Rusty the grouse dog

[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.