FROM HUNTING DOG CONFIDENTIAL VOL 1
A TALE OF TWO DOGS
Tobi at 13 was 90% deaf, took him 40 minutes to walk a few blocks, but when I pulled out my shotgun he came back to life. I never hunted him with a shock collar and I rarely had to tell him what to do. He was a pro. Nearly def, I could only watch him do his magic. He never disappointed me in the field, not even in his old age. Seeing him make a perfect point and slow retrieve, with his old shaky legs, showing my 5 month old pup Argo how it is done, would bring tears to my eyes. Watching your best pal get old was one of the hardest things I expected to experience. I didn’t know you could love a dog so much. When people ask me who trained Argo to be such a good hunter, I tell them, “Tobi did.” I only had to refine the training, but most of it was done by my sweet old man. When Tobi realized that Argo had learned, he never hunted again. Little did he know that he had initiated a hunting machine.
I met Tobi 12 years prior on the Deschutes River in Oregon. He was one year old and his name was Toby. I was driving to the Bend area to meet with some friends to climb Smith Rock and decided to try my luck and see if I could catch a couple of steelhead before climbing. On the river I met Kory, to this day the best steelhead fly fishermen I have ever met. He was there with Toby and we fished for the weekend together then I went one way, he went the other.
I climbed for two weeks and as I was heading back to Montana I saw the sign for the Deschutes. I picked up the phone.
“Kory, are you fishing? I am nearby…”
“I am, come on over, I got my jet boat, let’s catch some fish!”
Friendship at first sight
We fished and I couldn’t stop noticing Toby. I had never been a dog person or ever had a dog. But Toby was different. “What kind of dog is he anyway?” “He is a hunting dog.” “A hunting dog?” I was a climber and a fisherman at the time. We fished and then it came time to split away. I packed my van. Kory packed his truck. We were saying our goodbyes and I looked down at Toby. He was sitting next to me just watching the interactions between us. I looked at Toby, and said to Kory, “I love your doggie, I am going to take him to Montana!” Kory looked at me and said, “Shake my hand.” A little confused and hesitant I shook his hand. Kory threw Toby’s kennel in my van, his food, his leash, his flea medicine and drove away. I stood there with Toby sitting by my side watching Kory drive off down the dirt dusty road, and before the dust had settled I thought to myself, “But I was just kidding!”
As I drove away with Toby sitting on my passenger seat I looked at him and thought to myself “What in the hell just happened?” I am a gypsy; my lifestyle is not conducive to having a dog… Toby was sitting there and I couldn’t help noticing how cute he was. He just sat up straight, calmly looking at the road ahead. Now that I know Tobi better I am sure what he was thinking. “Who in the hell is this guy? Why are we going the opposite direction of where I should be going? I can’t even smell treats in this car. This guy is no good, why did Kory leave me?”.
Toby’s owner had just dumped him and what neither of us knew is that our lives were about to drastically change. I picked up the phone and dialed Kory’s number.
“Kory, does Toby chew things up?”
“I don’t know, I always kept him in his kennel.”
A few minutes went by and I called again, “Kory, does he bark at night?” “Not that I know…” Within an hour I called Kory 20 times trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with this dog. I finally gave up trying to understand and decided to just hang out with the little guy for several days and hit every steelhead river I could on the way back to Bozeman. Toby just followed and watched me fish. One of the last stops was the Clearwater in Idaho. I wanted to catch one of those 20 pound + B-run steelhead.
On the river I met this guy from Montana and he said, “Dude, this is a German Shorthaired Pointer. I love these dogs! You bird hunt?”
“Not really, you want him?” I replied.
“Heck yeah!” he said, “I can’t take him now but here is my card, give me a call when you are back in Bozeman and I’ll come and pick him up.” The guy gave me his card and left excited. I was relieved I had found someone to take this thing. I was a gypsy, dogs were not for me. I went back to fishing as Toby watched unaware of what had just happened. He was about to be dumped again.
Toby and I ended up spending over a week making our way back to Montana. Something was very special about this dog. He was his own little guy; there was something human about him. He was independent, smart and sweet. I am not sure what he did to me but I took the business card and ripped it into tiny little pieces and tossed it. Toby was there to stay.
I changed his name from Toby to Tobi and he officially became Italian, just like me. We became gypsies together and inseparable.
Hunting we will go
Someone told me “He is a hunting dog, you should hunt him!” So we started hunting together and made all the errors both dogs and humans can make, times four. But we finally got it dialed.
The first truth about Tobi
For three years I had asked Kory the name of the breeder because I knew I wanted another Tobi down the road. A purebred German Shorthaired Pointer. I asked him if he had any papers for him. I’m not sure why I cared. He was always vague on his answer, just saying it was someone from Oregon. I am not a person to give up easily and I kept pressing.
Three years later he told me the first truth about Tobi. Kory was in a parking lot with his daughter Tristan and there was a guy with a cute puppy. They went to check out the puppy and you know what a four-year-old will do. “Daddy, I want one!” Kory asked the guy about the puppy and the guy said there were more puppies from the litter at some guy’s place down the road. “Daddy let’s go see them! Please!”
Kory drove to the place and found the guy. He was no breeder, just some shady guy from backwoods Oregon who had some puppies from a Springer Spaniel and a German Shorthair Pointer and was trying to make a few bucks. Kory and Tristan checked out the puppies. They were filthy, and they all came to the front of the fence and jumped for attention. Except Tobi, who sat in the back, just looking. He was covered in shit and had no interest in Kory or Tristan. Tobi was no purebred, but has always been a snob. He was a mutt and a cheap one. Kory paid $50 bucks for Tobi, wrapped him in a towel to keep him from getting the truck filthy and took him home. Tobi grew to look like a shorthair and a very handsome one. Thanks to my photographer friend Dusan Smetana, he was on the cover of “JUST German Shorthair Pointers” calendars and pages many times and would have made any mutt proud. He looked like a shorthair on steroids. Deep chest and built like a bodybuilder.
One day a rich hunter on a job, after spending a week with Tobi told me, “I give you 10k for this dog.”
“No.” I replied
“I give you 20k.”
“No.” I replied again
“I give you 30k!”
I then said, “You don’t understand, he is not for sale.” It sure would have been a great return to the 50 bucks investment.
On Point
At first I was disappointed to find out Tobi was a mutt and not a purebred. In Italy we call mutts, bastardi (bastards). Initially I kept it my secret and told people he was a German Shorthaired Pointer, but the more time I spent with Tobi the more I realized that a lot of his great characteristics were because he was a “bastard.” I started calling him “my sweet mutt” and I was proud of it. What was remarkable about Tobi was his versatility. Not only did he ride with me on my dirt bike, went on ocean kayaking trips, climbing and surfing, traveled better than any person I know, knew the difference between dry fly fishing and nymphing, but he was a spectacular hunter. Being a cross between a pointer and a flusher he hunted as a flusher or a pointer. I didn’t have to tell him anything. If we were in thick country, he would hunt close and point or flush if the birds were at gun range. If we were in open country he would hold the point and let me flush them. I didn’t use a whistle or a shock collar, he didn’t need it.
If he went on point and I didn’t see him, he would break the point, come and find me, bring me back to the birds to go back on point. He knew how far I could shoot and he knew when I missed an easy shot and trust me, he would let me know. It was a short quick bark and a frantic trot around where the birds flushed. The greater number of birds or the closer the birds, the longer my treatment of shame. Tobi had an excellent nose but what made him such a great bird dog is that he hunted with his brain and not just instinct. It was like hunting with a human with four legs, a good nose and a bad sense of humor when I missed a bird. As much as I love bird hunting the greatest hunting memories I have with Tobi is bow hunting with him for elk. Anyone who bow hunts knows how hard it is to shoot an elk with a bow and doing it with a dog at your feet would seem impossible. The way we started elk hunting is as unexpected as how we met.
Bow hunting for elk
My friend Chuck and I started bowhunting for elk together. I could write a book about the crazy things that happened during those first few years. We would pack a wall tent in the middle of nowhere and from the middle of nowhere we would hike miles and miles. One time I calculated that in one day we had hiked up and down mountains for 30 miles and this was not on trails. Through thick woods, ridges, meadows, valleys. I can only imagine if we had shot an elk at mile 15 when only packing an elk out 4 miles will kill you.
I’d take Tobi on these prolonged trips in the woods and I would tell him to “STAY” at camp. I didn’t want to tie him as we were in grizzly and wolf country. It felt like leaving bait tied up. It has always been difficult to leave Tobi behind in places inhabited by predators. I decided way back, that I wanted Tobi to be part of my life. Leaving him home was not an option, even with the possibility of losing him to a predator.
One time he was chased by wolf, I found wolf tracks following his. He had run from them and found me miles from my tent. It still gives me the chills thinking about it. I didn’t leave him alone after that and the next day the pack of wolves surrounded us in middle of a large meadow. They were hiding in tall grass and when Tobi and I walked by, the first wolf popped its head up. Then another on the opposite side. And another behind us. Within a minute we had wolves all around us staring at us. This is very unusual behavior and maybe they wanted their revenge on Tobi, for getting away from them. They followed us for two hours hauling and finally left us.
To go back on how we started hunting together. One day Chuck and I had been hunting for a good part of the day, we were a long way from camp, in the middle of thick woods and heard an animal running. It was coming our way fast. “What the hell is that?” we asked each other. I cocked an arrow and got ready to shoot, just in case it was an elk.
We were frozen in place waiting to see what was coming our way. An elk? A bear? A wolf? Noises in the woods are so deceptive and it is always hard to judge what animals are making the noise. The animal got closer and closer and finally I saw Tobi jumping up a log. I couldn’t believe a little dog could make so much noise but mostly I couldn’t believe he had found us so far from camp. I wonder what had happened, maybe the wolf or a bear that prompted him to leave camp. I could have told Tobi “BACK!” and he would have walked back to camp. I had done it in the past rifle hunting and he had walked two miles back to camp and the whole time I was sick in my stomach afraid something would take him. I was tired of worrying for Tobi and this time he was there to stay and Tobi hunted with me until his last days . Initially he stayed with the caller in the back but then I started hunting solo with him and shot several elk with him at my feet. Most bow hunters will never shoot an elk with a bow in their lifetime, to be able to do it with a dog is extraordinary and probably one of the greatest things I have experienced in my life.
I trained him to follow my movements. If I froze, he would freeze, if I walked, he would walk. If I moved quietly, he would move quietly. He became so dialed that I would forget he was there. He was a predator and he only wanted one elk, a dead one. When it was slow, he showed signs of boredom but as soon as an elk replied to my bugle, his ears would perk up, his forehead would wrinkle up and the game was on. One time he was 15 yards from me when a herd of elk showed up from nowhere and was moving our way. If you don’t move, elk will not detect you. I froze. Tobi froze. I could see him watching the elk coming our way and he was shivering in excitement but perfectly still. A cow elk walked up to him, lowered her head and sniffed him. They were nose to nose but he didn’t budge, just the shiver of his body. The elk walked away and Tobi slowly and carefully turned around and looked at me. I could see in his eyes what he was thinking, “Why in the freaking hell didn’t you shoot?!” I didn’t want a cow. After I shot an elk, Tobi would track it. He helped a friend find his poorly shot elk miles from where he shot it, the following day, no problem. One of the last elk I shot with Tobi I made him stay. I knew he was getting old and I needed to learn tracking. I never had to do it. Not a lot of blood. After 45 minutes, it was getting dark. I gave up and whistled; Tobi came charging down from where I made him stay. It took him 1.5 minutes to find the elk, he sat next to it and started barking frantically. There was nothing that made him more excited than finding a dead elk. It wasn’t too long after that, that I shot my last elk with Tobi at my feet. He wasn’t aware the elk were there. I let that arrow fly and he didn’t know. When I stood over the dead elk Tobi seemed lost. My heart sunk. Unknown to me, not only he was 90% deaf but he was also going blind.
Several years after I had Tobi, I found out the second truth about Tobi ans why Kory gave him away. He was in a legal battle with his ex wife over his daughter and in court the wife said that Kory had a vicious dog that bit her daughter. Nothing true and as much as he loved Tobi he didn’t want to take a chance losing his daughter . Years later he got another GSPs, Decker, and one time, as I saw Tobi’s days coming to an end, I asked him. “How is Decker? Is he a good dog?” I have several friends who have gotten or wanted to get a shorthaired because of Tobi and I always wondered how these dogs would compare to him. Kory replied, “Decker is amazing, he is a great, great dog. I love him.” And then I asked him the question I really wanted to know. “Is he like Tobi?” Kory paused for a while and then said, “Paolo, Decker is a dog and is like having a dog. Tobi is a human and is like having a family member,” and that’s the answer I was afraid to hear.
A dog of a lifetime
My friend Piero, who is in his 60s and has been around hunting dogs his whole life, comes from a family of hunters with his cousin being the top breeder of Italian hounds. He has been around hundreds of hunting dogs, including champions. After having known Tobi for many years, over and over and over he told me. “Paolo, you will never find a dog like Tobi, he is a dog of a lifetime.”
Experiencing the life of your best pal come to an end it’s brutal as it is, but a dog as special as Tobi, a working dog, who could bird hunt, bow hunt and be the incredible pet that he was made it so much harder. Finding a good pet companion can be done, a bird hunting dog can also be done but finding a good pet, that hunts birds and that you can bow hunt with, seemed like an impossible mission. Before Tobi was completely out of the game I decided to get a new puppy, for two main reasons. One to hopefully transfer Tobi’s magic to a new companion and secondly to find a place for my heart to rest in the hope that it wouldn’t break when Tobi left me. The way Argo came into our lives was not as random as the way Tobi and I started. It was a meticulous work of research that took two years to accomplish. In reality, I just wanted another Tobi, but in truth that wasn’t possible so I tried to get as close as I could by learning about different breeds of dogs. To find characteristics, in the breeding science, that would come closest to my most important requisites. One in particular, something that everyone told me was impossible. I wanted another dog that I could kill an elk with, with a bow. And this is how Argo came into our lives. And if there was one dog, that could take such a challenge, this was Argo. But this is a future story.