I was working as an exterminator in Toronto when my father passed away which was, needless to say a time I will never forget.
That is not my subject today however, it is more of a way of setting the stage to the story of how I met my best friend.
You see, after my father died, my mother felt the need for change and so purchased a small general store away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
As for myself I was quite happy working for a small family owned pest control business, but when she asked me to accompany her and help to run the store I jumped at the chance to get away from city life.
I now fast forward to 1987 where along with my mother and a close family friend I found myself working, and because the store was attached to a house, living at the Railside general store in Hastings Ontario.
Several years before I had taken up hunting and so thought this was a good a time to get myself a bird dog as I could now devote the time needed to raising and training a pup.
Having hunted over a beautiful English Springer Spaniel by the name of Bandit who was owned by a dear friend of mine I became quite fond of Spaniels.
I had however always been impressed by pointing breeds and after much research decided to get myself a Brittany Spaniel which I saw a the perfect breed for me.
Now having a breed in mind it was only a matter of finding a good breeder of field dogs, which I was sure I could do at the annual hunting show in Toronto and that Fall, off to the show I went.
I really can't remember how long must a walked up and down the aisles in the sporting dog area of the show looking at pups of every description from beagles to Norwegian Elkhounds, and then I saw it.
The most beautiful puppy I have ever laid eyes on!
I wanted that pup! I needed that pup! And damn it, I was going to buy that pup! Incidentally that pup turned out not to be a Brittany Spaniel at all, but a Weimaraner!
So much for all the planning and research I had done!
It was all forgotten at the first sight of that very special breed lovingly known as "The Grey Ghost."
So much for my plan of buying that pup too, because she, and indeed all of her litter mates had already been sold.
My choice now was to go back to my original plan or put myself on a waiting list for the following litter.
I put myself on the list and returned home to await a phone call the following season.
That phone call came the following year and when the pups were weaned and ready to go we discussed how I was going to pick the pup I wanted.
The breeder told me that if I was willing to let him pick the pup for me he would meet me in Toronto with it thus saving me an extra four or five hours of driving time.
As the breeder seemed an honest sort of chap I agreed to his offer provided that in his opinion they would all be good field dogs.
He gave his assurances that they were and that all he needed was for me to tell him whether I was interested in a male or a female.
I don't rightly remember who brought it up but size was mentioned and the breeder told me that one of the males was exceptionally large.
Having always love big dogs I told him that was the pup for me and before I knew it I was driving to Toronto to meet my new best friend.
His registered name was Richmark Tracer and oh what a best friend he turned out to be.
He learned to come to heel and walk beside me in literally a matter of minutes, and he did this without me even using a leash.
While still a young pup, he was finding and retrieving bird wings without so much as a feather out of place upon retrieval.
Before he was a year old he had learned to follow hand signals and the meaning of various commands using only a whistle.
His desire to please was insatiable, his stamina in the field, insuperable and he had the heart of a lion.
Tracer was also a bonafide goofball who used to delight in sneaking stealthily up to the bank of the local river before launching himself like a guided missile at the carp in the shallows.
Once while on our daily walk along the abandoned railway tracks he suddenly bolted into the field to my right, quickly returning looking as proud as a prancing pony with a groundhog in his mouth! A very upset groundhog it was too.
Fortunately for said groundhog Tracer could be a gentle as he was powerful and there wasn't a mark on it.
As soon as I gave Tracer the command to release it he did so immediately and that groundhog hit the ground running and climbed the nearest tree as if its life depended on it.
Tracer, tail wagging like mad and looking all pleased with himself looked up at me as if to say "Just look at that, I didn't even know they could climb!"
As a bird dog Tracer was much more inclined towards upland hunting than he was towards waterfowl and used to cry like a puppy if he had to spend what was in his opinion too much time sitting in a duck blind.
When the shotguns were pointed out of the front of the blind though, his head followed and he would watch excitedly waiting for the ducks to fall.
While he excelled as a retriever his deftness was not limited to Birds however and he took great joy in running out to the front of the store every morning to fetch the newspapers for us.
The local paper was not a big seller for us so we used to get only about three or four papers which were all rolled up and easy for him to carry.
One morning however, after he gave me the roll of newspapers he ran back towards the front of the store and did not immediately return.
I walked towards the front of the store and there found Tracer dragging a huge bale of Toronto newspapers back towards the house.
That bale must have weighed 25 lbs and how he equated that bale with the little roll he was used to is still a mystery to me this day.
Tracer used to love to trot out to the store counter to visit customers and all of our regulars used to look forward to seeing him when they dropped in.
One day I remember in particular though, a customer who was returning some empty pop bottles stepped behind the counter to put them in the crate instead of placing them on the counter.
Tracer who was in his usual position locked his gaze upon the gentleman as though he were pointing a bird and uttered a low growl that you could more feel than hear. The customer froze like a Deer in the headlights as I said perhaps I had better take those.
How that dog learned that the area behind the counter was off limits to customers is as much a mystery to me as the newspaper incident.
His prowess as a guard dog was again in evidence one year while I was away deer hunting leaving my Mother and family friend alone at the store.
Tracer was in his customary spot asleep on the couch when a knock came at the the door to the house well after dark and store hours.
My mother went to the door but did not open it, instead talking to a man who was unknown to her through the door window.
He claimed he wanted to buy something from the store and was apparently most insistent even after being repeatedly told that the store was closed.
Tracer quietly got up from the couch walked over to the door and stood up on his hind legs putting his front paws on the glass.
My mother told me he had an expression on his face unlike any she had ever seen before, and once again came the low growl, this time accompanied by a show of teeth.
Whoever it was at the door that night simply let go of the screen door, turned, and walked away into the night without uttering another word.
Of course I have no proof of his intentions but I think that Tracer just may have saved my mother from a violent robbery that night.
In any case I don't think that finding himself caught in the steely eyed gaze of 110 pounds of muscular Weimaraner was part of his plan.
My mother told me that after the man left, Tracer simply returned to his spot on the couch and went back to sleep. As I mentioned before, he had the heart of a lion.
As fiercely protective of us as he was, he was nothing more than a big lovable pup to his family.
I once pulled a two or three inch thorn out of his chest with a pair of tweezers and he didn't so much as bat an eyelid.
Another time I had to dress a nasty wound in his chest that he got from cutting himself on a piece of sharp stone while we were hunting.
He never made a sound while I cleaned the wound but cried when we cut the hunt short to get him stitched up at the vet.
I could go on for hours telling story after story about this magnificent dog. We were practically inseperable when we had that store.
But all things must pass and all stories must come to an end.
(Continued)
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