There are times every bird season when I sneak out on my own to enjoy the woods Robert Frost called “lovely, dark and deep.” These are special days when time slows down enough that it almost stops, and every moment is etched into a memory I can recall, as needed. With every passing year, I seem to have more days when I hunt alone. That condition is not necessarily due to choice, mind you. It just seems to come with the passage of time.

Hunting presents challenges, for hunters and hunting dogs alike. The elements—extreme cold or extreme heat—can be dangerous. Additionally, the remoteness of many hunting coverts means no access to medical care— sadly, should a life-threatening condition arise, reaching a vet is just not possible.

Some dangers are difficult to recognize, particularly when a single-minded bird dog has its energy and attention focused 100 percent on its job. How many of us have seen a dog with a deep barbed-wire gash pay no attention to the wound and keep working bird scent? Or a dog running for hours but still showing no interest in a bowl of water? A bird dog’s drive can override its physical state, with no visible indication that a problem is brewing.

We need to know how to recognize the symptoms of potentially fatal conditions in our dogs and how to initiate treatment when we can’t get to an emergency vet. We covered bloat and torsion and low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) last issue; now let’s examine hypothermia and heat stroke.

It was half past noon and the day was sad and gray like the underside of a bat’s wing. The drizzling sky stretched unending from horizon to horizon and made everything shadowless. The incessant rain saturated the earth, and water ran down the empty limbs and onto the trunk of the big oak, oozing into the ground and disappearing mysteriously into the leaves. It was good weather for sleeping or reading a book, and it was good weather for staying inside. I was bored. I checked the weather a dozen times, tracing the stream of clouds on the Doppler radar. It would rain all day. Drat!

“You pine worse than a child about the weather and being cooped inside,” my bride admonished. “Just look at you, standing there all forlorn and miserable, staring out the window like your heart is going to break. And you’ve got the dog looking the same way. Old as you are, it seems you would just relax and do some of the things you’re always saying you don’t get around to doing for lack of time. Just go to your study and straighten your desk and quit whimpering like a child.” The lady of the house seldom demands things of me, especially three at a time.

“You are right, loved one,” I acknowledged and sauntered off to the inner sanctum with the setter at my heels, her head hanging disappointedly as if I could have stopped the rain. So what am I going to do with this cracked turkey call I’ve had for years? I mused, turning it over to read the date penciled on the bottom: 3/14/85.