HER Highlight: 6 Questions for Teri Crosby of Crack O’ Dawn Cockers

We met Teri Crosby in September 2021 at HerUpland Grouse Camp in Montana. Teri returned to grouse camp this past September, charged with ideas to improve the experience for newcomers and driven to pursue and utilize what she learned about mountain grouse. She was eager to learn, enthusiastic to be around, and an apparent supporter of all the women at the camp.

We look forward to Teri joining our team of ‘MentHers’ in future grouse camps!

 

Get To Know Teri Crosby

1. Describe a typical day in your life.

A typical day is up before sunrise letting dogs out and getting food ready for animals and people alike. It’s off to take kids to the bus stop at first light (we live in a rural area in the mountains so it’s an early bus) and then farm chores when I get back on our small farm. As soon as the garage warms up a bit I roll through dogs for some indoor training and if the day is nice we will get outside. If it’s a hunting day then we are out after morning chores and skip training, and then we come back for afternoon/evening chores, and then it’s dinner time. If it’s a work day for me, well then the training is early, the work is long, and the evenings are usually a little quieter especially since it’s dark by 5 pm now. There are some things constant in life but otherwise, a lot of the time I just roll with whatever is going on and squeeze training into whatever kind of time or space that I can, and sometimes we are an unruly mess.

2.  Which HerUpland Event(s) have you attended?

I have attended the Her Upland Forest Grouse Camp twice in Montana for the past two years. For its first inaugural camp in 2021, and also this fall of 2022. It has been such an amazing and empowering experience to be surrounded my like-minded women in a really positive space with their bird dogs in a really beautiful location.

3. What did you enjoy most about that event?

Oh my. Seriously I enjoyed everything about the event. I usually only hunt alone and with my own dogs and it has been a really amazing experience to be out in the woods with other women and along with their dogs also. For several days it’s like you are in your own little community of ladies who are all there to help each other get into the woods for what could be their very first time, or they may be huntresses of all kinds of game but everyone is sharing their knowledge together. There is nothing competitive and everyone is out there helping everyone be successful. It has been super awesome to be able to travel across the West to participate in this event.

4. What’s your Bird Dog Breed of choice, and why?

So you will find me out in the woods with my little pocket rocket English Cocker Spaniels. This year my team is up to five cockers and a 6 month old English Setter. I’m usually bringing 2 at a time into the field and we have spent most of our Fall in Southern Oregon hunting up mountain quail and ruffed grouse. I really fell for the breed over 5 years ago and soon found out their passion for getting me out into the mountains to explore. They were the catalyst for me becoming an adult onset hunter. It all started for the dogs. I know that is like an ear worm phrase now, but if it hadn’t been for my second cocker, seeing how much he loved hunting the local birds, and going to an intro to bird exposure event up north of me I probably wouldn’t have taken the leap into wingshooting. Previously, hunting had been so far from what I was doing in my life, and I hadn’t ever really participated in hunting before. I’ve heard it say that people are like their breed of choice and I’m kinda coming around to believing it. I can be a little scattered at times and also can really clear the job list like these dogs can clear a field. Putting my whole self into a job, while also passing out on the couch in the middle of a movie covered in dogs. So I think that someone may be right about people and their dogs in many ways.

5. Name one thing you’d like to accomplish with your dog in the next year.

One thing I would like to accomplish in the coming year with my dogs is to work on steadiness. My team ranges in age from almost 6 to a year and everyone loses a little finesse during the hunting season that winter/spring training work will hopefully polish back up.

6. What is your favorite upland or bird dog product on the market right now? 

Hands down my Final Rise vest is my favorite upland product with its interchangeable ability to work as a training vest and then change out to a full-on hunting vest for the Fall, holding all my gear and water. They can even be adjusted to hold your dog if you have an emergency in the field, so it’s something that I am glad I ordered at the beginning of the year. For the dogs, it’s the peace of mind of our Garmin TT15 Mini’s and whatever handheld I remembered into the field. I cannot tell you how much I love the GPS collars. In an emergency, I know exactly where a dog is in heavy cover, or if they have gotten into something dangerous in the field like old downed fencing, stuck in a pile of deadfall, or if we are all backing away from a large predator and have to regroup. I can say that two of my ladies bailed on me when they went downhill ahead of me and came upon a bear. Only to have them immediately turn tail and run uphill past me and ditch me to fall back on my own. I watched them leave at speed on the good ole Garmin watch while I talked my way backward and tried to calmly leave the bear’s area.

Connect with Teri

Follow Teri’s adventures with hunting, breeding and raising field bred bred Cocker Spaniels, and her farm shenanigans on Instagram. Learn more about Teri’s dogs and upcoming litters on her Crack o’ Dawn Cockers website.