Wisconsin field trial results

Northwoods Lager

Dan Stadin and I attended the Chippewa Valley Grouse Dog Association (CVGDA) spring grouse trial over the weekend of March 30 – April 1. The grounds are situated along a beautiful stretch of the Eau Claire River near Cadott and usually hold ample grouse and woodcock.  Thanks to the club members who worked hard to put on the trial.

We’re happy to report that three dogs, Northwoods Classy Kate, Northwoods Parmigiano and Northwoods Lager, placed and garnered ribbons for their owners, Barry Frieler, Bob Senkler and Jim Bires, respectively.

The Open Derby was very competitive with 21 entries. We ran six:  littermates Northwoods Parmigiano, Northwoods Roquefort, Northwoods Brie and Northwoods Classy Kate (sired by Northwoods Blue Ox out of Houston’s Belle’s Choice), Houston’s Miss Liddy (sired by Northwoods Blue Ox out of CH Houston’s Belle) and Northwoods Piper Lebowski (sired by Blue Riptide out of Blue Ghost).

Three derbies finished with bird work which proved to be the deciding factor. Many of ours showed some affect of the recent two-day drive from Tennessee but gave competitive performances of which we were proud.

Northwoods Classy Kate

Kate won second place with a hard-hunting effort capped off by a beautiful point on a woodcock right in front of the gallery. The woodcock flushed low and landed about 20 yards from Kate but she stood her ground with just a hop at the shot. This was a tough piece of bird work for a derby-aged dog and she handled it with poise and confidence.

The Open Restricted Shooting Dog was run on Sunday morning and had 10 entries. We entered four dogs even though three were derbies and had competed the previous day:  Parmigiano, Roquefort and Liddy. Lager (sired by Blue Shaquille out of Houston’s Belle’s Choice) is a true shooting dog although this is his first season.

Northwoods Parmigiano

Parmigiano won second place. His hunting effort was not up to his usual standard of a race filled with fire and desire but he made up for it with a nice point on a grouse. He was the only dog in the stake to point a wild bird under judgment.

Lager placed third. He had the kind of race I like—strong running, always searching in the right places for birds and showing when I called on him. Three minutes after time was called as he was making his way back to me, he stopped and had a beautiful point on a grouse, unfortunately not under judgment. The judges called Lager back on a liberated quail to prove that he was steady to wing and shot…which he did with aplomb.

Tennessee 2012: training report

Betsy and I are winding down our second session of training in Tennessee. We’re organizing everything, packing up,  cleaning up and are headed home tomorrow. Even with the weather that is more summer-like, it has been great because we didn’t miss a day of training. The birds were plentiful and, most importantly, the dogs we’ve had here have learned so much and made such good progress, always so gratifying.

Here are some photographs.

Birdee (CH Westfalls Black Ice x Northwoods Prancer).

Two-year-old littermates Bleu and Kate (Northwoods Blue Ox x Houston’s Belle’s Chocie).

Gus (Blue Shaquille x Houston’s Belle’s Choice).

Jaz and Trudy (CH Ridge Creek Cody x CH Satin From Silk).

Lucy (CH Westfalls Black Ice x Northwoods Prancer) and Jaz.

Liddy (Northwoods Blue Ox x CH Houston’s Belle).

Slash and Pete (Houston’s Blackjack x Northwoods Chardonnay).

Piper (Blue Riptide x Blue Ghost).

Rosie (Blue Riptide x Blue Ghost).

Timber (CH Westfalls Black Ice x Northwoods Prancer).

Trixie (CH Ridge Creek Cody x CH Satin From Silk).

Training with bobwhite quail

Much of what a bird dog needs to know is learned from the birds themselves. Among those lessons is the key concept that the dog can’t catch the bird. The dog needs to understand that once it smells a bird, it should stop, point and stay on point. It will learn that moving closer will cause the bird to flush and once flushed, the bird is gone and the fun is over.

Female bobwhite quail on training grounds in western Tennessee.

Wild birds are the ultimate teacher of this lesson. But it’s not always possible or feasible to completely develop a dog on them. The next best option is to use liberated birds in situations where the birds act as close to wild as possible.

We’ve tried chukar partridge and Hungarian partridge but bobwhite quail have proved to be the best.

After some trial and error, I now have two reliable methods of working with quail. Both worked at our home kennel and at winter training sites in Oklahoma and Tennessee.

First, though, it’s important to find the right habitat. The cover needs to be thin enough so the birds can easily fly from it, but also near enough to areas with heavy cover where they can fly to and escape.

My preferred method is to establish a strong, well-seasoned covey using a Johnny house. I basically “train” these quail by flushing them from the house many, many times. They fly into the surrounding area and become familiar with the cover.  The more these birds are used, the better they get. After they’re adjusted to the habitat, it’s not uncommon to have the covey disappear for a day or more before coming back to the house and, when they do that, you have some great training birds.

The second option is to release a covey in a likely area surrounded by a good mix of cover. I then feed them three times per week to keep them coming back. There are two big disadvantages:  the whole covey can be lost and these birds aren’t as reliable as Johnny house quail. But this method is invaluable for advanced training and teaching a dog that birds are not always easy to find.

We put great effort into having quality released birds for training; it’s expensive and time consuming. Ultimately, it’s worth it because the better the birds, the better the bird dog.

Martha Greenlee’s article on Steady With Style provides excellent advice on using training birds.

The National Championship…..and we watched the winner

Steve Hurdle handles 2012 National Champion Connor’s E Z Button.

A fun aspect of living for a time in another part of the country is to take advantage of what that area offers. Here in western Tennessee, Jerry and I are close to Grand Junction, which is home to the Ames Plantation and the site of the National Championship.

This year marked the 113th running of this celebrated competition, which is one of few in the country with three-hour braces. Thirty-four dogs competed in 17 braces over nine days. Last year’s champion, Touch’s Whiteout, scratched.

Randy Downs steadies Gamemaker at the morning breakaway while Fred Corder waits on his horse.

It was thrilling to be around big-name handlers like Sean Derrig, Luke Eisenhart, Colvin Davis, Robin Gates, Randy Downs, Steve Hurdle and Gary Lester. Another big draw was to see—firsthand—famous dogs like Gamemaker, In The Shadow, the setter Shadow Oak Bo and all the Erin pointers. Plus it was cool to see all the gear and the big horse trailers necessary for competition at this level.

Jerry and I chose to go on the first Friday so we could watch Gamemaker (Rock Acre Buckwheat x Therapy’s Little Bess), a handsome liver-and-white pointer owned and handled by Fred Corder, scouted by Randy Downs.

Gamemaker was braced with Connor’s E Z Button, owned by David O’Connor and handled by Steve Hurdle.

Gamemaker, Fred Corder, Steve Hurdle and Button pause at a crossing.

What an exciting brace. Button had six finds; Gamemaker had five. In the waning minutes of the brace, Gamemaker was hit by a truck when he ran across a road. But he got up, shook himself off and finished with just a slight limp.

The three judges (in orange) and the gallery cross a road on the Ames Plantation.

And, several days later on the white front porch of the Ames Plantation, Connor’s E Z Button was named this year’s National Champion.  

Chris Mathan of The Sportsman’s Cabinet and Strideaway was with us. Jerry and Ben McKean, a friend from Minnesota, rode the following Tuesday to see In The Shadow and Erin’s Whiskey River.

Busman’s holiday to Georgia

The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.

–St. Augustine

Earlier this winter, Jerry and I took some time off and traveled to Georgia. The warm climate was one draw, as was the opportunity to see historic quail plantations set in piney woods. Several days in a cottage on an island off the coast near Savannah was also on the itinerary.

Here are the highlights of our trip.

Best puppy/exercise pens

Dog trainers in Georgia are serious about their puppy raising. At most of the plantations and training facilities, it was clear that much time, money and energy is spent on giving puppies a good start in life.

What struck us most were the really big, really nice puppy pens. There was ample space for a dozen or more puppies to exercise, play, rest and find shade. One plantation had fenced an area about the size of a football field.

For the record, all the litters we saw were pointers.

Chance to see old friends

Jim Tande and Chuck Wingard have been friends of ours for a long time—going back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when we were all field trialing in the grouse woods. We’ve gotten puppies from their litters and they’ve bought from us. We’ve bred dams to their sires and vice-verse. An auspicious start to our pointer line was when Jim’s extraordinary CH Northern Dancer (call name War) was bred to a 6X grouse champion from Maine, Vanidestine’s Rail Lady, and produced our CH Dance Smartly.

Jim and Chuck have moved on to horseback shooting dog and all age competition and, since both are now retired from careers with the U.S. Forest Service, they spend winters near Arlington, Georgia.

Jerry and I spent a fun day with Jim and his wife, Kathy. They gave us a fabulous tour of southwestern Georgia and many of its plantations.

Venerable quail plantations

The main quail plantation area stretches from Americus in the north, through Albany and south to Tallahassee, Florida. The heart is Thomasville, Georgia.

We saw fancy gates, long driveways lined with live oaks, beautiful plantation homes complete with tall columns and wrap-around porches. We saw original dog wagons, vast stretches of piney woods and even a dog cemetery.

We toured the famous Pinebloom, a 20,000-acre plantation that was the setting for Tom Wolfe’s excellent book, A Man in Full.

The history of quail plantations is equally fascinating. As far back as the 1880s, newly rich, northern business owners discovered the area.

Finding plentiful game birds–particularly turkey, dove, and quail–they first leased then began purchasing small parcels of farm land and forests, consolidating them into thousands of acres of hunting plantations–larger than any of the antebellum cotton plantations…

Because the area remained somewhat isolated after the Civil War, it retained many vestiges of antebellum plantation life, a life that the new plantation owners sought to emulate and the old ones wished to preserve. The region today contains more than a hundred working quail hunting plantations, proving more durable than the cotton kingdom they replaced.

~ Susan Hamburger, Ph.D., from a paper presented at the North American Society for Sport History Annual Conference, May 27, 1996

Tybee Island and Savannah

We squeezed in some days at the beginning of our trip to spend time on Tybee Island and tour the area.

Tybee Island is a small island connected to Savannah and the mainland by 18 miles of bridges over marshes, the Intracoastal Waterway and various channels and rivers.

Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia. It was founded in 1733 by a group of English colonists who traveled under the auspices of King George II, after whom the state is named. The city plan was agreed upon before the ship left England and was based on London’s squares. Twenty-two of the original 24 squares remain.

Savannah had block after block of beautifully maintained townhomes. I could live in any one of them, although preferably one with a curving staircase and plenty of intricate wrought iron.

What I’m reading: Terrierman

I follow a great blog called Terrierman’s Daily Dose. The blogger, Patrick Burns, owns terriers and actively hunts them on various varmints. I don’t always agree with him but his depth of research and well-thought-out opinions are worth the read.

A recent post about the term “‘dog man” is excellent.

Tennessee 2012: February photo album and training report

Training has been going very well here in the mid South. Our put-out coveys are surviving nicely and there are more wild coveys than last year. Plus, the weather has been perfect for working dogs.

Of the 15 setters in this group, 14 are of the Houston line and one is by Hytest Skyhawk. Even though there are only a few pointers, the quality is high.

I have taken a few photos when possible, but sometimes things happen too fast to get the camera out.  Enjoy!

Bicolor lespedeza strip along pine row.

Creek edge and corn stubble.

Northwoods Carly Simon points quail in bicolor.

Chuck (Bill and Ryan Westfall, owners) points on field edge.

Chuck hunts the bicolor strip.

Hannah Montana (Bill Heig, owner) on point.

Joe Montana (Bill Heig, owner) on point.

Harmon (Ben McKean, owner) on point.

Kit (Austin Figgins, owner) on point.

Northwoods Kiss backs Northwoods Aerosmith.

Northwoods Aerosmith points covey.

What I’m reading: How to Afford Veterinary Care

How to Afford Veterinary Care Without Mortgaging the Kids, by Dr. James L. Busby, is a refreshing view on modern veterinary care for dogs. Busby is a retired vet from Bemidji, Minnesota, and bases his opinion on more than 40 years of practice. He covers major topics including monthly medication, teeth cleaning, annual examinations, vaccinations, elective surgery, and much more.

The book also provides low-cost alternatives for routine preventative care—some that we’ve been using for years. For that reason alone, the book is worth the price.

For more information about Dr. Busby and his book, visit: http://www.oldcountryvet.com/index.html.

What I’m reading: lots of dog books

The stack of books on my bedside chest is full of new books about dogs. I bought the three books on dog behavior and the other two are thoughtful Christmas presents.

Dog Sense, by John Bradshaw, is a very well-done book by an Englishman who specializes in animal welfare and behavior. He debunks some common perceptions and attempts to put dogs in their proper place. I like this sentence from the dust jacket:

…we too often treat dogs like wolves or, just as hazardously, like furry humans. The truth is:  dogs are neither.

The Fragrance of Grass, by Guy de la Valdene, is the third book of his I own now. His two previous—Making Game:  An Essay on Woodcock and For a Handful of Feathers—are among my favorites. In his beautiful prose, de la Valdene reminisces about his early hunting in France, trips to the western U.S. and his 800-acre “farm” outside Tallahassee, Florida. The title of the book comes from Jim Harrison:

Between the four pads of a dog’s foot, the fragrance of grass.

On Talking Terms with Dogs:  Calming Signals, by Turid Rugaas. Rugaas is a famous Norwegian dog trainer and behaviorist who seems, on the surface at least, a bit like our Cesar Milan.

Dogs, being flock animals, have a language for communication with each other…Canine language in general consists of a large variety of signals using body, face, ears, tail, sounds, movement, and expression.

Dog Language, An Encyclopedia of Canine Behavior, by Roger Abrantes, was a popular book when first published in 1986 in Denmark. I have an English version, which was first published in the U.S. in 1996. It is organized dictionary-style—an alphabetical listing of 293 expressions and postures. Very nice black-and-white drawings are included.

Everything in the way you or I, or our dogs, appear to one another is behavior.

Among these champions of compromise, we find wolves, geese, chimpanzees, humans and their best friends, dogs.

 
Canine Body Language, Interpreting the Native Language of the Domestic Dog, by Brenda Aloff, is a fascinating examination of how dogs communicate through expressions and body language. Hundreds of photographs are included to clearly show each pose. Among the entries are Curiosity, Rolling, Fear, Look Away, Tongue Flick, Yawning, Paw Lifts, Butt Sniff, Pass By, Guarding, Warning, Prey Bow and an entire section on Play.

Grouse guiding report: 2011

The 2011 grouse hunting and guiding season is over but not forgotten. For everyone at Bowen Lodge on Lake Winnibigoshish northwest of Grand Rapids, Minn., it was a stellar fall. The majority of days were sunny and warm and the woods were very dry. The guides definitely needed to know the location of beaver ponds so the dogs could drink and cool off.

There were fewer grouse than last year but plenty to make for good hunting. The dogs did a tremendous job of finding and pointing them–but some were more difficult because there were more old grouse than young. A high note was the good numbers of woodcock we found–more than most years.

All-in-all, we had a wonderful fall with beautiful days, good friends and fine bird dogs.

Sam and a friend hunt over Northwoods Camembert and Daisy (Blue Chief x Blue Blossom, ).

 

Wayne Grayson poses with Abby (Gusty Blue x CH Houston’s Belle) while Mike Powers has Northwoods Blue Ox.