Otter

The day he disappeared and two days later!

This is a short duck hunting story that is 100% true. It occurred in January of 2021.

A little background before the story. Otter a fox red yellow lab belonging to my daughter, Fran and her husband JC. Otter is about 11 now and he was, as a new puppy, a wedding engagement present to JC from Fran. Then for a wedding gift from Fran to JC, Otter, as a puppy, was sent to the Retriever Academy in Miami, OK for complete retriever training. Now I will take credit for Fran being such a wonderful wife to first buy her soon to be husband a hunting dog puppy and then secondly to have Otter trained by a world class trainer. You see JC grew up in Louisiana hunting waterfowl a lot with his dad Rusty and JC ended up a very good and passionate waterfowl hunter. Fran was no a stranger to Labs. She grew up around our black lab Bullet who she loved. So she knew that Otter would be much more that just JC’s hunting companion, that Otter would be a member or their family.

Fast forward to this past January 2021 and Fran and JC are rapidly approaching their tenth wedding anniversary with their daughter Ella and with Otter, Rooster a Cavalier King Charles and their new black lab puppy Gator, who happens to be away at the Retriever Academy being trained. Since last July in the height of the Covid they bought a get-away lake house on a beautiful lake in eastern Oklahoma that has over 600 miles of shoreline and is fed by several rivers and has an abundance of hunting and fishing opportunities. Of course it should not surprise you at all to understand the one of the major reasons for their acquiring property on this particular lake was the reports of really good duck hunting.

Otter has been a wonderful duck hunting partner for JC and Fran since the day he finished his training and like almost all hardworking retrievers Otter has his share of aches and pains but still loves to hunt. The kids recognizing Otter’s age decided that adding Gator in a year would be a perfect scenario to retire Otter in a year and just save him for some easy hunts but until then was first up on those early mornings headed to the boat to get to the spot. He always was ready to hunt and this January Friday morning was no different.

JC, with my other son-in-law Justin and Otter launched the duck boat at O’dark thirty and head down one of the feeding rivers to the lake outlet they had scouted the night before. All went well. Boat secured, decoys spread set, a light breeze, clear skies and the blind set-up on the boat. Now the job was to wait..you know duck hunting, you wait patiently looking, listening for the first ducks. Sun was breaking, legal shooting time and a few woodies came screaming by. Finally the mallards started working.

A mallard made a mistake, shot fired and duck headed for the water. Next move was for Otter to be sent out into the thigh deep cold water for a typical retrieve in uncluttered shallow water. The only problem was that the retrieve turned out to be anything but typical. The wounded duck dived under the surface and Otter went after him and that was the last time JC and Justin saw the duck or Otter!

For the next two and a half hours both JC and Justin left the boat, in waders and searched for Otter. Did he go under water chasing the duck and have a heart attack with the cold water keeping body under water? Had Otter been trapped under water and the cold water or branches keep him below the surface? Did he get swept further out into the lake with the current? By now there was plenty of sunlight, visibility was excellent and what little small trees, wood piles and bushes were thoroughly searched and searched again. No Otter. Talk about an upset dog owner, dog father, dog lover, JC was beside himself and Justin who has hunted with JC and Otter was visibly upset as well.

The guys finally had to give up the search, throw in the towel so to speak and head back to the house with the justification that if a best friend retriever had to leave this world what better way to cross the “Rainbow Bridge” and to do it hunting. Have we humans always thought about what our perfect way to leave this world would be?

So it is now Friday afternoon and daughter Fran calls me with the news that Otter had mysteriously drown/disappeared while hunting with the “boys” that morning. Fran was crying, I was crying with her and tried to say all of the right “dad” things to say. Even I resigned myself to thinking way to go Otter, to hell with retirement; if I am going to go out, I’m going out hunting.

Now it is Saturday and daughter Fran, daughter Megan (Justin’s wife) and the grandkids drove to the lake and it was not a happy day. A very dear family member had perished; there was joy in Eufaula.

Talk ensued about Sunday morning’s hunt and Fran wanted JC to take her where Otter had disappeared for closure, to say goodbye and to recall memories of hunting with Otter and memories of what a wonderful part of their family he was. JC, as you can imagine was not wanting to go back to that spot. That place did not have a good memory for him, his hunting buddy was gone and not coming back. However Fran’s request was taken to heart by JC.

Sunday morning, again at o’dark thirty the three of them went back to the mouth of the river to hunt ducks and for Fran to say her goodbyes to Otter. JC was piloting his duck boat with the aid of a bright headlight to find the perfect spot to set up for the morning hunt, not far from the sad events of two days earlier. The boat was secured, time to throw the decoys and getting everything ready for the morning shoot. Justin was out of the boat tending to some details while Fran still in the when the two of them noticed a green light towards the big water. Another boat preparing to set up? JC turned to look and instead of the green light what he saw he couldn’t believe. There was the ghost of Otter standing in ankle deep water right where they had been just minutes before in the middle of the channel. Actually they described it as Otter appearing..it was just seconds from when they saw the light until the looked back and he was physically standing hundreds of yards from the nearest cover, the water was not moving. It was almost as if he was standing on the water? Was it a ghost of Otter? An optical illusion caused by the high beam light reflecting off of a group of tree branches?

Nope, there was a living, breathing Otter! JC screamed “there’s my f…ing dog”! Fran and Justin also saw Otter standing there looking at them. Now all three of them were crying and not believing that Otter was actually standing alive, and standing there 48 hours after he disappeared. JC jumped in the water and immediately fell over backwards into the water as if God had thumped him on the forehead. Somehow JC regained his composure enough to to get to Otter and in one fluid move JC putted Otter back in the boat and was immediately being loved on by all. To make this story even a little more unbelievable and/or improbable for some unknown reason Fran had brought a sack along filled with some doughnuts, some Pepperidge Farms goldfish and some other snacks and brought the food menagerie with her in the boat. Otter did not wait for an invitation, his head went into the sack and didn’t come out again until it was empty!

So a very, very happy ending! All three of them looked over the area and absolutely could not figure-out where Otter had been? How he had disappeared? How he had reappeared? How he got to the middle of the channel that they had just gone through? Why? How?

It is three weeks later and I am duck hunting with JC, Fran and Otter tomorrow morning, the last day of the 20/21 season in Oklahoma.

I’ve done the dog whisperer thing and in private asked him to share his secrets. What happened? Were you swept by the current Friday morning when chasing that Mallard? How did you survive for two days in an are that is completely flooded? Come on Otter tell me, I can keep a secret? But mum is the word. We all know that a lab could tell you if it wanted you to know. But l am quite certain that Otter was slyly smiling at me knowing darn good and well that I cannot keep a secret.

What I do know that he is now equipped with a GPS tracking collar and he is excited to go out. His vet gave Otter a thorough exam after the incident and declared Otter to be in the best shape he’s been in for some time.

So next year Gator will be the young, freshly trained enthusiastic retriever but I’m betting that this year wasn’t Otter last year..may have been his most memorable but not his last.

Is there a moral to the story? Probably more than one but the one I like best is: Never underestimate the determination and abilities of an old hunting dog!