A Final Hunt With Leo

“Did you hunt with a canine?” I used to be requested matter-of-factly. 

This hadn’t been a part of the questioning once I’d checked bears in with my state’s wildlife company prior to now. I paused, remembering new laws handed in 2021 that now permits black bear hunters to make use of canine.

“Nicely, technically, sure,” I answered. “However for the needs of your survey, no; I didn’t use assistance from canine.”

I acquired a confused look from behind the desk.

“My black Lab was with me,” I continued. “However he’s extra of a handicap than an support in the case of bear searching.”

She laughed. “I perceive. No canine.”

This type of response was frequent with Leo. He was a Lab, via and thru. When requested how outdated he was, my commonplace line was “properly, he’s 7, however he nonetheless reads at a 2-year-old stage.”

Leo was a pet greater than a searching canine. However I nonetheless threw on his Orange Aglow vest and introduced him alongside on hunts each time doable. He seldom stopped shifting, may by no means hold quiet, and completely misplaced his thoughts when a rifle got here off the pack or a shotgun was shouldered. However his enthusiasm was simply too nice to go away at house.

The truth is, a motivating issue for this explicit spring bear hunt was to get Leo some train. My spouse Laura and I had welcomed our second child a couple of weeks prior, and Leo was getting a bit of stir loopy. I wouldn’t have satisfied Laura to let me out of the home for the afternoon if it hadn’t include the promise of returning with a sufficiently drained canine.

We adopted Leo shortly after we began dwelling collectively. It was a giant step for us, entering into on the shared custody of a pet. Three years later, the canine walked down the aisle with considered one of my groomsmen at our wedding ceremony. Handmade indicators warned individuals sitting close to the aisle that they had been in a ‘lick zone,’ which proved to be true. Leo proceeded to chew on his leash and roll round throughout the ceremony, delivering some comedian reduction throughout our tear-filled vows. Just a few years after that, a chalkboard and a bewildered look on Leo’s face helped us announce to family and friends that we had been anticipating a child woman. Once we introduced house a second child to pair with our toddler, Leo accepted his function as soon as once more as large brother, protector, and cleaner of the ground after meals.

I informed my buddy Patrick the place I wished to go for this bear hunt, seemingly the one day I’d get out this spring season. “It’s about an hour drive, and a 1,500-foot climb up a ridge. I’ve seen a bear there earlier than. And I discovered some sheds up there.”

Leo liked sheds. It’s the one searching we skilled him for. When he was a pet, we’d make him sit in a single room of the home whereas we dropped an antler in one other room. Then we’d inform him to go discover it and watch as he sniffed his manner via the hallway, peeping into every bed room earlier than rising with an antler in his mouth and a giant completed smile. From then on, few issues made him prouder than occurring upon an antler within the woods. He’d deliver it to me with not a lot a tail wag as a half-body booty sway.

He discovered 4 sheds that day. None of them had been price conserving, however I stored a couple of anyway. I didn’t need to insult him.

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We reached the glassing knob, and Patrick set to work choosing aside the drainages to the east along with his recognizing scope. I glassed to the west, hoping to discover a bear on the parallel ridge.

A brief consideration span is one thing Leo and I shared. “You prepared for a snack, bud?” He all the time was.

I pulled out my meals bag and ripped open the nook of a peanut butter packet. Leo sat expectantly with drool dripping out of the nook of his mouth. His eyes acquired large as I squeezed the peanut butter onto his tongue and watched it rapidly disappear. I then emptied a few of my water into his pack bowl as Patrick walked over with some excellent news. 

“I discovered a bear.”

Patrick is without doubt one of the few individuals I hunt with nowadays. Most of my hunts are solo, with simply Leo by my facet. I just like the solitude, the shortage of expectations, and the flexibility to make selections with out debate. Leo was all the time recreation.

However there’s definitely no manner Leo would have discovered this bear.

I pulled up my binoculars and regarded the place Patrick was pointing. Positive sufficient, a shiny, black bruin lumbered round in a neon inexperienced creek backside, simply barely seen from our vantage. With steep hills on all sides suffering from thick brush and blowdown, this bear could be a chore to get to.

Patrick doesn’t get caught up a lot with expectations both; he didn’t even deliver his rifle this time. So the choice to go after this bear was mine.

Earlier than I left house, I requested Laura, “So if I’ve the prospect, would you like me to shoot a bear or not?”

Bear meat is scrumptious, and the fats is baking gold. Greater than something although, Leo and I simply wanted to get out, and Laura knew that.

“Sure, I need you to get a bear,” she mentioned, shocking me a bit. “However largely so that you’ll cease asking when you and Leo can go bear searching.”

With a new child and a toddler at house, I used to be lucky to get the corridor move, and I knew this was my shot. So we went after him.

The blowdown was tough, much more so for the canine. However he leaped and ducked his manner via, with out criticism. As we crested the ultimate finger ridge above the feeding bear, Patrick was tasked with sitting again and restraining 85 kilos of decided canine. I took my time to verify the bear was a shooter and that there have been no cubs. As I crept in nearer I may hear Leo bellowing behind me with pleasure.

“Ugh, he’s gonna spook this bear,” I assumed.

However the bear, simply 160 yards away, was preoccupied with filling his stomach. 

It’s by no means simple to take a life; I’m reminded of that every time I pull the set off. The problem ceases. Brutality takes over, albeit briefly.

The bear by no means left the moist grassy patch the place we first noticed him a couple of hours prior.

I took a deep breath. “You’ll be able to let him go!” I yelled in direction of Patrick. “You’ll be able to let Leo go now!”

Leo sprinted up the hill to me, panting and looking out round, questioning the place the grouse was that I shot and was now his job to seek out. “Sorry, buddy. No fowl.”

“I may hold him quiet or I may maintain him again, however I couldn’t do each,” Patrick mentioned apologetically as soon as he reached me. I shook my head and smiled. Typical Leo.

After skinning and quartering the bear, which Leo confirmed zero curiosity in, we loaded up our packs with meat, fats, and conceal, and spent the subsequent few hours navigating blowdown, boggy bottoms, and scree fields by headlamp earlier than reaching the dust highway.

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Leo was with us each step of the best way, like he had been on numerous adventures earlier than. He would have hiked all evening if we requested him to. Once we lastly made it to the truck, he leaped into the backseat and sucked down one final peanut butter packet, his third of the night. He was asleep on the ground earlier than I put the truck in drive. Little did I do know this is able to be my final hunt with him.

A month later, with seemingly no warning, Leo began limping, and we observed his ankle was swollen. The subsequent day, his complete entrance leg was engorged and non-weight bearing.

The vet identified him with osteosarcoma, an aggressive type of bone most cancers. The X-rays confirmed that it had metastasized into his lungs. We had been despatched house with painkillers and discharge paperwork. It was as if we had been watching him age 5 years in 5 days. 

We mentioned goodbye three weeks later.

Driving house from the vet in tears, I noticed that I by no means had time to totally comprehend this a part of the deal. Leo was my first canine, within the prime of his life, and all of it occurred so quick. This allowed me to like him unburdened by the unavoidable and crushing heartbreak to return.

What a strategy to love a canine.

With a couple of rugs already on the partitions at house, I wasn’t planning on getting one other one constructed from that tanned bear conceal, however I modified my thoughts. The rug represents my closing journey with my greatest buddy, a reminder of the fragility of life, and the cruelty of all of it.