Stalking the wily Andes trout

Like most people who enjoy outdoor sports, I like dogs. I do not hunt, however. My big brother and several cousins capably fulfill the role of Designated Family Hunters, so I never felt the need. As a result, I never owned a hunting dog.

But I have owned one of the best fishing dogs ever.

Barbara and I acquired Rocky when we found out that we were expecting our first child. We considered him our trainer dog to get us ready for parenthood, teaching us the basics of feeding, educating and playing with another living creature before our new daughter arrived on the scene.

Rocky excelled at the latter task. An energetic extrovert, he loved silly games, the sillier the better. Our favorite was nose-to-nose tug ‘o war. I would hook my index finger around one of his fangs, press our snouts together and pull. He pulled back, grunting and growling and twisting his head. He never got tired of this game, maybe because he always won. I could only keep it up a few seconds before uncontrollable giggles broke my grip.

It should have been easy for me to overpower Rocky at tug ‘o war. After all, I could pick him up and carry him anywhere. Rocky was a golden cocker spaniel and cute as a button. But looks can deceive. Inside he had more grit and guts than most pit bulls.

I found this out on walks around the neighborhood. He spent most of his time sniffing the grass and bushes for woodcocks, the game bird that cocker spaniels were originally bred to hunt. If you are unfamiliar with the woodcock, you may have heard of its fabled cousin, the snipe. I sometimes hunted those myself as a child, at night, generally to the uncontrollable giggles of my older cousins who put me up to it.

Rocky was endlessly content on our neighborhood walks sniffing for woodcocks until we encountered another dog. Then he would go berserk, howling, straining at the leash, tugging me along with even greater determination than when we went nose-to-nose, frantic to get at the other dog.

The size of the other dog made no difference whatsoever. Doberman pinscher, Rottweiler, German shepherd, they were all fair game. It was comical, and just a bit scary, to see this shrimp of a cocker spaniel go toe-to-toe with the big boys. I suppose he thought he owned the neighborhood. Maybe the other dogs did too, because they always backed down.

Rocky’s bark was bigger than his bite, literally. Like most cockers, he was a basso baritone and sounded like a much bigger and nastier dog than he was. This was good, because the second reason we acquired Rocky was home security. His job was to keep the bad guys away. It worked wonderfully, too. Like every house in the neighborhood, ours was surrounded by a high wall. Potential thieves could hear, but not see, the canine inside.

We never once suffered a break-in with Rocky on the property. Every once in a while, I would awake in the middle of the night to Rocky’s berserk barking. It was usually provoked by other dogs out on the street, so I seldom got out of bed to check. But I like to think that on at least some occasions a potential intruder was casing the joint and decided that whatever we had of value was not worth tangling with the fiendish brute inside the wall.

I discovered by accident that Rocky was a great fishing dog. My friend Mark and I planned an overnight trip to the high country. Barbara was in the later stages of pregnancy and unexcited about feeding or playing with another living creature. She prevailed on me to take Rocky along.

He had the time of his life, and so did I. A big reason was because Rocky instinctively stayed out of my way. He followed me up and down the stream, but not too close, splashing back and forth across the current wherever I did, and making wide circles around the quiet pools where I cast for trout so he wouldn’t spook them. He sniffed at the few fish I landed, but showed no interest whatsoever in eating them. When bored, he simply set about hunting woodcocks in the rocks and bushes lining the bank. That night he settled down under the pickup and slept on the frozen ground without complaint.

Rocky earned his place in the Fishing Dog Hall of Fame on a trip to the Malaga, a river three hours from town. The trip is a piece of cake, except for the final stretch of narrow road that winds up to a high mountain pass before plunging to the bottom of the Malaga ravine.

I heard about the Malaga from my friend Salameh, a Turkish engineer who supervised construction of a tunnel to bring water from the Malaga to the Corani hydroelectric reservoir. Corani, by the bye, had produced Bolivia’s record rainbow, a 23-pounder taken in 1973. So when Salameh told me the guys at his construction camp sometimes went fishing after work, I simply had to check out this river.

I invited some friends along, a father-son pair from Chicago. This would be the dad’s first time fishing in the Andes, and as it turned out, his last. I don’t think he regretted that too much, as it turned out.

My friends naturally preferred to fish together, so Rocky and I were free to do our thing, splashing and casting and sniffing all day to our hearts’ content. Rocky even got to chase real birds. This stretch of the Malaga runs through elevations low enough to sustain a robust wildlife population. I’m fairly certain there were no woodcocks, but Rocky was not picky.

I was having too much fun to notice that the sun was setting. My guests reminded me by honking the horn on pickup at close intervals, so I started hustling back downriver. The last few hundred yards were uphill through thick brush and I looked back to make sure that Rocky was following. He was still at the bottom of the hill, standing with his head cocked to one side and giving me an odd look. He didn’t move when I whistled for him.

The horn honking increased in intensity. I turned and hustled up the hill to the truck and apologized to my guests for the inconvenience. I fully expected Rocky to come trotting up while we packed the gear, but he didn’t. I whistled and called and called and whistled, but no Rocky. My guests said little, trying to conceal their anxiety about negotiating the narrow, winding road over that mountain pass in the dark.

“Okay,” I said reluctantly, “we need to start for Cochabamba. I bet Rocky smelled supper cooking at the construction camp down by the river and is getting a free meal. I can call my friend Salameh and ask him to bring Rocky home next time he comes to town.”

As soon as I could reach a phone, I called and explained the situation to Salameh. No, Rocky had not shown up at the construction camp, he said, but he and his workers would keep an eye out for him. That piece of news triggered a night of fitful sleep for me. I lay awake, wondering if I had done the right thing and finally deciding that I probably had not.

To my delight, Salameh rang our doorbell two days later. He had Rocky. The dog burst through our front gate with tail wagging and tongue lapping. He put his paws on my knees and let me rub his floppy ears just a few seconds before bounding off to sniff out the familiar nooks and crannies in the garden.

“So, he must have shown up at camp after all,” I said to Salameh, grinning with relief.

“Actually, no,” he said. “A truck driver coming from Cochabamba a couple nights back found him on the road at the top of the pass. The driver had not yet heard about a missing dog but could tell right away that this one was valuable. So he stopped and picked him up and brought him to camp.”

“If it had not been for the truck driver, we would never have found him. Rocky was heading back to town.”

My grin sagged into an open-mouthed stare as it dawned on me what had happened. Rocky had eventually followed me up the hill that evening to where he knew the truck was parked. Not finding me there, he started following me home. Who knows, maybe he got there in time to see us drive off. I sincerely hope not. I like to think his keen nose followed my scent up the winding dirt road to where the trucker found him.

Could he have found his way home by himself? Well, he would have had to travel 35 more miles across another, higher mountain pass before plunging into the Cochabamba valley, where the scent of my pickup mingled with hundreds of other cars and trucks. Could he have done that? I don’t think it possible, even for Rocky.

But that did not stop him from trying. He was, as the best fishing dogs are, totally committed to his master.

I never recall that incident without wondering if I am as committed to mine. Jesus, as you know, is the best Master you will ever find. You commit to him and he commits to you, instantly, completely, forever.

As a master, Jesus is totally open and welcoming to anybody who chooses to follow him. He will literally lay down his life for you. He stays close every moment of every day, but won’t get in the way of what you’re doing unless, of course, you ask him to. And then, He makes whatever you’re doing a whole lot better.

Best of all, and I say this in all humility, He will never go away and leave you to find your own way home.


Next time: Meat fisherman.