By Chad Love

I was visiting family last weekend, and as I always do when I'm back in "civilization," I took a few hours to hit all the hometown bookstores, used and otherwise, that I grew up haunting. And it was at (where else) my local Barnes & Noble, as I was standing at the newsstand leafing through the various hook-and-bullet periodicals, that the guy standing next to me doing the same asked if I was a bird hunter.

I replied in the affirmative, and so in that universal manner in which two kindred souls hopelessly surrounded by alien lifeforms (In this case multitudes of post-pubescent celebrity rag readers) bond as a means of mutual survival, we chatted for a few minutes. As it (so often, these days) turns out, he was primarily a deer and turkey hunter, but also professed a keen interest in duck and pheasant hunting. I asked him if he owned a dog, and (again, as is often, these days) he replied that he didn't, and in fact had never owned a hunting dog of any kind.

By Chad Love

In the world of dog competitions, there are some things that are givens: locks, safe bets, lead-pipe cinches, sure things. You know that an English pointer is probably going to win the bird dog national championship at Ames.

You know that at any given AKC retriever field trial that a Lab will probably win the all-age open. And you know, you just know, that when it comes to the annual World's Ugliest Dog championship, that a Chinese Crested is going to be the odds-on favorite to win it all. Because let's face it, those dogs are just freakin' hideous.

By Chad Love

Did you know that next Friday, June 22 is National Take Your Dog To Work Day? Neither did I, and as I work from home, I pretty much take my dogs to work every day. But it's an interesting concept nonetheless, and one with some tangible benefits both health and finance-wise, according to this story in the Huffington Post:

Like any new addition to an office, Dolly had an adjustment period. The hardest part: learning not to bark at the mailman. Dolly is one of millions of dogs that accompany their owners to dog-friendly businesses every day. Even more will join her next Friday for Take Your Dog to Work Day.

By Chad Love

Earlier this week I took my setter pup, Ozzy, to the vet for his last round of routine vaccinations, and while we were there I asked my vet about something every gundog owner who lives and/or hunts in rattlesnake country has to make a decision on: to vaccinate for rattlesnakes or not to vaccinate for rattlesnakes? A while back Pheasants Forever's Bob St. Pierre wrote an excellent blog on the subject after he and his dog encountered rattlesnakes on a South Dakota hunt. As Bob saw it, he had four options.

From the blog:

In discussions with hunters more experienced in “snakey” areas, I’ve determined that I have four options: 1) Vaccinate my dog against snakes 2) Snake-proof or de-snake my dog: train my pup to ignore snakes 3) Do nothing and take my chances 4) Don’t hunt where there are snakes.