My 13yr old English Pointer Died this morning. He really failed in the last 4 days or so, Vet said his liver wasnt working. He and his littermates were dumped on my sister in law when she was an intern. She brought me him and distributed 3 of the pups to another hunter that I dont know. She said he put them all down because they didnt hunt. Ruger was such a natural awesome hunter, it had to be the teacher who didnt train properly. I bought a female pointer 2 yrs ago hoping to get pups from Ruger but I had waited too long and though he tried there were no pups. Ruger would get quail or pheasants on point and then as I moved in he would break point and get to the back side of the bird and box it in. He learned it on his own from chasing rabbits into stacked irrigation pipe. He would bark and bark until I got out there and then go to the other end of the pipe. I would throw a rock in there and the rabbit would run out Ruger's end. He usually caught them and learned that he could head off game if he was in the right spot. Ive hunted with a lot of other peoples great dogs but Ive never hunted with a better dog as far as finding birds(or rabbits,coons,badgers,etc) He loved hunting and even last fall when I walked out of the house with my hunting clothes on he was like a kid on Christmas morning, shaking with excitement. He was mostly deaf and couldnt cover the ground like he used to but he made some great points and found the dead birds. He never retrieved well(unless there was another dog around) but he would always find the down bird and pick it up, then drop it for me. Its a sad day and Im so dissapointed not to have a pup from him.
Ross
