HRCH Blay Day’s Blue Boy

Written by Damron Henson

Saturday, 15 March 2008

‘Blue’ - Nov. 24, 1997-Dec. 29, 2007 Our lives changed on Dec. 29, 2007, when we lost our friend, companion, and champion retriever due to a very short battle with cancer. We hunted on December 27 and everything was just fine and normal. We killed a bunch of geese and Blue picked up most of them. His last retrieve was a blind retrieve where he had to swim about 100 yards and then break ice for another 80 yards into an open hole where there was a crippled goose. As he always did, he got there and started the chase — it lasted about 20 minutes with several dives and he finally caught the goose and returned back to the blind to the cheers of all of the hunters. The rest of that day was just fine and he ate and drank with no problems. The next morning I went to let him out at 5 a.m. to go duck hunting and he didn’t want to eat and just walked off into the dark. I grabbed my flashlight and followed him. I shined the light on him and he just fell over. When looking him over I found a huge knot to the left of his tail on his hip. I could tell it bothered him, so I loaded him up in the truck and headed for the closest vet clinic. The vet right initially thought Blue had some sort of hernia, but later determined the problem was more serious and should receive immediate attention. We hunted with a veterinarian several years ago who runs an internal medicine clinic for animals in Dallas. He always told me to call him if I thought I really needed help with Blue. It only took these guys about five minutes to tell us what was wrong. Blue had a large tumor that extended from his left hip through his pelvis into his chest. The vet wanted me to know one thing — it was fatal and it might be two hours or two months, but he would never be the same. And to think less than 24 hours earlier we were hunting. My wife, Dana, and I discussed what to do and we decided to bring him home, make him comfortable, and say our good-byes. They gave him a shot for the pain, and we took Blue home. By late evening, the tumor continued to grow at such a rapid rate it dislocated his hips. We stayed up all night with him, and it was really tough watching him go through this — so we called our vet and asked her to come out to the house and put him down. The doctors at the internal medicine clinic were confident that he had an anal gland carcinoma. These are very aggressive and most always fatal. We are thankful that Blue was strong until the finish and he did not have a long and drawn-out illness. Blue had a great 10 years. He hunted whitewings on the Mexico border, pheasants in South Dakota, snows and mallards in Saskatchewan, plus all of the duck and goose hunts here in Texas. Blue ended up with a little more than 6,000 retrieves during his career. A special thank you to all of those that helped us train Blue during the early years. We didn’t know much at all about training, but Blue made it easy for us to keep up. And thanks to all of you that shared time in the field or blind with us — those are memories we will treasure forever.

Last Updated ( Saturday, 15 March 2008 )

 

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