Remembering Crown, the Very Good Duck Dog Who Retrieved 42 Species of North American Waterfowl

The primary retrieve Crown checked off the checklist was a drake mottled duck in 2016. His final was a cinnamon teal in 2025. Between these two birds, there have been 9 years and 40 different species introduced handy, making Crown one of the crucial achieved duck canine of all time. The black Lab retrieved the 42 species of North American waterfowl earlier than he died on Feb. 14.  

“I got here up with the concept to do that lengthy earlier than the waterfowler problem was a factor,” says Rhett Riddle, Crown’s proprietor and the proprietor of Bay Creek Kennels in South Carolina. “I didn’t know anybody that had carried out it with a [single] canine.”

Riddle, Crown’s human, trains retrievers in South Carolina. He says he’d already achieved the North American Waterfowl Slam on his personal, however he began over a second time so he might accomplish it with Crown. The canine got here from a protracted line of retrievers that Riddle has skilled since highschool.

“The whole lot needed to work out excellent,” Riddle says. “I needed to shoot each chook the place Crown might discover it for me. He needed to be concerned in each single chook I shot.”

The unique Ultimate Waterfowlers Challenge, which some hunters confer with as the North American Waterfowl Slam, contains 41 species. Some would come with as much as 47 species on their very own variations of that checklist, and there’s no official group monitoring the UWC, as there often is with different looking slams, like sheep and turkeys. Riddle’s model — what he calls the North American Waterfowl Slam for canine — counts 42 species. He contains the Mexican duck, which isn’t included within the conventional checklist.

This journey took the pair all around the U.S. and past, though Crown’s favourite looking grounds had been alongside the Platte River in Nebraska. It required him to make some adventurous swims in locations just like the Bering Sea, the Labrador Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. The canine needed to keep away from alligators in Florida (black-bellied whistling duck) in addition to sharks within the North Atlantic (widespread eider), the place solely brief retrieves for Crown had been allowed.

One of many pair’s largest and most difficult adventures was to Greenland. Riddle says it took him two years to get permission to journey there with Crown so they might hunt king eiders collectively.     

“He wasn’t the primary canine to select up a king eider, however the first one to be going for all species [when he did it],” says Riddle. “That set it aside as one thing no [dog] has ever carried out earlier than.”

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Since March 2024, when Crown was cleared to journey to Greenland, Riddle has helped one other hunter, Luke Ballam, do the identical with his duck dog, Widgeon. The yellow Lab collected her king eider there final yr and accomplished her personal waterfowl slam in April 2025, simply 4 months after Crown completed his in January.

Riddle says the accomplishment required two issues: dedication and self-discipline.

“You may’t do that with a fundamental gun canine. You need to have a completed canine,” he says. “You want [complete] management over them since you don’t know what you’re going to come across … Security is primary. There was by no means a single time once I thought I used to be placing Crown into something tremendous harmful.”

Crown turned 11 final yr, and he was recognized with lymphoma within the fall. However the Lab wasn’t carried out looking simply but. He and Riddle went to Alaska collectively in December. This was after three months of chemotherapy, and when Crown was in remission. Quickly after they hunted Maryland and New Jersey, although, the most cancers got here again. Their final hunt in January was for northern shovelers in Arkansas.

“I knew it was getting shut and it will be the final time we’d do something collectively,” Riddle says. “Arkansas was the very best place to go as a result of the remainder of the nation was frozen, nevertheless it all went excellent. He solely had yet one more week after that, after which he went downhill.”

Riddle had Crown cremated, and most of his ashes are going into two decoys: a Harlequin duck and a cinnamon teal. Some ashes will even be loaded into a couple of particular .410 shells, as a result of the geese are likely to work shut at Crown’s favourite spot on the Platte.

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“My recommendation for somebody who loses a canine: You higher have one other one,” Riddle says. “There’s no approach to get via it with out the love of one other canine. I’ve bought 4 of Crown’s puppies dwelling in my home with me for a purpose.”