Episode 2 - Miken

My First English Springer Spaniel: A Dog of Doubles, Battles, and Fog

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I used to joke he missed his calling as a NASCAR driver. While other dogs quartered clean and tight, he ran like he had a steering wheel in his paws, banking turns hard, sliding into cover like a car hunting for the inside lane. Small birds never seemed to interest him much—they were too easy. But give him a rooster, a long cast, or just a wide field to carve, and he’d show you what speed and turns could look like in dog form.

The Day of Doubles

Ask any hunter and they’ll tell you: a double is something you never forget. My Springer gave me two of them.

The first came on roosters. The sky was sharp and cold, the kind of day where the frost still clings to the grass at noon. He flushed one bird left, then another right—chaos in stereo. The gun found its mark twice, and he bounded back with both retrieves as if it were routine.

The second was on quail. If the roosters were power, the quail were precision. They lifted like a storm from the grass, and somehow, in that split second of thunder, the gun barked twice true. My Springer brought them back one after the other, chest puffed like he knew he had just given me something I’d be telling for years.

The Badger

Not all his stories came from the sky. One afternoon, while running cover, he came nose-to-nose with a badger. Most dogs would’ve thought better of it. Not him. He squared up like it was just another challenge sent his way. It was loud, ugly, and over quick, but when he came back, fur bristled and eyes blazing, I knew two things:

1. He had more courage than sense.

2. He would never back down from anything as long as he drew breath.

   

The Fog Hunt

If I had to pick one hunt, one memory to carry forever, it would be the morning of the fog.

Freezing fog clung to the earth so thick I couldn’t see twenty yards ahead. The world was silent, muffled, like we were hunting inside a cloud. My Springer worked blind to my eyes but sure in his nose, quartering through the whiteness like it wasn’t even there. Then it happened: the thunder of wings right in front of me, the sudden explosion of a bird out of nowhere.

I fired on instinct. A shadow dropped from the mist. Before I even found my bearings, he was there, tail wagging, bird in his mouth, eyes gleaming as if to say, Told you I had it.

It was a moment that could’ve been dream or legend, and I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t had him by my side.

More Than a Dog

Looking back now, I see him for what he was: not just my first English Springer Spaniel, but the one who taught me what it meant to hunt with a partner. He gave me doubles, a fight with a badger, the NASCAR turns, and a hunt in the fog I’ll never forget. He also gave me laughter, frustration, and a thousand little stories that make up a lifetime with a dog you love.

He was more than a dog. He was the kind of Springer that makes you better just by following him into the