Gun Dogs from the Past

[Alfred Houde]

This was my Brittany Tess circa 1990. I got her as a pup when we lived in Maine. I had never trained a pointing dog and I made a lot of mistakes with her. She was real birdy and I ended up just letting her flush birds. She was a real enthusiastic retriever too and caused all sorts of mayhem around the house when she was a pup. One was when we were pretty convinced that she was house-broken. We left her out in the house as we took a quick trip to Shaw's as a test. My wife had one of those L.L. Bean goose down vests and it was draped over a chair. When we came home there were feathers all over the living room and Tess was running around with the nylon shell. But at least she held and didn't pee until I took her outside.

She was a great companion to our kids when they were small. I was thinking about her today and really miss her.