I love that story!
BUT... people will hate me for this, it looks like it's too good to be true. :-(
From snopes.com
Origins: The story of the incompetent hunters and their boomerang dog first made the Internet rounds in early 1997.
As much as people want to believe this story, it's folklore and nothing more. In addition to the lack of checkable facts (in none of the versions are the lads named; neither is the lake where this supposedly happened, yet we know the type of truck and the amount of the monthly payments), there are further indications this story is but a fanciful tale.
Duck hunting takes place in the fall, not the dead of winter. Ducks fly south for the cold months, long before there is ice thick enough to hold up a truck. A duck's food supply is located under water — would they put off migrating until what they subsisted on was locked up in Nature's refrigerator and they were starving? Hell, no; unless there's an unseasonably early freeze, they're long gone by the time lakes are ice locked.
Additionally, to put a hole in the ice, one cuts with a saw or drills with an auger. Blowing a hole with dynamite would shatter the edges and cause cracks to radiate outwards, making it a foolhardy venture to attempt walking on the ice anywhere near that hole — the ice surface could give way underfoot at any moment.
Next, we're asked to believe that their "well-trained Labrador Retriever" is at the same time both the world's greatest fetch artist and hasn't mastered any one of three basic obedience commands: namely, "drop (it)," "down," or "stop." It's unthinkable that a hunting dog wouldn't know "drop" — how else do you get the prey from him once he's fetched it? Wrestle him for it, maybe?
Last but not least is the urban legend theme of the "loaded dog" (or prey) running underneath a vehicle with a lit stick of dynamite in its mouth. Stories about booby-trapped animals getting revenge on the hunters who pursue them are rife; it takes little looking around to turn up numerous examples.
In the "prey gets even" category, we have the tale of the coyote that had a stick of dynamite tied to its tail: he runs back and goes to ground underneath the owner's brand new camper, with the expected pyrotechnic results. Similarly-armed rabbits and dingoes have reputedly done in other trucks the same way.
Then we have the chicken hawk a pissed-off farmer subjected to the same treatment: he perches on the roof of the man's house, blowing it away. Dogs with lit gasoline-soaked rags have tunneled under their tormentor's homes, and lit bunnies have torched hay barns. Fish who've been fed an explosive have had the piscatorial sense to swim back under the boat and make their final moments ones of vengeance, and so supposedly have sharks who've had cherry bombs tossed to them. The moral of the story is always clear: cruelty reaps its own reward. Justice is served, sometimes even with a side of slaw.
In addition to the prey's getting even with cruel hunters, we also have tales of hunting dogs that have been overtrained to fetch. In regards our loaded hunting dog, folklorist Jan Brunvand says that Jack London's 1902 short story "Moon-Face" may be based on this legend:
"The narrator contrives to murder a man who catches a trout by tossing dynamite into a deep pool. His scheme is to give the poacher a dog that has been highly trained to retrieve; then, when the dynamite stick is tossed out, the dog brings it back to its new master. The verdict of a coroner's jury is "death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing.""
Other versions of the "fatal retriever" story have the man trying to get rid of excess fish by blasting them to Kingdom Come; the dog dives in after the dynamite, then chases his owner with it, blowing up a chicken coop as a suitable finale. That one was told in Britain in 1995 — notice how strong a resemblance it bears to the 1902 Jack London tale.
A further ancient example of this legend as literature is the 1899 Henry Lawson short story "The Loaded Dog."
Loaded animal stories are told all over the world, with the avenging critter supposedly wreaking his revenge in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Britain (and probably in other countries that don't keep nearly as good records of their urban folklore tales.) For a couple of related tales featuring well-dressed kangaroos and well-armed deer, visit our Deja 'Roo page.
Why do we tell such nonsense stories? It's a matter of loving a good revenge tale. We cheer for the loaded bunny who blows up a brand new Land Rover because we're all too aware the hunters shouldn't be treating varmints like that in the first place. Such stories satisfy our need to believe in retribution, reaffirming our trust in evil deeds not going unpunished (and therefore good deeds being justly rewarded).
In the case of a hunter's own dog turning on him, it becomes a matter of laughing at someone's stupidity. There's something morally right about a fellow's having to continue to make payments on a vehicle his own idiocy sent to the bottom of a lake. We laugh at him even as we reassure ourselves that we'd never be that stupid.
As a suitable finale to the "duck hunters" tale, I give you this from a 1990 newspaper. Keep in mind that not everything that appears in print is necessarily true, and that the art of tongue-in-cheek writing has not yet entirely passed away:
"A bunch of Arkansaw stockbrokers went out in the numbing cold of last December to hunt ducks. The pond they chose was frozen over and ever prepared, they tossed a stick of dynamite onto the ice to break it, as ducks refuse to come to a frozen pond. With them was their highly trained and valuable duck dog who carried the noble name of Napoleon. Napoleon's speciality was fetching. When the explosive was tossed, he skidded on the ice, grabbed the stick with the smoldering wick and began to return it to whence it came. The hunters went into a panic and began retreating but good old Napoleon kept acoming. There was nothing to do but shoot him. Just as the shot reached him the dynamite exploded and the poor dog was scattered over southern Arkansaw.
"Reassembled and buried, his headstone reads, Napoleon Blown-Apart."
Barbara "terrier-able" Mikkelson
Sightings: Some elements of this legend turn up in the 1997 film Grosse Pointe Blank. Though the incident itself is not seen on the screen, in one conversation two characters discuss an "exploded dog" episode. Mention is made of a prized pooch who grabbed explosives meant to kill someone else and did itself in, but there's nothing about its diving under the owner's car or chasing after anyone with the dynamite in its mouth.
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