Chasing the Quiet Pull

Abram Pinnington
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Essays about bird dogs and open country. About faith, family, and the slow work of becoming. Written and read aloud by Abram Pinnington. This is where the dogs and the country do the teaching. He just tries to write down what they show him. chasingthequietpull.substack.com

  1. 7h ago

    Episode 13: The Long Road West

    Google Maps and the author are currently in a disagreement. The computer has a perfectly reasonable route from central North Carolina to north-central North Dakota, and he is not taking it. His map has thirty-seven pins in a folder called Rest Areas for Dogs: a little lake near Rio Grande, Ohio, a wildlife area outside Farmer City, a piece of South Dakota ground a thunderstorm found by accident and pheasants renamed Plan A From Now On. A two in the morning departure, a French press on a tailgate, a six-foot-three man sleeping diagonally in a five-foot-eight truck bed, and autumn unfolding backward through the windshield. On why the fastest way there was never the point. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  2. 4d ago

    Episode 12: The Hour Before First Light

    The canvas is not yet light, only that deep muted purple that belongs to the Northern Plains. The stove has given up in the night, and three dogs have migrated under the blankets to negotiate for warmth. Then two logs, a clump of dryer lint, two clicks of a lighter, and a percolator set on the stove. Paw balm before anything else. Bacon in a skillet. The dogs know what comes after the collar bag. This is the part of a hunt most people never see, and the argument that it was never outside the hunt at all. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. The original essay can be found here: “The Hour Before First Light” Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Aug 20

    Episode 11: October Begins in August

    It arrived as an email from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in the middle of a late July workday, and within minutes there was a calendar on one screen, regulations on the other, and October dates running down a notebook page. The season had started. Not the legal one. The other one, the one that lives in color-coded spreadsheets, a Browning Sweet Sixteen given its August oil, and a specific unremarkable piece of North Dakota ground where the first walk always begins. Sixty-three days out, and counting on purpose. On being forty-four and still carrying a number in your head that works the way Christmas used to. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. The original essay can be found here: “October Begins in August” Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  4. Aug 19

    Episode 10: The Weight of an Empty Collar

    A collar weighs about 132 grams. You can set it on a kitchen scale and read the number yourself. But no scale can weigh a puppy’s first collar waiting on the counter, or a field collar being retired, or the one that has returned to emptiness after the dog who wore it is gone. Three collars, held at once. The essay to close the first ten on. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. The original essay can be found here: “The Weight of an Empty Collar” Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Aug 17

    Episode 9: When the Hunt Is Enough

    Fifteen miles of north-central Montana, not far from the Canadian border, and not one bird came up. Two good dogs hunting like it was still first light. Three sheds in the grass, a jackrabbit the size of a small car, and a small voice by midday insisting the day was wasted. Then a tailgate at sundown, where the frustration did not vanish so much as lose its authority. On the days that give everything except the thing you came for. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author's own voice. The original essay can be found here: https://chasingthequietpull.substack.com/p/when-the-hunt-is-enough Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Aug 17

    Episode 8: Life Is Too Short to Hunt With an Ugly Dog

    Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, in an Indiana parking lot full of Labs and Shorthairs, someone asks why these particular breeds. The joke in the title has answered for years, because the joke is faster than the truth. This time the truth gets its turn. It runs through an eight-hour drive to Iowa, a bearded wirehair who looked like Father Time at three, a piece of mail that found the author in Afghanistan, and one sentence at a Virginia kennel that decided everything after it. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. The original essay can be found here: “Life is Too Short to Hunt With an Ugly Dog” Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Aug 17

    Episode 7: No One in the Passenger Seat

    The sun catches him near Beckley, West Virginia, twenty-six hours from North Dakota, a dog in the passenger seat where he sometimes imagines his father. And a memory from a Kansas lakeshore: a young man in blaze orange, four days into hunting, walking in front of another man’s gun because no one had ever stood close enough to tell him not to. On what the passenger seat used to teach, and who is supposed to fill it now. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. The original essay can be found here: “No One in the Passenger Seat” Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Aug 17

    Episode 6: The Desk

    A message left unread for thirty minutes out of small cowardice. A garage in Winston-Salem, and strangers who had already read a letter to the author’s father and found their own waiting inside it. A leather top that turned out to match a puppy’s collar. About how a place to write found its way home, and the quiet ways guidance arrives when a man has stopped expecting spectacle. Narrated by Abram Pinnington. Written and read in the author’s own voice. The original essay can be found here: “The Desk” Get full access to Chasing the Quiet Pull at chasingthequietpull.substack.com/subscribe

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About

Essays about bird dogs and open country. About faith, family, and the slow work of becoming. Written and read aloud by Abram Pinnington. This is where the dogs and the country do the teaching. He just tries to write down what they show him. chasingthequietpull.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Abram Pinnington
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    14
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Abram Pinnington
  • Show Website
    Chasing the Quiet Pull