Clyde’s Corner

Old ‘Sarge’—thanks for the memories

by Clyde Whitaker

I think most of us growing up had a dog or two. In my case, we had a beagle, which was our hunting dog. “Sarge” was his name, a beautiful small beagle that had a great hunting nose. He could smell those ring-necked pheasants all day long; he was an awesome hunting dog.

He did have his quirks, though. On one hunting trip on the Pine Croft farm near Munith, Sarge flushed a ring-necked pheasant by a stream running through the field. My dad, with his Browning automatic 12-gauge shotgun, pointed it just right, downing the pheasant on the other side of that stream.

Well, at the sound of the gun blast, Sarge took off across that stream, and with the ring-necked pheasant in his mouth, he laid down across from us on the opposite bank edge and proceeded to munch on the pheasant!

My dad was furious, to put it lightly! He called and called for Sarge to come back but that beagle didn’t listen; he just looked up with feathers all over his face. Let me just say, my dad and Sarge had a discussion when he did come back, minus the pheasant.

On another occasion, it was just Sarge and me out on a hunting excursion down the road from my house, on the Dorr farm. The corn was plentiful at the time, and as Sarge and I worked the rows of corn, he was going back and forth, his nose touching the ground, hoping to catch the pheasant scent.

I eventually lost sight of him, and I stopped to listen, hoping to hear him nearby. All of a sudden, Sarge gave a quick bark, and a ring-necked pheasant came busting out of the corn, about 50 feet ahead of me, crowing that distinctive sound that’s like no other.

I pointed my Savage 12-gauge, single-shot shotgun just ahead of the pheasant, pulled the trigger and watched as the bird dropped up ahead of me. I went to where I thought he dropped, but no pheasant. Stumped, I looked around the rows nearby, nothing.

As I was standing there, it occurred to me that I had no bird—and no dog! Glancing down the rows I eventually saw Sarge coming back to me, with the pheasant in his mouth, intact! I hugged him, told him “good boy,” and put the pheasant in my back pouch to eat for dinner later that night.

This was the only time Sarge ever retrieved a pheasant, but he jumped many for us, flushing them out of dense brush for us to take over the years.

Of course, Sarge is gone now, but the memories we have of him are priceless. While I can’t locate any old photos of Sarge, I can see him now, in my mind’s eye. I’m sure he’s in his glory, on the other side of that rainbow bridge, chasing those pheasants!

Clyde Whitaker is a 1973 Stockbridge graduate. He and his wife, Mary, raised four children in Stockbridge, and they still reside in the Stockbridge area.

In his youth, Clyde Whitaker’s family had a beautiful small beagle—Sarge—similar to the one shown above. While Sarge had a great hunting nose, he was not so good at retrieving. Photo credit: Lesya Tyutrina Andrey Biyanov on unsplash.com