Some of my Story - Don Evanson
I have always loved animals and competition. As a kid, my friend Devin and I bird hunted as much as we could. As a teenager I would walk the two miles out of town in order to meet my friend and his dogs, Bummer and Bride, two German Shorthair Pointers. Bummer was saved from the dog pound on the very day he was scheduled to be euthanized. I think that Bummer truly knew how lucky he was but we were the lucky ones. The memory of that first season hunting with him will be clear to me until my last breath. I shot my first Pheasant and Partridges over him. However, I missed 100's more over the years with Bummer as he was a better hunter than I was a shooter. Later, when I was around 17 “Bum” and I would take road trips and hunt together when Devin was away.
I often think of the people who trained and lost him because I'm very sorry for their loss because he truly was a bird finding Duck and Goose retrieving machine. He worked on land or in water. It did not matter to Bummer because he lived to hunt.
As a young adult I let myself get to busy to hunt. I started working with horses ended up spending one third of my life training, breaking, and shoeing race horses in the Northwest. When I started bird hunting again I did so behind labs that belonged to clients. Later, I trained and hunted with my own labs and did so for 10 years. After retiring from horse racing I began working nights dealing in a casino poker room. This allowed for more time to hunt.
Thinking back about my younger days hunting with Bummer, I decided to focus on German Shorthaired Pointers (GSP). I missed the style of the pointing dog and I wanted to hunt more species of birds and GSP are the number one pointing dog for a reason. Instead of relaxing and enjoying a sort of semi-retirement, I found myself once again training. Life brings us full circle at times and it is always interesting when it does.
Adventure Gundogs has been operating in Kennewick, Washington since 2003.
