As always, check your local laws about having a dog with you on a hunt of any game. Lucky for me, I can sit on the ground hunting for hours along a game trail and Sprinkles will not get up until I shoot. Then he wants to see what happened but will not move from my side until I get up and then only to follow me.
I really enjoy a dog in camp as they can be quite entertaining and if yours is like Sprinkles, a great guard dog who makes friends with everyone. When Sprinkles comes, he eats what I eat. I don’t pack extra food, and he drinks water out of my cup. I have heard it said that a dog’s mouth is cleaner than ours, so we simply share. I haven’t gotten sick yet, nor has he from me!
Make sure your trekking partners are ok with it and realize, a dog is a dog and unless very well trained, will act like a dog. I was in a camp where a couple dogs ate several pounds of jerky out drying in the sun on a rack. No one got upset. They failed to guard their drying racks, and the dogs did what they do, eat.
Sprinkles is not super trained, but he is super loyal to me. When I sleep, he stands guard most nights or sleeps facing out right inside my bedroll. Quite regularly he will dash out to reply to coyotes and mark a circle around my camp, not giving a second thought to him being a quick snack for them. He is a great alarm as well. Dogs will always be protective of their master and in camp provide a superb early warning for anything approaching.
I have never been concerned about having a “period correct”
breed of dog. Quite frankly, Sprinkles has no idea what year it is and if he is
“period correct” or not. I am looking for companionship in a dog, not period
correctness. On that topic, I learned the hard way to never take your dog’s
collar off when trekking.
On a five-day camp Sprinkles was startled by a herd of cattle and took off running. He never looked back, and it took me 24 hours to find him, well, for a local good Samaritan to drop him off at my truck since he knew where we were. Otherwise, he would have probably gone home with someone, and I would have never seen him again. If you want to make a rustic leather collar, I highly recommend it, but leave your contact information on your dog!
Dogs are great in camp, and I highly recommend a camp dog. Sprinkles has a lot of nights under his collar and has made a lot of friends along the way. If you see him in camp, come say hello!
Written by Gerry "Lucky" Messmer. Reprinted with permission from the author.
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