Some dogs are just extremely shy like some people are very shy. They are not necessarily abused in any way, they are just shy. This personality trait we saw in a number of bird dogs as we had around 20 pups a year. We sold some, kept some, some became family pets, some died of un natural causes. These shy dogs that would run off were very difficult to deal with.
This shy and smart dog reminds me of a bird dog we had growing up named Ootz. Ootz was shy, would wag his tail and never let anyone pet him. He was trying to be friendly enough to where you would feed him. Of course he did not make it as a bird dog, he ran off on the first hunt. Ootz became the family pet, kinda. We did not have a pen to put him in, so he ran loose in the small country town we lived in. Now Ootz was great at retrieving mops and boots that were left on the back door steps from neighbors all over town. Newspapers were not uncommon in our back yard as Ootz followed the paper boy trying to catch a newspaper. He would catch a cat once in a while and would carry it around for days, very proud of himself.
Dad got tired of the complaints and built a dog house with small pen to keep Ootz in. Well, Ootz could climb chain link as good as any squirrel.
It was about a mile to down town in this small country town of about 4000. We had 4 cops in our small town. One of the cops paraded around like a peacock with all his buttons and whistle shined, tight hair, Daper Dan man. This cop was a lady's man. Well, this cop had his car washed everyday. Now Ootz had a time table that put him at city hall around 11 am in the morning. The cop had his car back from the car wash usually by 10 AM. Ootz developed the habit of liking to urinate on the cops tires. Ootz would usually urinate on more than one tire. The cop car looked perfect except for the urine stained tires. The cop was naturally furious as his image was stained while parading around trying to impress the ladies.
I rode my buzz bike to town to pay the water bill at city hall, carried my sheridan pellet rifle right into city hall with me...no big deal. The cop caught me one trip and told me he was going to shoot Ootz if we did not keep him up. Two days later I rode my buzz bike to town with pellet rifle to pay the electric bill at Duke Power. I heard a shot. I went outside and the cop had shot Ootz right on main street with a shotgun!
Two days later in the town newspaper, Headlines was, "Rabid Dog Shot on Main Street". It was quite the talk for a while of how we had a Rabid dog living at our house and this must have been why he was dragging off everyone's laundry off the clothes lines, angry at newspapers, carrying off muddy boots, and mops.
The family missed that crazy Ootz. So, dad brought home another shy bird dog for another family pet, but put a fence around the yard to keep the dog up. Well, this Dog was a digger. After two weeks, it looked like our house had come under a mortar attack with all the two foot deep craters all over the front and back yard where that crazy dog was trying to dig up moles. It rained for a week once, I told my daddy that our house looked like Viet Nam.
My push mower only had three wheels, and I told daddy that I could not navigate the holes with only three wheels. Daddy blew me off on getting me another wheel, so I put Coleman lantern fuel in the lawn mower gas tank, and now I had what sounded like a hover craft going over the holes. The lawn mower burned up in an hour or so, so I did not have to worry about cutting grass anymore.
By this time, the dog had got under the house and tore all the insulation loose from the floor. Everybody burned trash in their back yard at that time, so the dog got into the burnt trash barrel and made a mess of the yard. Mama loved that dog, so daddy did not shoot him.
The dog finally got used to the family, then chewed the screen wire off the bottom of the back porch, and the house got full of flies. Now mama did not like the dog anymore.
The final straw. Daddy bought 250 half grown chickens every Spring from his friend that fought chickens, he and I butchered them, freezing them. The chickens arrived in a large slatted wooden box that was about 4'x10' with a lid on top. That dog somehow opened the latch, then the lid. Those 250 half grown chickens scattered through out the small town. Sundown was never the same with all the crowing going on. Did you know that Chickens crow in their sleep, all night long? People were complaining, and the city council called daddy in to the meeting. Something had to be done. It was supposedly Illegal to fire a weapon in town. The city council passed a law that daddy could shoot a dozen chickens a night before 10 pm. We cleaned chickens all Summer after daddy got home from work, 22 Marlin and shorts dispatched the chickens with a good flashlight.
Daddy's best friend was the town Judge. The Judge was legally half owner of both of these Shy dogs, but we kept that quiet. The judge offered to shoot the dog for daddy in the city council meeting, then others offered to take the dog. Others offered to take the chickens if they could be trapped, it was just one heck of a mess. Chickens were scratching up the town's flower gardens, and others were feeding the chickens. There was a feud for a while between the chicken lovers and the Garden Club, the Marlin 22 won. We needed the chickens in the freezer to feed the family.
This Rescue thread has gone down hill for sure.
There is a moral to this story, when it comes to shy dog problems, it is always better to make a shy dog someone else's problem.
Some of life's lessons, you just never forget.
