By Kim Hiss

     I got to the office today, and a co-worker had sent an email offering free golden retriever pups, with a picture of an impossible-to-resist litter of warm, fuzzy furballs. There's no way I could take another animal at the moment living in an apartment, but offers like that always make me seriously consider it just for a second before I have to talk some sense into myself.

     Later in the day, I saw this Arizona Republic story about a Lab who ate a pair of Super Bowl tickets totaling $1,900 in value. That helped get me off my new puppy kick as well. Apparently as punishment, the Lab, a 3-year-old named Buddy (at right with the incriminating evidence), isn't allowed to watch the game.
     I've been wanting to write a dog-blog for a little while, and kept looking for a good news story to give me an excuse to do so. But considering that we're passed the time of year when a great dog-saves-duck-hunter-from-drowning headline is likely to pop up, I figure this ticket mishap will have to do.
     So now's the time for your best and worst dog stories -- from great hunts to utter training disasters. Remembrances of past companions are also welcome (the first story I ever edited for Field & Stream was a one-page piece about the death of a bird hunter's favorite retriever - it's amazing how upset you can get over stories like that when it's not even your dog!). -K.H.

By Kim Hiss

A few weeks ago, Field & Stream deputy editor David E. Petzal did a guest post for us on the difference (or lack thereof) between men and women hunters. I know we got a kick out of commenting on the topic, so Mr. Petzal -- endlessly accommodating gentleman that he is -- agreed to do another. (Note, the photo below is actor Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie "Jarhead," not editor David E. Petzal, but honestly, they could be brothers!) -K.H.

Can You Take It?
     Thank you for all your kind comments. I was especially intrigued by the comments on women getting colder than men, and men picking on each other. I don't think women get any colder than men do (unless their clothing is inferior, which I doubt nowadays) but men simply don't admit they get cold.
     When I was a kid, back in the middle of the last century, one of the prime factors in how much respect you got from your peers was how well you could "Take it." Take what? Take anything. Cold, heat,
teasing, pain, you name it. We would punch each other on the upper arm to see who could endure the pounding longer, and God help him who quit first, or cried, or said, "This is stupid." He was done. Finished. If you would like a perfect illustration, see the movie "Jarhead" (which also contains some scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal's naked butt, in case you're interested. Personally, I prefer his sister's.)
     Eventually, we became conditioned to this way of thinking. A couple of years ago I was hunting Cape buffalo with a friend, and we were walking maybe 10 or 15 miles a day. After a couple of days of this he allowed how his toe was annoying him, and took off his boot. He had a gouty toe that was the size of a ping-pong ball and colored purple, red, and black. How he even walked on it was beyond me, much less what we were doing, and never a word.
     But then he is of my generation. I have no idea what one of today's kids would do in the same situation. -D.E.P. 

By Kim Hiss

     Reader Lou Alexander just got back from a vacation in England (Lou, it sounds like you take some killer trips, by the way), and emailed me, commenting that, "Hunting is a rich man's sport there."
     While it's true that in this country you don't have to be rich to be a hunter (yet!), sportsmen as a group spend some serious bucks. Around the time I got Lou's email, I was reading that Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation report on the money spent by hunters and fishermen a year. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's currently on the CSF homepage.
     Just to post some fun facts for a Friday afternoon, I yanked a few of the most interesting annual numbers out of that report.

$76 billion - Amount sportsmen spend on hunting and fishing a year (that's more than the revenues of Google, Microsoft, eBay, and Yahoo combined)

12.5 million - Number of hunters in the U.S.

$23 billion - Total amount hunters spend on their sport a year

$1,992 - Individual amount the average hunter spends on his or her sport a year

     And here's what the report says those bucks buy each year:

$493 million - Spent on hunting dogs

$2.4 billion - Spent on guns and rifles

$203 million - Spent on binoculars, telescopes, and field glasses

$459 million - Spent on apparel

$187 million - Spent on decoys and game calls

$696 million - Spent on ammunition

$3.50 - Spent at a yard sale by me on my newest pair of camo gloves (I talked the guy down from $7 - what a steal!)

     First of all, "Taxidermy" is just a fun word to say.
     Beyond that, the practice itself is fascinating -- and busy around this time of year. I wonder how many of us have hides and horns currently piled in the back room of some workshop somewhere.
     When I was a kid, I used to think those heads on people's walls were simply lopped off a dead animal and nailed to a plaque. The idea of there being a "craft" involved never occurred to me.

     Of course, as it turns out, the world of taxidermy is a wide, varied, sometimes disturbing place. There's competition taxidermy (the 2008 World Taxidermy Championships -- a National Taxidermy Association sanctioned event -- will be held this February in Salzburg, Austria), novelty taxidermy (the jackalope is a proud example), and just plain bizarre taxidermy (I keep running into "rogue" taxidermy associations that make mythological creatures out of game animal parts).
     I've had pretty good experiences with taxidermists so far - my favorite piece is a European antelope mount in my living room. I've also met some pretty interesting taxidermists themselves - most notable is an old order Amish gentleman in Lancaster, Pa. His barn is half horse stables, half workshop, and his oldest son is busy learning the trade (that apprentice system still at work is really special to see).
     My first experience with the excitement of finally getting a much-anticipated mount in the mail, was watching a co-worker on the day his delivery from an African safari arrived. This crate was easily the size of a small tool shed (how they got it up to the 10th floor of an office building is still beyond me). And the sight of all those heads packed so efficiently inside was impressive to say the least. I was excited, and it hadn't even been my hunt!
     My own deliveries have been much humbler affairs. I recently got the hide from that same antelope mailed back to me (I was told that particular hide wasn't the best, but in the spirit of using the whole animal, I had it done anyway). I was thinking about taking part of it to make a guitar strap - the rest I'm looking forward to figuring out. - K.H.