![]() ![]() In the end, I got lucky and a friend tipped me off that a dog from the man who brought the first Laikas to the U.S. I found out there were only a handful of breeders who offer good dogs, and to be patient and wait for dogs from their litters. I did the research, reading about the Laika breed extensively and talking to the folks who knew the most about Laikas. So that primal need to hunt is still very much in the bloodlines of well-bred Laikas. They hunted on their own and the ones that didn’t died. The first Laikas lived in the cold and snow of Siberia and, for the most part, their owners did not feed them. Prey drive is built into his breed and, intuitively, he went after squirrels from Day 1. Both have an abundance of squirrels, and that’s all he needed. I just walked Vlad every day in the woods of a trail or a nearby golf course. You get basic obedience down, and then you’re off to the races. What really drew me to Laikas is you don’t have to train them to hunt. As he gets older, I want to hunt him on hogs with buddies in Oklahoma, run down coyotes in Kansas, and get him to track all manner of game. My hope is to get him retrieving doves, and running rabbits. Plus, he howls when we all blow our goose calls, like he is trying to help us trick geese into the spread, and that’s priceless in and of itself. But I can still take him duck hunting and not worry that he will be in the way or get into trouble. I also wanted a dog that could hunt other game, and Laikas will hunt virtually anything you kill in front of them. ![]() Why I Chose a Laika Vlad was pretty excited about his first squirrel. But when you decide what hunting pursuit best fits you, and you want a dog by your side, you just need to do the research and stick to your guns, no matter what others (even so-called expert dog trainers) think. ![]() And the unknown often leads folks to question or distrust things-particularly gun-dog enthusiasts, who are as loyal to their breeds as Tom Cruise is to L. You likely have never heard of a Laika (I certainly hadn’t until reading a story about them). Several people questioned my decision to buy this particular breed of pup. I was excited, and also relieved and vindicated. I quietly said, “Good boy,” over and over again, petting him on the head and neck. He fell from his perch, and Vlad rushed to it, clenching the fur in his sharp little teeth. And though I knew my deer buddies would be pissed, I raised the gun and shot a fat male fox squirrel. Two squirrels flushed from cover up into an old oak tree. ![]() So I decided to shoot a 20-gauge that I knew wasn’t overly loud. He never once flinched or even seemed to care. I clapped loudly and yelled when Vlad wasn’t paying attention many times. I talked to a dog handler friend about gun training him, and was a little apprehensive about shooting around such a young pup. My only reservation was he had not been exposed to gunfire yet. He had been running down squirrels on a trail near the house for the last month, and was seeing foxtails and grays I wasn’t, so it seemed like the right time to hunt for real. I hate when other hunters show up in the public places I hunt, but I had woken up at 5 a.m., driven an hour to a place I knew had squirrels in it, and felt like there was a good chance my little West Siberian Laika 4-month-old pup, Vladimir (we had to give him a Russian name), would tree his first one so that I could shoot it. For a second I thought about turning around and going home. I typically come to this spot during the week, but this was a Sunday and the mud hole that doubled as the parking lot had four trucks parked in it. It was a rainy morning in November and the small stand of public timber was filled with deer hunters. ![]()
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