Keeping up with Jem

This was going to be the season I could finally keep up with Jem.

He’s 10 years old now – 70 in dog years – and although he looks the same as he has for years, I figured he must be slowing down.

After all, he’s supposed to be aging much faster than I am.

Therein lies my dog training philosophy: keep up as best I can until their paths and mine finally cross. It’s at that intersection of old hunter and older dogs that I expect to find my nirvana.

In the meantime, I simply have to hustle to keep up.

Jem will find birds whether I’m with him or not.

I have another younger spaniel that hunts in an entirely different fashion. Ace quarters smartly, well within the range of my limited shooting ability. At times he looks like a professionally trained dog.

It’s almost embarrassing.

Jem, however, pays little attention to his kennel mate.

He hears a different drummer.

Not that he’s entirely undisciplined. There are rules. I don’t allow my dogs to fight or chase game. I expect them to eventually come when called, and to sit and stay. Beyond that, we’re a pretty loose outfit.

But from the first of September until the sun sets on New Year’s Day, we get after it, none of us more so than Jem. Only two weeks into this season and he’s already limping. I tried leaving him in the kennel one morning last week and he howled until I returned. Whatever the injury, Jem has always played through the pain. He’s a coach’s dream, the symptoms of whatever is bothering him disappearing until he gets back home.

There was a time I considered fitting him with an electronic collar, but I like the simplicity of a whistle, and for the most part, that’s all we need.

What we have works for us although I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone else.

I still expect Jem to slow down, if not this year, maybe next. I can hardly wait. He always sees more birds than I do. It will be fun to hunt with him some day if my knees hold out.

But I’m not holding my breath. It could be a while.

Jem seems to subscribe to a line from Bob Dylan’s song, My Back Pages.

“Ah, but I was so much older then

I’m younger than that now.”

Parker Heinlein is at

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