Roxie’s Page: A Tribute to the Best Grouse Dog

On  June 21, 2023, I lost the best grouse dog that I’ve ever seen or probably will ever own. I’ve had lots of good ones but Roxie was different. When I started hunting her I thought something was wrong with my other dogs because this pup was making them look foolish. From day one, no matter how many grouse were in a brood, she would never break point until the last bird came up. I don’t know how she knew, she just knew. She retrieved everything I shot on land or in the water. She would back as far as she could see and when she pointed, dogs could pass her and she would never break. I could hunt where people had just been hunting and she seemed like she could invent birds. Her first grouse contact was in Montana when she was six months old and there have been so many since. Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. She pointed countless grouse and I killed many limits over her. One morning just a few years ago in MN, as there was a front moving in, she pointed twelve single grouse and two sets of doubles in 3 1/2 hours- also a limit of woodcock. There was no quit in her. She would always point an amazing 90% of her bird contacts. Unheard of for a grouse dog. Almost every pup I’ve ever raised for years is related to her. I don’t know if grouse hunting will ever be the same for me. I’ll never forget the sound of her beeper going off way down in the thickest part of the woods and knowing that she would hold the bird until I got there. We were a team.