Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/496918
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 4 8 Rod Lein's mention of beeper collars brings up another salient point: In order for a mortality to be verified, regardless of the cause, the dog's body has to be recovered. Houndsmen have historically been in a better position to recover lost dogs than bird hunters have been. Almost without exception, they equip their dogs with GPS tracking collars and, before GPS technology became available, used old-school telemetry collars. While there's obviously no way to prove it in the absence of a corpus delicti, it seems reasonable to believe that at least some bird dogs, lost in the woods and never seen again, ultimately fell victim to wolves. It's never fun to lose a dog for any length of time, but if there's one thing that ought to scare you silly, it's the prospect of your dog having to spend the night in wolf country. The one concession (if that's the right word) that Rod Lein has made to the new reality of living with wolves is he never, ever turns a dog loose without a tracking collar. It simply takes the possibility of losing a dog out of the equation—and takes a load of worry off his mind. I'd urge anyone who plans to hunt grouse and woodcock in this part of the world to follow Rod's lead and, if you haven't done so already, invest in a GPS collar. It won't keep your dog out of harm's way—nothing can do that, at least not entirely—but it can help you extract him from dangerous and potentially fatal situations. Do wolves pose a risk? Yes, absolutely. Two English setters were attacked by wolves in Wisconsin just last year; thankfully, both dogs survived. Still, in the hierarchy of dangers faced by woodcock and grouse dogs, the weight of the evidence suggests that wolves rank pretty far down the list. Having said that, though, I'll tell you this: If I ever see a wolf standing where I want to park my truck, I'm making like Cousin Dean and getting the hell out of Dodge.