My middle child is a barker

My dog Ace is the middle child.

Seldom the center of attention, Ace is quite comfortable blending into the background.

Except when he barks.

And he barks a lot.

He barks in the morning when I let him out.

He barks when I feed him.

He barks at anyone or anything that walks past his yard in Malta.

He barks when he’s riding in his kennel in the back of the truck and I turn onto a gravel road.

He barks when we drive through town on the return from hunting.

He barks when we’re out hunting and I stop to take a break.

Lately he’s even begun to bark when I simply slow down.

Going on 11, Ace slowed down noticeably this fall, not that he was ever a fast dog. Ace has paced himself since he was a pup. He’ll probably live to be 20.

Ace always hunted with faster, more aggressive dogs and apparently never felt a need to match their pace.

That certainly hasn’t changed now that we have Dot. A one-year-old with a rocket for a motor, she seldom slows down, racing through shortgrass and cattails with equal enthusiasm.

The first of my dogs to wear an electronic collar, Dot responds well, but hunting with her is a bit like running a radio-controlled model car that’s stuck on high.

Ace, on the other hand, is seldom far from my side. That way he’s quick to notice if I slow down and can begin barking.

Back at the house he quickly falls asleep in his chair, and I often wonder if he’ll be up for going again tomorrow. So far he always has.

This morning’s hunt was typical. Hunting with my friend Mike and his young Lab Honey along a cattail slough, we watched the two young dogs dive into the cover and start putting up pheasants. Mike dropped two roosters. One fell in the sparse cover beyond the cattails and Honey was soon on it. The other dropped into the cattails and disappeared.

Dot was a blur in the cover and I hoped she’d find the bird. It was Ace, however, who caught the rooster in the thickest of the cattails and pinned it to the ground.

Ace is like that middle child who never seems to get the attention the others do.

Maybe that’s why he barks.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]