Tonka’s Last Retrieve
The 11-Year-Old Chessie Went Out in a Blaze of Glory

By Dan Nelson

Editors note: This story first appeared in Outdoor Life magazine.

Bryce Risser sat quietly on the tailgate, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee and eyes fixed on the bag of decoys at his feet. When he finally looked up he proposed a toast: “To Tonka, one heckuva dog. This is how he would have wanted it.”

Tonka was Bryce’s 11-year-old Chesapeake retriever, the finest water dog I ever saw. But on this stormy afternoon at the end of waterfowl season, Tonka’s crate was empty. Sipping our coffee, we pieced together the events of the past 24 hours.

Bryce had phoned the previous afternoon. “There’s a storm brewing and ducks are on the move. I checked the pass and it’s loaded—bills, redheads and cans, mostly, even some mallards. By this time tomorrow she’ll be froze up. Can you make it for the morning shoot?”

He didn’t say as much, but I knew Bryce was thinking this could be Tonka’s last hunt. The old dog’s arthritic hips had lost their kick, and he winced even on short retrieves. A youngster—the pick of a litter sired by Tonka—was being groomed to take his place.

I worked the graveyard shift at the paper, slept a few hours and then, because a howling nor’wester was already chasing autumn from the prairie, started the 60-mile trip earlier than usual. As I drove into the growing storm, rain turned to sleet and finally snow that drifted menacingly across the highway by the time I neared my destination.

A welcoming light beamed from the kitchen window as I turned into Bryce’s driveway shortly after 5 am. The garage door was open, the usual pile of waterfowling paraphernalia stacked of the floor. I stowed the gear in the back of my Blazer and followed the smell of bacon and toast up the back stairs.

We discussed our options over a hurried breakfast. We could pass shoot at the railroad crossing that spanned the lower end of the lake, or set decoys off a long, narrow point in the middle. We decided on the latter, even though it would mean a difficult trek along a steep, snow-covered ridge.

The gravel road up the far side of the lake has blown clear, but I had to ratchet the truck into four-wheel-drive to negotiate the snow-packed trail to the lake. We parked behind a tree row and walked the final quarter mile, plowing through drifts that were knee-high in places, leaning into a gale that could tip a man over if he wasn’t careful.

It was Bryce’s job to set the decoys and build the blind, which he did by weaving tumbleweeds and camouflage netting into a framework of sun-bleached driftwood. I hollowed out a place to sit, chipping through the hardpan with a branch and discarding the loose gravel a handful at a time. The blind wouldn’t insulate us from the wind or keep the snow from swirling under our collars, but it would allow us to spot ducks before they saw us.

First light revealed a scene from a Les Kouba painting. Thick, dark-bellied clouds boiled off the hilltops spitting marshmallow-sized snowflakes. White-topped waves exploded on the far shore, coating everything in their path with a veneer of ice.

Bryce always was partial to stormy days. After all, any retriever could do a respectable job of collecting waterfowl on a bluebird day; but when the water was just a few degrees this side of ice, only a tough-as-nails, double-coated Chessie would do. Tonka whined with anticipation as we crawled into the blind.

“We only take shots upwind of the point,” Bryce ordered, wading out to give the decoys a final tweaking. I knew what he was thinking. Any cripples landing downwind of the point would make their escape to open water, and the big-hearted Chessie would swim off into those four-foot swells even if Bryce commanded him to stay.

Retrievers are supposed to be steady to shot, meaning they don’t go after a bird until commanded to do so, but Tonka never had time for such formalities. He usually departed the moment shots were fired.

Once, years earlier, we’d tried to discourage this habit using a stout 50-foot checkcord, one end attached to Tonka’s choke collar and the other wrapped around Bryce’s hand. From some distance away, I fired my shotgun and tossed a training dummy into the slough. When Tonka raced off in pursuit, Bryce hollered, “No, no, no.”

The rope uncoiled and Bryce braced for the moment of truth. That’s when he noticed the loop around his foot. He tried to step out of the noose but it was too late, and when the slack disappeared, he flipped like a rabbit in a snare.

Tonka seemed to enjoy the new game we’d invented.

Next we anchored the rope to a rotting wooden fence post, which Tonka snapped off at ground level and dragged through the slough, collecting about 20 pounds of pond scum along the way.

Huddled against the storm, Bryce and I chuckled about that long-ago training session and how we had finally decided steadiness was an over-rated quality in a retriever. It was a decision we were about to regret.

A squadron of bluebills skimmed the rolling surface of the lake, their wings whistling as they banked for a closer look at our decoys. Bryce took a pair with his little 20-guage side-by-side, dropping both on the upwind shore of the point. I missed twice.

I’m not much of a pass shooter. I can handle upland birds alright, and mallards pitching into the decoys on cupped wings, but I never quite got the hang of gunning twisting, turning divers riding a 40-mile-an-hour gale.

Tonka delivered the ‘bills to Bryce—retrievers always seem to know who shot the birds—and gave me the cold shoulder, just as he had on a similar morning many years earlier.

Bryce had to work that day, so I’d loaded up Tonka for a morning of hunting at the railroad crossing. Shortly after we got in position Tonka’s ears perked up and I knew he’d heard whistling wings in the dense fog. Sure enough, a dozen scaup appeared through the mist, and as soon as I shot Tonka sailed into the lake with that patented water entry of his. He swam in circles for a few minutes then, realizing I’d missed, came back, shook off and gave me a nasty glare.

The next time I shot he ran out only up to his knees, looked both ways and, seeing nothing on the water, returned to my side. When it happened a third time, he walked slowly to the water’s edge, and on my fourth try he didn’t bother to move, as if to say, “If you need me, let me know.”

The ornery retriever was snoozing by the time I finally figured out the appropriate lead and knocked my first ‘bill out of the sky. Hearing the splash he flew into the water, fetched his prize and my shortcomings were forgiven, if not forgotten.

The impatient old Chessie had that same look in his eyes as Bryce and I reminisced in the snowy blind, passing up more shots than we took. “Hey, how ‘bout shooting something so I can get back to work.”

There was no reason to hurry. The sky was full of ducks, so many that even I managed to down a few. Besides, once we had our limit we’d have to pick up and go home, and we wanted to make the morning last.

When our bag included enough bluebills and mallards, we decided to finish with a brace of bull cans we planned to fix for supper. In this weather, the cans would come in low and hard, and even if we managed to make a clean kill, a bird’s momentum might easily carry it to the downwind side of the point.

It takes a special retriever to fetch canvasbacks. When crippled, they’ll swim until the dog gets close, then dive under the surface, popping up a good distance away. It’s an evasive maneuver that can discourage even the most experienced dog.

Not Tonka. He’d patiently tread water, steadily closing the gap until he got close to the bobbing duck. When the duck dove, Tonka would dive too, grabbing the surprised bird by the tailfeathers. It was a sight that always amazed me and pleased Bryce, who realized Tonka was his once-in-a-lifetime dog.

The snow seemed to be letting up, although it was hard to tell with the wind making such a fuss. It was almost noon when half a dozen canvasbacks appeared on the horizon, heading down the middle of the lake. When they spotted our decoys, they set their wings and veered toward the lee side of the point.

“Take ‘em,” Bryce whispered. We sat up and fired, one duck folding cleanly and landing safely on the ground, the other—mine—sailing to the downwind side of the point on a broken wing. Tonka ignored the dead bird and raced off to collect the cripple. Bryce lunged after his dog but was too late. He yelled, “heel, Tonka, heel”, but the dog was already halfway through the decoys.

Bryce took aim at the swimming duck, but Tonka was too close to risk a shot. My heart sank as the fleeing canvasback led Tonka farther and farther into the lake until both disappeared in the roller-coaster surf.

Bryce blew on his whistle until the pea froze in his spit. He tried firing two shots in the air, hoping Tonka would think there was another duck on the water and come back. He didn’t.

“Damn you dog,” Bryce yelled at the waves. Then, softly, “You old fool. You won’t come back from this one.”

We waited, pacing the shore and staring across the lake hoping the stubborn old retriever would have the good sense to quit but knowing he wouldn’t. Not a word was spoken.

Figuring we’d have a better view from the high ground, we collected the decoys and climbed the ridge, Bryce taking most of the load; penance, I suspect, for bringing his aging retriever along on such a day.

We walked the overlook for a quarter mile. Nothing. No sign of anything out in the cold, black water, and no movement along the ice-crusted shoreline below.

I arrived back at the truck first, hoping Tonka had decided to join us at the usual meeting place. Bryce moved slowly down the trail, so preoccupied that he didn’t notice the snowdrift blocking his path until he was waist-deep in it. He paused, looked back one more time, then plowed through to the clearing on the other side, stomping his feet and using his glove to swat snow from his legs.

Loosening the strap across his chest, he allowed the bulky canvas decoy bag to slide off his back. His other burden would be more difficult to shed.

We sat on the tailgate for half an hour, warming ourselves with nonstop stories about the cantankerous old retriever who had brought so much pleasure to our lives.

After pouring the last drops of coffee from the thermos, it was time to head home. “If he had to go” Bryce said, his eyes glazing over, “this is how it should be. It’s better than wasting away in the kennel. Better than putting him down.”

We lifted our cups in a final salute, stashed the decoy bags next to Tonka’s empty crate and started the truck. The defroster slowly cleared a half-moon opening on the icy windshield, and through it I spotted something moving. Rubbing my glove furiously over the glass for a better look, I gasped. Bryce threw open his door and said, “Well I’ll be…”

There, with a very-much-alive drake canvasback in his mouth, was one exhausted, shivering old Chesapeake. Bryce dispatched the duck and lavished more praise on his dog than he had in the last 10 years combined. Tonka seemed annoyed with all the attention: “Hey, what’s all the fuss? I was just doing my job.”

Back-tracking in the snow we pieced together the details of his odyssey. Apparently Tonka had followed the duck all the way to the south end of the lake—a distance of a quarter mile—finally pinning his quarry against the rock railroad embankment.

From there the dog had followed the shoreline, bounding through snow that was over his head, back to the blind. Finding us gone, he tracked us back to the truck. It would have been an incredible feat for a dog in his prime. At Tonka’s age, it was more like a miracle.

There was no riding in the crate on that trip home. Tonka curled up in the back seat, Bryce’s hunting jacket draped over his wet, quivering body and the canvasback, the last he would ever retrieve, on the floor next to him.