Sometimes there's not a thing you can do to prevent injury to your canine hunting partner. But with some protective gear and the right first aid kit, you can go a long way toward preventing, or at least minimizing, such injuries to your dog.

Safety Gear
Terry Wilson is President of Ugly Dog Hunting Company, a manufacturer of hunting dog gear whose line includes both safety items and first aid kits for dogs. He said there are several sub-categories of canine safety gear.

First is gear that provides little or no protection from the environment, but that makes the dog clearly visible to hunters. We're talking here about orange vests sized for dogs. Some of them are safety orange with no other embellishments; others have reflective tape applied to make the dog even more visible.

"We bird hunt locally when deer season is also in," Wilson noted. "It's ultra important for other hunters to be able to see our dog. Also, an orange vest helps us locate our dog in thick cover. Even though you might have a beeper or a bell on the dog, in thick cover an orange vest will allow you to see the direction the dog is pointing, or if it's a flushing dog, the exact area that he's in."

Vests of this type aren't designed to provide much in the way of physical protection for the dog, but under certain conditions they can still prevent scrapes.

First of all, if your dog is injured, don't try to move him without a muzzle.

"A vest like this can protect the dog's back from barbed wire," Wilson said. "Not too long ago, we were out hunting and my little German wire-haired pointer came cruising through some barbed wire. He hit it going full steam, but fortunately, he saw it and ducked his head. He tore the vest from end to end, but there wasn't a scratch on him. Most dogs see barbed wire and go under it, but many times they'll catch their back on it."

Although most hunters think of this kind of visibility vest as being primarily for upland game work, it's useful any time you have a dog in the field on dry land.

"We sell vests to some hunters who have hog dogs," Wilson explained. "We don't track those sales, so it's hard to tell, but sometimes we can tell from the address that someone is in a part of the country where they do more hog hunting than upland bird hunting."

Next, there is gear that provides a measure of protection from the surrounding environment. The most common piece of gear for this is a vest that wraps around to provide protection for the chest and belly of the dog. These vests are usually safety orange as well, and give the dog some visibility.