You'd think Kie one of Jelher's midgets, but at 20" and 38lbs, he was still bumping the top of their standard. In his prime he made a couple or three measured half mile casts in overgrazed quail pasture which was more than enough range for our more common purposes. Just glad he was brought on to also tuck right in for the thick stuff, as that's where he spent the great majority of the second half of his career.
Well, that and waterfowling. Pretty much perfect for our floating marsh, as he could stay on top of more of it than the Chessies, and fine for the type of, mostly low volume specklebelly, goose hunting we were then doing. Only worked one big, 53 bird, light goose hunt and had to be lifted into the truck after. (That Spring I heard from a fellow at a HRC test, whose brother was on that hunt, that it was 70-some geese Kie handled, so there's no telling how many the little fellow retrieved that day by current accounts.) Even knowing time polishes some memories, it still tickles me greatly when long time lodge regulars reminisce about thinking they were screwed when a bird dog jumped down from the truck at the boathouse and went on to prove them wrong.
Been deaf since he was nine, nearly blinded by cataracts the past few years and much too often addled by "canine cognitive disorder" (read: dog Alzheimer's), now needs what passes for a "running" start, if not a boost, just to make it onto the couch and has developed an inexplicable fear of riding in the truck, but it was showing absolutely no interest in some woodcock his "brother," the coyote, and I brought home that finally sealed his retirement this year.
Still, can't resist a parting shot of of my guy when he was still living large at 15: