Rusty the grouse dog

[Tom Flanigan]

With the snow storm, I am at home today going through old pictures. These pictures are of Rusty, my first bird dog. Rusty came to me as a two year old finished Brittany. I was fourteen years old and hunted grouse sans dog the first year. I killed some grouse and my grandfather was convinced that I would be a grouse hunter for life, as he was. He gave me his grouse gun, an open bored Parker VH in 20 gauge.

My grandfather was very fond of a club dog owned by the game keeper and dog trainer at the venerable old Dutchess Valley Club, in Pawling, NY. He thought the easy handling and experienced dog would be perfect for me. He had a hard time convincing old Chet Sprague to sell the dog. But Chet relented when he was told that the dog was for his young budding grouse hunter grandson.

Rusty became my best grouse dog of all I have owned since. And I have owned some great ones. Rusty and I were inseparable. When I became eighteen and went to bars and on dates, Rusty was always with me. He learned early on not to crowd grouse and handled them beautifully. Back in those days, there were a lot of grouse. What makes a true grouse dog is a lot of experience with the bird. And Rusty had more experience than any of my other grouse dogs. I averaged better than seventy grouse a season back in the day.

[Reggie B]

Thanks for posting! Rusty looks like a dandy!

[charlie cleveland]

rusty was a cut above the best...charlie

[Tom Flanigan]

Thanks Charlie. He was as good as he was because of the numbers of birds shot over him. When he was a club dog, he probably had hundreds of pheasants shot over him. He quickly learned how to handle grouse. When he got a hot scent, he slowed down and went into stalk mode before the point. I love Britany Spaniel's. I've had three of them but switched to English Setters because they are more traditional for grouse and woodcock. Although Of the many setters I have owned, I've only had one setter that came close to Rusty on grouse. I've had many true grouse dog setters, but none had the number of birds shot over them as Rusty.

[Dean Romig]

Rusty's a fairly common name for a Brit. I had a wonderful Brittany that was given to me by a friend who's circumstances changed so drastically he couldn't keep his dog who was 2 and was also named Rusty by my friend. I kept the name because I just liked it. Rusty was a good bird dog but we didn't have any grouse in my area then - just a few pheasants lingering from the good old days and good numbers of woodcock. Rusty was very good on both but his weakness was rabbits. I could never get that sumbitch to quit running them.

Then in Feb of '79 I crashed my car into a tree. I was hospitalized for almost to months and when I got home I was in a full-leg cast for another 4 months and I was in depression for years later but went back to work every other day in Boston.
One day at work I received a telephone call from a neighbor saying Rusty was lying on their lawn and wouldn't/couldn't get up. I rushed home and drove th the neighbor's house and got my crutches and hobbled to Rusty... Rusty was barely alive. He had a tiny blood spot high on his flank. I lifted his lip and saw that his gums were about pure white. I was holding his head and talking softly to him and then he died in my arms. I couldn't lift him and carry him so the neighbor gave me an old blanket and I rolled Rusty onto it, picked up my crutches and dragged rusty to my house three houses away. I dug a hole in my side yard but before I buried him I just HAD to know what that blood spot was and why it killed him... so I autopsied him. I discovered that a .22 bullet had killed him. The bullet entered high on his side just behind his ribs and exited through the soft flesh just above the hip on the opposite side, severing the dorsal(?) aorta on the way through.
I was beyond consolation over this for a long, long time. The neighbor said she thought she remembered hearing a shot but didn't put 2 and 2 together and didn't take notice of where the sound came from.

Several years later, after I could no longer retaliate because the guilty party had moved away, a good friend who was a firefighter told me who had done the deed. The police had investigated and learned what had happened but it was "just a dog" and didn't chase the guy out of state. My friend had learned the truth from a cop but chose to keep me in the dark for my own good.

Sorry to have hi-jacked your thread Tom...


Here's me and Rusty shortly before his untimely demise...
Losing him sure didn't help my depression.


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[Tom Flanigan]

That’s an extremely sad story Dean. That’s a situation you’ll never fully recover from and I’ll bet it bothers you greatly to think about it. I can’t conceive of anyone shooting a dog.

I had a bad situation with Rusty, but it had a better ending. Rusty got a local reputation because of all the grouse I took with him. Word travels in small towns. One day, he was stolen from my back yard. He was gone for about a week and I was inconsolable. Chet Sprague, the original owner, made it his business to find the dog. He finally tracked the dog down to an individual in Sherman, Ct., right over the border from Pawling. The dog was offered for sale as a grouse dog. He went to investigate and found Rusty in a kennel. The guy insisted it was his dog. Old Chet told the man that he had two minutes to get the dog in his car or he would thrash him and take the dog.

Old Chet was a grand old character and nobody messed with him. I am forever grateful to him for finding and returning Rusty. I tried to get him to tell me who had the dog but he refused. He knew that I would extract revenge on the guy and would probably get arrested.

[Dean Romig]

Yup, there are times when it is best to not know.

Turns out the transient father with two teenage boys living in a rental down the hill from me was away (he would leave those boys unsupervised for days at a time) and when Rusty wandered down by the property line one of the kids shot him out the window.

I would definitely have gone to jail....





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[mobirdhunter]

I can't remember the writer that first penned that every man deserved a once-in-a-lifetime grouse dog, but I've been blessed with two. It's hard not to long for the days when you went into a cover with that dog knowing that any grouse there would be pointed.

Tom, you had him, and you still do.

[Tom Flanigan]

This is Stoney, perhaps my second best grouse dog. I’ve had some good one’s so the second spot is a tough call. I bought him as a two year old finished dog from a trainer on Tilghman’s Island in Maryland. He came up to speed on grouse in a relatively short period of time (one season) and was probably the most cautious grouse dog I have ever owned.

I’ve used him hard on sharptails and huns on my annual trips to Saskatchewan. He also became a great duck retriever which allowed me to only take one dog to Canada. When I moose and bear hunted up there, the aboriginal people watched him for me. The dog was a real character and my aboriginal friends loved him and also all the ducks and geese I gave them. The called him “reprobate” which is a funny story in and of itself.


When I did some quail hunting in Maryland, Bill Murphy would sometimes go with us and bring along his dog. We had some great times. I miss Bill and Kevin McCormack. I’d like to see those boys again.

[J. A. EARLY]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Yup, there are times when it is best to not know.
Turns out the transient father with two teenage boys living in a rental down the hill from me was away (he would leave those boys unsupervised for days at a time) and when Rusty wandered down by the property line one of the kids shot him out the window. I would definitely have gone to jail.....

Dean I understand the part about going to jail over it. My friend's wife told him if he had been younger the guy would have been dead immediately. It seems his favorite and best deer dog was crossing the farm field of his neighbor when the neighbor shot him. With tracking collars, it was easy to find him. So he gets revenge every day, probably not really what the S.O.B. deserves, but the best he can do at this point. The sign has been there for years.