Quilled

September 28th marked the opening day of the 2024 bird hunting season in Vermont. It was a bright, sunny, and relatively warm day. I had high hopes and was filled with excitement for the first day of Pipp’s second season afield. I felt as if we both now had enough training days together to understand what we were supposed to be doing in the field, and I was eager to see it all come together. Last season, she was just a six-month-old puppy, and I was still a relatively new hunter, a first-time bird dog owner.

We were barely fifty yards into the woods when Pipp got birdy. In hindsight, I’m not sure what I was expecting. At the time, I wasn’t fully trusting her nose. I likely, though subconsciously, anticipated a chipmunk or squirrel. This came from watching her excited body language during our early fall walks in the woods. Grouse aren’t as common in our part of the state, and Woodcock hadn’t arrived as stopovers on their migration path yet. Meanwhile, small, furry critters were abundant.

Suddenly, Pipp slammed on point. It was surreal. The scene I had imagined a hundred times in my mind—her pointing our first wild bird—was unfolding before me. Last year, we had plenty of flushes and bumps that startled us both. But the moment I was experiencing now seemed to make time stand still. What felt like an eternity for observation and thought seemed to happen in the blink of an eye in terms of my physical response. It’s remarkable how the brain can hold space for multiple lines of thought at once.

Just as my mind reminded my hands to get my gun ready, something burst into flight to my right. I heard its signature whistle and instantly knew it was a Woodcock, even though I only saw its movement out of the corner of my eye. Oddly, Pipp remained fixated straight ahead, not toward the right where the bird had taken off. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another one holding tight in front of her. I took a couple of steps, readied my shotgun, and the second Woodcock flew up. I had the perfect straight-away shot at just the right height. I missed.

It didn’t matter that I missed the bird. Pipp might disagree, but I was elated by the experience—just moments into our first hunt of the season. On cloud nine, we pressed on.

About an hour later, I heard a Grouse drumming. They do this in the fall, a form of territorial communication. We set off in the direction of the sound.

We were crossing a clearcut, filled with brush and stumps, when I saw Pipp get excited about something. This wasn’t a place I’d expect a grouse—especially in or under a log. Deadfall in the forest, sure, but in the middle of a recently logged area?

Then I saw Pipp nose something and begin frantically circling and pawing at her face. At first, I thought she might have a branch stuck in her nose. But then I realized—it was a face full of porcupine quills. Panic washed over me, followed by the inner monologue: “Goddamn it, not on the first day of the season!” and “Okay, business time—start the hike out immediately and call the emergency vet.”

By the time we reached the end of our trek out, Pipp had calmed down a bit and was trying to hunt the area where the Woodcock had been. Once we reached the Jeep, I could see that it wasn’t the worst-case scenario of hundreds of quills—more like twenty, with only a few in her mouth and none in her eyes. My vet was wonderful, showing me how to use hemostats to remove the quills properly and completely (the “cut the quill” method is a myth, by the way). Using a sedative, the vet removed the quills in about ten minutes, for a total of nearly $700. Of course, my pet insurance deductible is $750.

None of this mattered, though. I was just relieved to have Pipp feeling better, and even more thrilled when the vet said we could go out hunting again later that day. We both rested for the remainder of the afternoon.

It was a tough financial lesson, as this was the money I’d set aside for my Minnesota trip, which would have to be postponed for another year. I was disappointed, having looked forward to the trip for months. But I was also anxious about the potential risks of hunting—what if she got injured more seriously: cut from old barbed wire, a stick in her eye, or any number of worse-case scenarios my brain could concoct. Needless to say, I now set aside money specifically for vet bills in addition to my pet insurance.

Overall, it was a day full of adventure and excitement. In hindsight, it makes for a good story. Sometimes the unexpected is welcome, and other times less so. Luckily, Pipp and I both came out of the porcupine experience no worse for the wear, and our first interaction with Woodcock of the season was marvelous. We’ll take the bad with the good.