I really enjoyed your pictures Mike, especially the Texas photos. Made me a little homesick for the mesquite thickets of west Texas for sure. The photo of the wire hair pointer with a face full of porcupine quills made me think of an episode with a Brittany Spaniel a few years ago in the grouse woods. We think of these porcupines mainly as a nuisance but these quills can actually kill a dog. Some hunters from Virginia who go to the same grouse camp where I go had a young French Brittany get into one of those nasty porcupines a couple years ago. They took their time removing the quills like we always do and thought they got them all. The next day they hunted their pup and he acted ok at first and then acted like he had no stamina. Shortly thereafter, the pup dropped over dead. Apparently a quill worked it's way into a vital organ, presumably the lungs resulting in death for this pup. I had never heard of such a thing but apparently it can happen. Lesson is, one should take great care removing ALL the quills. I always carry a pair of hemostats with me on every hunt just in case!

Socialism is almost the worst.