At approximately 1AM, October 29, 2014, Carolyn, Alexander and I lost a member of our family when War Eagle Sonic Boom Echo passed away due to complications from Liver Cancer. Having been diagnosed with cancer only this month we are stunned and brokenhearted how fast he left us. Echo was only eight years old this past May. He is already missed. Sit Here Heel The three magic commands that any dog can learn. These are the basic commands of a trained dog. A dog with a job has to build on those commands and not every dog is capable. And then to progress to a level of excellence a Retriever needs drive and intelligence that keeps him going no matter what and he must learn on his own displaying common sense and street smarts. Only a small percentage of dogs can achieve those heights, Echo was one of those dogs. Nick Hall deserves the credit for getting Echo started on his training. Nick has always been the Trainer while I was the Handler. During Echoes first two years of life I invested a thousand hours working him in fields and lakes. He was always eager, balls to the wall all the time, and so easy to love. Echo was trained for a job and I gave him the opportunities to perform. We hunted in the field 40-45 days a year for seven years. Over 300 hunts and thousands of retrieves. Only a few dogs get the training and the variety of opportunities that Echo and I shared. Echo hunted in both Canada and the U.S. including ten different states; No and So Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas and Maryland. What made Echo special in the field was his ability to master many different kinds of hunting environments. We hunted mud tilled Barley fields in Canada where he retrieved Giant Canada Geese that were as big as he was. He plunged into reeds on the Red River that stood five feet taller than him. He waded thru deep mud, up to his belly, on Lake Winnepeg Canada and posed for the picture Ive included here. Echo hunted from boats, box blinds, pits, remote sits in flooded timber, on top of layout boats, shore blinds and he could lay still out in the open on field hunts for Geese. Echo was steady, meaning he would not release until sent no matter what. This is a critical skill in duck dogs over looked by many trainers and handlers because it takes an especially smart dog to trust his handler under some very exciting scenarios. Once in a field at Devils Lake North Dakota there were five of us in the hunting party. We settled into layout blinds covered in sawgrass and Echo laId out in the open next to me. Thirty minutes befor gunning time hundreds of Ducks landed in our decoy spread and began walking around in the dark. Echo and I were positioned on the end away from the other hunters and the Ducks were walking all around us. Ducks were quacking and nervously preening within inches of Echos nose. He never moved a muscle and those Ducks did not flare for several minutes! Those were moments incredibly rare and I only experienced those kinds of moments because of Echo. Echo hunted rivers, lakes, ponds, huge reservoirs, flooded corn and beans and every slough the Mississippi has in southern Missouri. He was a fast swimmer and tackled long distances that were sometimes scary for us watching. He knew how to dive under water for crips and once chased a Mallard thru the woods for half an hour. On the return trip back to the boat he held his head high and his tail was wagging like a windshield wiper in a Toad choker. All the while that Greenhead was pecking him on his large wide head! Echo could break ice or swim in the fast currents of the Mississippi. It took eight years to train this dog and he wasnt finished training me yet. I honestly told myself last month after a strong preseason workout that Echo might be able to hunt until he was eleven years old. He was so physically fit and had the drive of a two year old. At a minimum I calculated a hundred more hunts and at least five hundred more retrieves. Guess Im not in charge of everything..... Billions of people believe in Heaven and billions of other people believe in reincarnation. For Echo Im rooting for the reincarnation crowd because maybe hell come back as me and Ill come back as him. We were that kind of special pair.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 19:35:25 +0000
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