Gerry was a new owner/operator with Northern Van Lines. He’d just completed an intensive three week long course at Northern’s world headquarters and was now waiting for his first dispatched load while sitting in the driver’s building and TV lounge when he overheard a conversation of two veteran owner/operators.

“Yeah, you got to have a good bird dog!” The first driver stated.

“Yep, you’re right about that one, Don…” The second one agreed.

“Yeah, with the right kind of bird dog you sure can protect yourself from speeding tickets because that bird dog will spot a bear a mile off and go to barking like crazy so you know he’s there and can slow down before he nails you!” Don said with a note of authority.

“Yep, no doubt about it!” The second man said.

Gerry sat quietly listening to every word the other men said. He needed to learn everything he could about this new industry and these two drivers seemed to know quite a bit.

So, I need to buy a bird dog… he thought. Okay, I can do that the next time I go home.

I just wish one of them would say which breed of bird dog is best for the job but I sure don’t want to open my mouth and ask because that’d give away the fact that I’m brand new out here and a lot of these guys won’t talk to us new guys and if they do some of them can be nasty. I don’t want to risk being laughed at so I’ll just stay quiet. I’ll figure it out later.

Three weeks later Gerry was offered a load that would take him home and took it.

Now he could go look at bird dogs and decide which one would be best for him in the truck to tell him when a cop was around so that he wouldn’t get any speeding tickets.

How in the world am I going to teach it to bark when he sees a cop? Should I buy a puppy or an adult dog? I don’t know…I guess I should get a puppy then I can raise it right. He decided.

He did indeed get a puppy and after spending several days at home with his wife and kids he and the new puppy headed out for new adventures together.