moving here in a spot about 10 minutes from where we live. And let me tell you we were both on cloud nine. But there have been a couple of days hunting since moving that really stick out to me. The former neighbor, from the last trip, came out to visit us. The kids played while he and I took the dogs hunting. I won’t lie and say his ability to move faster through thicker cover was better than mine and Tate kind of fed off this energy. After two days of lots of pheasant walks, Tate literally couldn’t move. This was the second and only other time he ran out of drive. I had to carry him in from the truck. But he didn’t look mad or sad. He looked like he was thinking. That, was, awesome. He recovered well by the next morning. Better than me, that's for sure. 

Kristin got to join Tate and I on one of these adventures, when her parents came out for Thanksgiving. They watched the kids for a bit while we went out. I had discovered a little honey hole, a small piece of public ground surrounded by corn and had some good solid cover that you couldn’t see very well from the road. Tate and I had managed to get one out here about every time we tried this spot, and this time was no different. We managed to get one with about 20 minutes left of sunlight. And Kristin was hooked. We ended up getting her a shotgun that fit her better than one of mine, and she and Tate went on lots of treks looking for her first pheasant. 

One of these trips was on our family trip up to northern South Dakota. Her parents met us out there and Kristin and her dad followed Tate, while some kiddos and her mom followed them. They managed to get into a good group of pheasants and they both got off some shots, but none hit their target. Tate decided he had had enough, and came running back to me with the younger kids, a little tired after a day full of hunting. I know he and Kristin had some other close calls but never got it to work out for them. While the success in harvesting a bird wasn’t there, the success to see Tate in his happy place was. And that is worth everything. 

As Tate got older, he still never developed an off switch, but early in the season especially, his body couldn’t keep up. I remember the first time this was really noticeable, and he came back and laid down was sore and struggled to move. I was worried this was the beginning of the end for him, but it turns out it was just the beginning of his second phase of pheasant hunting. He couldn’t go all day like he used to be able to, but he sure could go hard for a good golden hour hunt and we were thankful to have good places within a half hour of our house to hunt. During the year Kolbe was born, he and I had stumbled across this place really close to our house that just held pheasants all year. During the resident opener, I should have had my limit there within 40 min or so but didn’t even manage to get one. But we hunted there at least once a week, for just the last hour to hour and half of the day pretty much the rest of the season. And this would be the place, Tate got his last pheasant. It was amazing. We got there and trekked across to the other side of the spot, to give the pheasants some space to come back into a certain cover. But another person was hunting there and so to give both of us some room, we decided to go another direction. The cover was thin until we reached a small pond that had some heavy cattails surrounding it. When we got close, Tate got awfully birdy and I thought how in the world are we going to work this cover. Thankfully it wasn’t too wide, so I could walk the edge and he could get into the cover. And sure enough it didn’t take long and this huge rooster popped up. I made a good shot and he pummelled into the thick cattails. I was pretty sure he was pretty dead, and I got a good mark on it, but even so I was worried we were going to lose that bird because the cattails were so thick. Tate never came out to look for me, instead he stayed in the thick cover. So I gave him a minute. All of a sudden where I had marked the bird the cattails were giggling below and I knew he had it. He grabbed it and made his way toward me, and I was calling to him letting him know where I was at. When he popped out, with it in his mouth, his shoulders were back and he was beaming with pride. I got it from him, and as soon as I had it even though there was still plenty of time left in the day, he pinned his shoulders back and strutted off towards the truck. It was a walk off shot. 

Tate lived a long thirteen and half year, full life. I’d like to think he had the best life. Our food on the counter will be safer and our house will be quieter now. And let me tell you the mark on me he left is struggling a bit with this right now. Tate humbled me, and taught me WAY more than I taught him. Tate you were the best first dog a guy could ever ask for, thank you for giving me some of the best days of my life.