This story is not about any of my dogs.
I was hunting quail along the Republican river near Arapahoe, NE. I was staying at a very run down motel/chicken coop type motor lodge.
In the center of the turn around parking lot was a nasty, abandoned, built-in, gunite type swimming pool. Obviously not used in some time, and left with no cover.
I was drinking a beer, and there were a couple young lads drinking a beer, and sitting at a picnic table out by the black lagoon. I moseyed on up to share a little conversation.
We talked about our hunting, and I asked about the little Chessie pup that was laying in the dust beneath our feet.
The dog was 8 mos old, and this was it's first western trip. He was a little rough yet, his owner said.
When we reached the bottom of our communal coolers, the matter of being out of beer was raised. The Chessie owner asked me if I had ever seen a dog swim, and retrieve from deep under water. I said "No, never from anything more than about 2 feet or so on a diving duck". So, he then set the hook.
He said, " I'll bet you the next 12pk my little dog here can retrieve a 3lb brick from the bottom of the pool across the fence there." I said, "You're on."
He proceeded to pull a painted paving brick out of the motel owners little decorative border of brick that lined her flower beds, and walked his dog at heel over to the pool yard. He rubbed the brick on his sleeve to get the dirt off, and then threw it into the deep end of that nasty pool.
I'll be a son of a gun, but that dog ran to the side of the pool, and dove right in. In the dark!
He stayed submerged for maybe 20 seconds, but he came up with that brick in his mouth, though he couldn't climb out of the pool without help.
I was happy to go get more beer. Just to have seen that.
