Written by:   Trippett Boineau, Jr

As another dove season approaches,  I remember the day I met Mr. Grey. A good friend who was taken away from us three years ago and far too early invited me to an opening day hunt with him in Darlington, SC. He had his Boykin named Drake with him, and I didn’t have a dog….at least not yet, as you will soon see. We had a good southern BBQ lunch and a tray of boiled peanuts, and we took off for the field around 2:00. My buddy and Drake were just down from me as we waited for the first doves of the day. He had trouble getting his dog to sit still, and I watched the show with amusement. About that time, a dove flew over, and I dropped it using my wife’s 20 gauge over/under, which I had never shot before but had decided to try out this day. As I got up to get the bird, a black lab ran across the field and picked my bird up. Of course, I thought it was someone else’s dog hunting near me, and I may or may not ever see the bird again. But as the dog picked the bird up, he ran straight to me, stopped right in front of my dove stool, and dropped the bird. Wow, I was impressed, but I got even more so when this perfect retriever turned and sat beside me as if we had been old friends for years!

I looked carefully at this black head and noticed he had a face full of grey whiskers….hence the immediate naming of this “ghost” retriever, Mr. Grey. So we chat for a few minutes, and soon another bird flies over, and I drop that bird right out in front of us, and without my saying a word, my new friend and partner, Mr. Grey, goes and picks the bird up, brings it back, drops it in front of my stool, and then turns and sits down again…another perfect retrieve. Well, my friends, this went on for 12 straight birds (misses not counted, but not many). Mr. Grey performed this exact task flawlessly.
 
We would have one-sided conversations between retrieves, but he always seemed to understand me, or the look in his eye said he did. I gave him some water, patted his head, and asked him many questions, most of which he could not answer. After he brought the 12th bird back and dropped it in front of me, he took off in the same general direction he had first come from. I called him, but he did not look back, and all I could do was sit there in amazement at what had just happened. One silly thought I had was that he must not have known the limit was now 15 but I certainly understood that oversight.

My buddy saw all of this occur, and he, too, could not believe what he was seeing as he constantly had to do his retrieving while yelling at his dog. The sad part was that I thought I would never see Mr. Grey again. Once I got my limit of 15, my buddy and I went back over to some pine trees that offered a bit of shade, and the other hunters who had reached their limits started to gather. Soon, a black pickup truck drove up, and as the man got out of the truck, I could see a black lab. I walked over to the truck and, in an instant, recognized Mr. Grey! I immediately assumed it was the fellow driving the truck’s dog, so I began sharing my day with him and my story with “his” dog. I had not gotten far into the story when he said, to my amazement, that it was not his dog, but the dog had shown up and started picking up his birds and then sitting down next to him. So here are now, two of us marveling at this perfect retriever who made our day most enjoyable and touched us both in a way only a hunter would understand.

So about this time, as the story is being repeated for the third or fourth time, the owner of the field we were hunting comes up, and as we are telling him the story, he says he recognizes the dog and that the dog lives and belongs to an old farmer about two miles down the road. We had to assume that Mr. Grey heard the shooting and decided to “get out of the house” for the day and do a little hunting. For his reward and because of all his excellent work, our friend who owned the field gave Mr. Grey a ride home. But not before a lot of hugs and admiration from all of us! I have hunted hundreds of times but have never encountered anything like this before or since. And thank you again, Mr. Grey, for your friendship and professionalism! I will never forget you!