Miles Davis Coleman; August 24, 1994 - March 27, 2009

Miles Davis Coleman was born in a pink single-wide trailer outside Frenchtown Montana on August 24, 1994. Nicky Battaglia, Polly Cote and I found lab pups in the Missoulian for $200 and being that carpal tunnel had ended my two summer seasonal career as a wilderness ranger with the Forest Service, I thought it was a great idea to purchase my first hunting dog. I still remember the phone call…Yep, a pink trailer on the side of the hill, just get off at the Frenchtown exit, you can’t miss it. Sir I’m looking for a hunting dog. Well my bitch hunts…no I understand what you’re looking for, I’ll see what I can do.


So we arrive at the pink trailer around 10 AM and I am cordially offered a beer, which I believe I accepted. So the “breeder” takes us back to the dog pen where he has a mallard drake dangling over the pen by a bungee cord and there is a little black pup with a piece of duct tape on his tail trying for all his might to try to chew on the mallard. So the breeder says, well after I talked to you and since you said you wanted a hunter, I hung the duck in there and that one with the duct tape on his tail was the first to go after it. That’s your pup right there.

So sure enough, I took the little guy home where he somehow survived college, epilepsy, forestry, seizures, pipelining, the dog pound, dog fights, running away multiple times, and a bunch of other moves until he finally ended up at our little house in H-town. The yard became his turf and he was there to bark and protect it. He also had his main squeeze, Selma.

He was not the best hunter in the world due to his squeak and his not so soft mouth when it came to pheasants, but Miles would retrieve ducks in any weather conditions. He’d fight through ice flows, and afterward shiver for hours in front of Mr. Heater, but never held back on trying to retrieve a bird. I had to lock him in the truck one time when it was 20 below and the river rocks were sticking to his feet, but he still wanted to hunt. He would hunt waterfowl, upland, or anything else that would flee from him, but beyond that he was a great companion and therefore a great dog.

Last night we took him for a walk and fed him a rib eye. Today I had to put him down and it was one of the saddest days of my life. He was just a dog, but he was also my best friend and had always been there for me for the last 14 1/2 years.

Wherever he is, I hope there’s a hunting blind and the birds are locking up and tipping their wings, and I also hope whoever he is hunting with shoots better than me. Rest in peace Miles, you’re already missed!