Losing a bird dog is tough, but saying goodbye when the dog is in her prime is especially heartbreaking.
LuLu, an English pointer, rode in the front seat of Mike and Lori Ford’s truck since a puppy.
“I’m sure she traveled 100,000 miles in my truck,” Mike Ford said. “She was a house dog and a front-seat truck dog.”
LuLu had great hunting pedigree that paid off.
“She was trained at Really Hard Rock Kennels, then out of Decatur, but now in Mississippi,” Ford said. “She was as good of a bird dog as I’ve ever had, and I had dogs most of my life.”
In South Texas near Hebbronville when LuLu was 2 years old, Ford said LuLu had only hunted wild birds once. A big covey got up near the truck while waiting for other hunters to show, and Ford took LuLu out to expose her to wild birds.
“Take you gun,” the outfitters said, getting out a horse to help flush birds.
“Lulu pointed almost immediately,” Ford said. “Two birds got up and I shot one. Then on the other side of the bush, she pointed again and another covey flushed. On the short walk, I shot 10 times with my 28-gauge and got seven birds when I ran out of the shells I had in my pocket. Then we went to another part of the ranch. In 5 hours, we moved up 62 coveys. I’m sure LuLu pointed 50 birds that day.”
Ford has taken LuLu hunting all over the country, and his new favorite spot is in eastern Montana.
“She had hunted pheasants, but not grouse or Hungarian partridge,” he said. “She hit it out of the park, getting the first three points. The guide put his dogs up, which had been hunting for 50 days, and we just hunted with LuLu.”
This past winter, LuLu hunted two times in Stonewall County.
“She did great but she didn’t bounce back like she usually does. There was a spot 4 inches behind her ear and it never healed up. We went to a veterinarian in Sulphur Springs who is a bird hunter. The took and X-Ray and saw a shadow in her heart. Then a CT Scan in Bridgeport revealed LuLu was full of tumors, with a bad one right behind her windpipe and into the lungs.”
The progress of the cancer was rapid.
“We weren’t ready to say goodbye to her,” Ford said. “She would eat and drink and pee and poop, but she was in too much pain. We loaded her up with drugs for 60 days.”
Then it was time to make the call every bird hunter and dog owner dreads.
“She was a little bit of a soft dog,” Ford said. “She could get her feelings hurt, but I never had to discipline her. She was the best combination of hunting dog and pet I’ve ever had.”
The Ford’s will have memories of LuLu with her daughter, LaLa and grandpuppy, Little JoJo.
“LaLa is great, too,” Ford said. “The trainer, from Minot, North Dakota, wanted to take her on the field trial circuit but I turned it down.”
But LuLu will remain the favorite.
“She was a special critter,” Ford said. “She’ll be missed but never forgotten.”
