Masculine Soup

Hunting has always been a huge part of my upbringing. And before you get bent of out shape because we love killing animals let me make something clear. We love to hunt, we don’t love to kill. My dad always said that the fun ends the moment the animal dies. But there is something about being out in nature, right in the middle of it, just you and your abilities against the animals abilities. Your natural sense against the animals. We never went all “Native American” or anything, but we weren’t flippant about it either. We showed respect to the animals we killed. It was an honor and privilege to be able to hunt, and own guns. It was our duty to show respect to the animals that we killed and that we owned.

Through my life we’ve always owned some animal. Mostly cats, but a few dogs. I wasn’t raised with the hippie-tree-huggin’ crowd that say their animals are like their children. Who let them inside and love them and hold them and kiss them on the mouth. That was never my family. Animals were animals. They were meant to be outside and to serve us. But it was our responsibility to protect and care for them. To make sure they didn’t suffer. When we owned dogs we would take the hunting with us. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. We didn’t really have a great track record with hunting dogs. But we still liked having them around the house.

Now, you should know that there’s something manly about hunting. Really manly. It’s a testosterone soaked activity for sure. Standing around a warm truck in the cold morning air, waiting for the time it’s legal to hunt, peeing on fence posts ‘cause you’re so excited to get going. Laughing and joking with your family about who’s the worse shot and who’s gonna get the most birds, or biggest buck, that day. And then there’s the guns. Everyone has guns. You’re carrying a weapon that won’t just kill a bird, it’ll kill a human. And not over a period of time, but instantly. The guns we carry are deadly dangerous. It’s a huge responsibility walking out into the tall grass, your family to each side of you, and who knows who in the fields all around you, holding a weapon in your cold hands; walking over uneven ground. It’s a lot to think about and a lot to live up to when everyone in your family is a hunter, and a good one at that.

Now having a dog isn’t always a great asset when you’re hunting. They’re only good if they’re trained properly. A well-trained dog can make hunting much easier and enjoyable. It can track scents you couldn’t hope to find, it can find hidden birds and flush them out of the thick brush, and it can make you feel good about yourself even when you’ve had a lousy day. But a poorly trained dog can make your day miserable. They run everywhere, chase sparrows, bark at other hunters and generally lose their heads once you turn them loose in a field. The kind of dog you have largely determines the kind of day you will have.

One morning we had started early, crashing out through the brush and grass and getting in a line. We didn’t have a dog with us that morning and we were having a great time. We were laughing and joking and feeling the camaraderie of just being out together. Its those days that even years later now we laugh and talk about. Not long after we had started another group of hunters came into the field where we were hunting.

These guys were manly men. Big guns. Big dogs. And big mouths. From the moment they stepped into the field we knew they were there. They were yelling and laughing and cussing up a storm. And they had a dog. And that dog was poorly trained. And it went nuts. That dog wouldn’t slow down. It ran the length of the field, back and forth, up and down, barking and chasing and sniffing every inch of that field. And his owner was yelling and cursing it eight ways to Sunday.

Now, being out there in that kind of situation you begin to feel tense. There’s already the testosterone, fence-post-peeing, I-got-a-big-gun, thing going one. The who’s gun is bigger thing going on. The cussing and spitting thing going on. And then there’s the competitive side thing going on. The “how many have you gotten this morning” comparing thing. It makes a pretty delicious masculine soup. That often boils over and makes a mess.

So in the middle of all that there’s this dog. And he’s out of control. He’s ruining our morning of hunting. He’s running and barking and sniffing every inch of that field, near and far, and he’s not listening one lick to his master. We’re yelling at the guy to get his dog under control, he’s yelling at his dog to come back, and meanwhile we’re watching these big beautiful birds getting spooked and fly up out of the tall grass too far away to get a shot at. And then the dog comes near me. The man is yelling and swearing. My family is trying to keep their cool as our hunt is quickly being ruined. The stress level is incredibly high and we are all quickly loosing our cool. Including me. And this stupid animal comes over to check me out for the first time and his owner yells, “Just give him a good kick.”

And I do. I lean back and I give that dog a good solid kick in the ribs with my lace up, waterproof, insulated boots. I kick him. With my gun held high and my teeth gritted, I kick him. And the dog yelps and falls back. And I realize, as I hear my father gasp, as if I’ve kicked him in the ribs, and my brother says my name as if it were a swear word, that the only thing worse than an out of control dog, is an out of control person. As my mind comes back to me, my own personal set of beliefs, I realize that I’ve just kicked a defenseless animal. A poorly trained animal. The only person who really deserved to be kicked was the dogs master, not the dog himself. And I am ashamed.