More 2023 field trial placements and news

Northwoods Dexter (CH Snyder’s Pioneer Scout x Northwoods Cedar, 2022), on right, is posed by owner and handler Mike Rosario.

In an auspicious start to his field trial career, Northwoods Dexter (CH Snyder’s Pioneer Scout x Northwoods Cedar, 2022) won third place in a competitive stake of 17 puppies at the Grand Valley Bird Dog club trial near Ionia, Mich., last spring. Dexter is owned and handled Mike Rosario.

Dexter then went on a tear, continuing his impressive placements at subsequent stakes held on the Gladwin Field Trial Grounds near Gladwin, Mich.
• Third place in the Ruffed Grouse Field Trial Club John R. Stuart Derby Open Classic with 23 entries.
• Second place in the Ruffed Grouse Field Trial Club Ruth Stuart Open Puppy Classic with 19 entries.
• Third place in the Beaverton Grouse Dog Club Eaton Spring Derby Classic with 34 entries.

What made these placements even more thrilling is that Dexter was only eight-months-old. Most of his competition in these stakes were older than him; in case of the derby stakes, up to 18 months older!

Northwoods Cedar Edge (CH Snyder’s Pioneer Scout x Northwoods Cedar, 2022), is posed by handler Lindsey Saetre, earned a blue ribbon for owners Eric and Lindsey Saetre.

Northwoods Cedar Edge (CH Snyder’s Pioneer Scout x Northwoods Cedar, 2022), a littermate sister to Dexter, owned and handled by Eric and Lindsey Saetre, also had a winning start. She placed first in the Region 19 Open Puppy stake and third in the Minnesota Grouse Dog Association’s summer quail trial.

Northwoods Atlas (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2017), on left, is posed by owner and handler Greg Johnson.

RU-CH Northwoods Atlas (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2017), owned and handled by Greg Johnson, continued his winning ways by placing first in the Northwest Field Association Open Walking Shooting Dog stake. This trial was held using liberated quail at their trial grounds near Hankinson, N.D.

CH Erin’s Three Leaf Shamrock. Photo by Chris Mathan.

In perhaps the biggest award of the year, and for the second year in a row, CH Erin’s Three Leaf Shamrock (CH Erin’s Hidden Shamrock x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2015) is the recipient of the prestigious Elwin G. Smith Award for 2022. This is bestowed on the nation’s winningest English setter in open shooting dog horseback field trials. Shamrock is owned by S. Tucker Johnson and handled by Tracy Swearington.

Peanuts: Snoopy in the pool

(c) Peanuts Worldwide LLC

Besides the obvious charm of this strip— Snoopy in his bathing suit, Lucy content in the pool—there is more.

Some clients already know the trick. (I’m thinking especially of Chris Bye.) For many years, Jerry and I filled up two pools with cold water. After a summer morning conditioning run, the dogs loved those pools. They drank, plopped down, and swirled and splashed around.

In other words, dogs allowed.

The Natural Way: Puppy Development

Plenty of physical exercise is crucial to happy, well-developed puppies. They play hard until they tire; then they rest.

Betsy and I believe the first six months of a puppy’s life is crucial to its development. We put tremendous effort into preparing the puppy for situations it will encounter as it matures.

Everyday examples include exposure to different people, exposure to dogs of different ages, introduction to water and getting comfortable going into a crate and loading into a dog box. In early training exercises, exposure to birds, marker training, leash training and spending time on a stakeout chain are all extremely valuable.

Time on a stakeout chain teaches puppies to be comfortable with restraint. In addition, they learn to give to the chain when another puppy moves around.

A simple and often overlooked key to a happy, balanced puppy is plenty of physical exercise. Our puppies spend mornings in the exercise pens and go for walks of suitable length in various places.

Essential to how we develop puppies is that we rarely force the puppy to do a desired behavior. Instead, we set up the puppy to succeed by making the right choice easy and the wrong choice difficult. We then reward it with a treat when it chooses the desired behavior. We say very litte to the puppy, using verbal cues only when it has learned the behavior. This teaches the puppy to think.

Life experiences, though, are not all positive. Often, puppies learn more from choosing the wrong behavior and suffering the consequence. For us, jumping up on people and excessive barking are two undesirable behaviors that are met with soft “bonks” from a “bonker,” a rolled-up and taped hand towel.

Most behaviors are taught during the normal course of the day. When specific training is required, we keep the sessions very short, usually five minutes or less.

Below are five videos of puppies during our development process this summer. Enjoy!

Tink, Molly and Queen (RU-CH Northwoods Atlas x Houston’s Nelly Bly) are introduced to navigating a stream crossing.

How easy is this? With their bowl of dog food as enticement, littermates Rudolph and Cupid (CH Southern Confidence x Northwoods Comet) can’t wait to load into a truck box.

Fifteen-week-old sisters Tink, Molly and Queen (RU-CH Northwoods Atlas x Houston’s Nelly Bly) learn to use their noses and read littermate’s body language around birds.

Molly learns to choose behaviors that will earn a treat.

Boots (RU-CH Northwoods Atlas x Northwoods Stardust) learns an invaluable lesson. During the first few bird contacts, young puppies often stay on point because they are not bold enough to jump in on the bird. We never flush the birds on these early contacts; instead we allow the puppy time to jump in and flush the bird itself. The puppy becomes bold and confirms that it had the bird well located.

Mary Oliver: Pulitzer Prize winner and dog lover

Pointers Northwoods Comet (CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen, 2018) and Northwoods Vixen (CH Westfall’s Black Ice x Northwoods Prancer, 2011).

Poetry is an entirely different form of creative writing from fiction and nonfiction. There are fierce devotees and equally strong detractors.

Mary Oliver might make at least some of the latter group enjoy a poem or two.

Over Oliver’s lifetime (1935 – 2019), she wrote 20 books of poetry and six of prose. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for American Primitive, a collection of poetry. She won many other distinguished awards including the National Book Award in 1992 and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

She was an introverted, private person and also a lover of dogs. She devoted one collection, Dog Songs, to them. Here is a poem about Percy.

Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night

He puts his cheek against mine
and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
he gets to ask.
I get to tell.

~ Mary Oliver
Dog Songs

English-bred May, sired by CH Conneywarren Jason of British Labradors.

Oliver lived for about four decades in Provincetown, Mass., where she developed her passion for the ocean, tides, birds and the Cape Cod seashore. She always carried a pad and pen on her solitary daily walks and, as inspiration came to her, she jotted down lines. Here is a poem about the Cape shore.

I Go Down To The Shore In The Morning

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

~ Mary Oliver
A Thousand Mornings

Region 19 has a new champion: CH Northwoods Sir Gordon

CH Northwoods Sir Gordon (RU-CH Erin’s Prometheus x Northwoods Carly Simon, 2016) and owner/handler Ben McKean.

A key element of any field trial is the quality of the judges. They can name worthy winners or they can, by ignorance mainly, screw up it completely. They perhaps are more important than anything else—including weather, venue, dogs or handlers.

In other words, if the judges are good, then the trial will be good.

In early April in the Eau Claire County Forest neat Augusta, Wisc., Ben McKean ran his male setter Northwoods Sir Gordon (RU-CH Erin’s Prometheus x Northwoods Carly Simon, 2016) at the Region 19 Amateur Walking Shooting Dog Championship. Ben was fortunate for not only were Scott Anderson and Bill Frahm judging but they decided on a bold finish.

Gordie is a leggy male setter, ruggedly built with a reaching gait. He is a powerful dog and ran a strong, mature race, always searching in likely cover. He was marked with an unproductive in heavy tangled alders and ended his hour birdless. 

Scott and Bill did have a dog with a find on one woodcock in the first series but they obviously didn’t feel it was a performance deserving of a champion. What do good judges do in a case like this?

Scott and Bill decided on a call back.

Wasting no time, the judges called handlers, dogs and the gallery together. Emotion and excitement were sky high. Scott and Bill chose two call back dogs and two reserve dogs. Northwoods Atlas (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2017), owned and handled by Greg Johnson, was a reserve dog while Gordie was their choice to see first on a course known to hold birds.

It took only 12 minutes for Gordie’s bell to stop. Scout Ryan Hough found him on point and when Ben walked in, two woodcock flew. Ben shot his gun and walked back to his dog.

Nothing more was needed. The good judges, by deciding on the call back, had their worthy champion.

Congratulations to Ben and Gordie!

Here is the official report written by Kyle Peterson and published in the American Field:  https://www.americanfield.com/result?result_id=977

Bird dogs, hunting and life from Jim Harrison’s perspective

A young Jim Harrison in the doorway of his cabin in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The Search for the Genuine is a newly published collection of essays and magazine columns by Jim Harrison. Subtitled Nonfiction, 1970 – 2015, these pieces are reprinted from various sporting magazines—Field & Stream, Sports Illustrated, Outside—and prestigious publications such as Esquire and The New York Times.

Jim Harrison (1937 – 2016) was a best-selling New York Times author of 39 books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and one children’s book. He is perhaps best known as a poet and for his Legends of the Fall and Dalva novels.

Harrison’s big draw for me is simply his writing. I can read anything he wrote. Beginning with his first paragraph and then his lyrical, eloquent, clear style, I became enthralled. Subject matter included dogs, hunting and fishing but also his big view of life and his big appetites. Along with his cool friends Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane and Guy de la Valdene, he shared a zest for life, food (much of which they had shot or caught) and drink.

A few favorite passages.

“Our greatest politician, Thomas Jefferson, said that ‘good wine is a necessity of life for me.’ I agree but he should have said, ‘Good wine and good dogs are necessities of life for me.’”

“Utterly docile and sweet in the cabin or house these are big-running setters suitable for the Southwest and Montana though they shorten up in the denser cover of northern Michigan. When cynics say that our dogs are ‘too far out’ we’ve learned to give a pat answer: ‘That must be where the birds are.’”

“One August morning in the Upper Peninsula Rose had twenty-nine woodcock points in less than two hours. I was slow to admit that I enjoyed this training run as much as hunting.”

This is a long passage with long sentences but, yikes, can he write.
“I’ve begun to believe that some of us are not as evolved as we may think. Up in the country, in my prolonged childhood, I liked best to walk, fish, and hunt where there were few, if any, people. After a ten-year hiatus for college and trying to be Rimbaud, Dostoyevsky, and James Joyce, not to speak of William Faulkner, in New York, Boston, and San Francisco, I found myself back in northern Michigan walking, fishing, and hunting. There are a lot more people now, but there are still plenty of places where they aren’t. Tennis, golf, and drugs didn’t work for me, so for the past thirty years my abiding passions are still centered on upland game birds, fish, and idling around fields, mountains, and the woods on foot, studying habitat but mostly wandering and looking things over.”

“The death of hunting will come not from the largely imagined forces of anti-hunting but from the death of habitat, the continuing disregard for the land in the manner of a psychopath burning down a house and then wondering why he can’t still live there. The illusion of separateness is maddening. We are nature, too, surely as a chimp or trout.”

“Strangely, as you grow older, if you can’t hunt with any of two or three friends, you’d rather hunt alone. Newcomers make the grievous error of talking to your dogs—which are confused by such breaches in taste—or they whine about the weather.”

“I’m very poor at dates and numbers and what happened at what time in our life. But if my wife mentions the name of a dog we’ve owned and loved, I can re-create the dog’s life with us, and consequently my own.”

Big winnings at big field trials by Northwoods dogs

CH Erin’s Three Leaf Shamrock (CH Erin’s Hidden Shamrock x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2015), on right, was handled by Tracy Swearington for owner Tucker Johnson in the Masters Open Shooting Dog Championship.

At Northwoods Bird Dogs, Betsy and I strive to breed dogs that possess the talent and ability to win field trials. But winning field trials isn’t the goal—it’s a consequence. It’s a consequence of breeding our own and knowing outside exceptional dogs, of passion, of uncompromising high standards. It’s a consequence of decades of selecting dogs that are intelligent, physically capable and easy to train. It’s a consequence of hunting every generation on wild birds and it’s a consequence of devoted clients who give our dogs the opportunity to reach their genetic potential.

As a consequence, several of our dogs placed in prestigious field trial competition around the country over the past several months.

Greg Johnson, on left, with his runner-up champion setter male Northwoods Atlas (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2017).

Northwoods Atlas (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2017), owned and handled by Greg Johnson, won Runner-Up Champion in the 52-dog Wisconsin Cover Dog Championship. This win, combined with other placements earned during 2022, qualified Atlas to compete in the Grand National Grouse and Woodcock Invitational Championship. In that event, the previous year’s two winners and 12 top point-earners in 2022 cover dog trials compete for three days to determine a winner. The trial was held in early April near Phillipsburg, Pa.

Cody’s Sadie Belle (CH Ridge Creek Cody x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2013), on right, with her owner Ryan Bjerke.

Cody’s Sadie Belle (CH Ridge Creek Cody x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2013) won Runner-Up Champion in the National Amateur Grouse Championship held last October near Moose Junction, Wis. Owner/handler Ryan Bjerke has done a marvelous job with Sadie—his first bird dog.

CH Erin’s Three Leaf Shamrock (CH Erin’s Hidden Shamrock x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2015), handled by Tracy Swearington for owner Tucker Johnson, is having a stellar year. In November, at Burnt Branch Plantation near Ochlocknee Ga., Three Leaf won the 40-dog Blackbelt Open All Age. This setter was also named Runner-Up Champion in the recently completed Masters Open Shooting Dog Championship.

CH Erin’s Three Leaf Shamrock photo by Chris Mathan.

The Masters, held on three prestigious wild-quail plantations near Albany Ga., drew a whopping 69 dogs vying for the title. Only six of those competitors were English setters and three of them were either sons, grandsons or great-grandsons of Northwoods Chardonnay (Blue Shaquille x Houston’s Belle’s Choice, 2009). Four of the six were grandsons of CH Ridge Creek Cody (CH Can’t Go Wrong x CH Houston’s Belle, 2008).

Northwoods Sir Gordon (Erin’s Prometheus x Northwoods Carly Simon, 2016) placed second in the Minnesota Grouse Dog Championship last October. Owner Ben McKean handled Gordy to his two-grouse-find performance.

Nick Allen, on right, with Northwoods Cosmic Ray (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2019).

Northwoods Cosmic Ray (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Nickel, 2019), owned and handled by Nick Allen, placed second in the Big Sky Field Trial Club Amateur Shooting Dog stake, a U.S. Complete Association Trial held near Barber, Mont. This placement was especially gratifying as it was Nick’s and Ray’s first field trial.

Dave Moore, on left, and his derby-winning pointer, True Ending (CH True Confidence x Northwoods Comet, 2021).

True Ending (CH True Confidence x Northwoods Comet, 2021), pointer male, owned by Dave and Rochel Moore and handled by Dave, won first place in the Region 19 Open Shooting Dog Derby and third place in the Open All Age Derby. The Region 19 trial was held last October at the Namekagon Barrens near Danbury, Wis. All the dogs were handled from horseback.

Another consequence? Our genetics pass on to the next generation. Here are winners produced by sires and dams we bred.

In Canada
Runner-Up Champion in the North American Woodcock Championship in McAdams, New Brunswick, last fall was Wynot Pete, a pointer male handled and owned by Steve Forrest. Pete’s dam is Northwoods Maddie (CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen, 2015).

On the East Coast
Runner-Up Champion in the Northeastern Open Championship held in East Windsor, Conn., was setter male Erin’s Big Casino, owned by Paul Berdiner and handled by Mike Tracy. Casino has several of our dogs in his pedigree; he is sired by CH Erin’s Hidden Shamrock whose sire, CH Ridge Creek Cody (CH Can’t Go Wrong x CH Houston’s Belle, 2008), was whelped and started at our kennel. In addition, Casino’s dam, Three Stripe’s Livewire, was sired by RU-CH Northwoods Nirvana (CH Houston’s Blackjack x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2011).

In the Heartland
Last fall, two pointers owned and handled by Rod Lein of Chippewa Falls, Wis., and sired by JTH Cooper (CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen, 2015) placed in derby stakes. Over The Hill Morgan placed first in the 24-dog Wisconsin Cover Dog Championship Open Derby while littermate Over The Hill Try placed second. Try also placed second in the 18-dog Open Derby held in conjunction with the North Country Championship trial.

Out West
Near the town of Payette, Idaho, on the Oregon/Idaho border, setter male, Charlie’s Zip Tie, owned and handled by Bill Owen and sired by CH Northwoods Charles (CH Ridge Creek Cody x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2013), won the Northwest Chukar Open Shooting Dog Championship. In the Larry Brech Memorial Open Derby held during the Chukar Championships, third place winner, Mauck’s Wyest Molly, setter female owned and handled by Alex Mauck, is out of High Prairie Gypsy (CH Erin’s Hidden Shamrock x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2016).

Congratulations and continued success to all these owners, handlers and trainers!

“Happiness Is a Warm Puppy”

“Happiness Is a Warm Puppy” is a book written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. It was first published in 1962 and has since been re-published several times.

Anyone who has ever bought a puppy will agree with this simplest, but truest, of notions.

“A Different Approach To Steady Your Dog”

That was the title of the half-hour talk given by Ronnie and Susanna Smith of Ronnie Smith Kennels at the recently held Pheasant Fest in downtown Minneapolis. Because Betsy and I have usually been somewhere in the South at this time of year, we’d never been to this exhibition sponsored by Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. But feeling a touch of cabin fever and being intrigued by this talk, we decided to venture out and hear what they had to say.

What we heard was a short course on a way of training that was new for the Smith’s. The basic premise is to give the dog the freedom to decide how to act when it smells a bird.

After planting a pigeon in a launcher, lead the dog on a check cord, directing it to the area downwind of the bird. When the dog scents the bird, let it decide how to act instead of physically stopping it. If the dog points the bird, praise it. If the dog gets too close, launch the bird and stop the chase.

While this method is new to the Smith’s, it’s not new to me.

I’ve used it for the past 20 years and call it the Natural Way. I first became familiar with the basics when I went to Bill Gibbon’s place in Arizona to learn the West/Gibbons Method. Their method was vastly different from how most handlers trained.

Over time, I’ve tweaked and modified the technique and now find it to be, by far, the best way to train steadiness. The results are eye opening. The dog is bold around birds. It exudes confidence. And it points birds independently, without being micro-managed by its handler.

For Ronnie and Susanna, whose training method had been based on controlling the dog around birds, this is a fundamentally different approach. But, as Ronnie said, times and dogs change. Kudos to them for recognizing the need to modify their method.

A reward for our efforts was a stop at Brit’s Pub, which was a short walk from Pheasant Fest. The Fuller’s ESB on tap is Betsy’s favorite beer and was perfect with an order of fish and chips.

P.S. Please stay tuned for a future post featuring more details about my Natural Way of steadiness training.

A good year for our puppy quail training program

Willow (Northwoods Louis Vuitton x Houston’s Dancing Queen, 2022)

Sometime in late summer, it became clear to me that several things would come together to provide a perfect November bobwhite quail training session for puppies.

Two litters whelped in July would be four months old—a prime age to introduce them to birds. The quail in my four johnny houses that I’d been acclimating and conditioning would be wild-acting, hard-flying birds. My guiding responsibilities would be done and, hopefully, the weather would cooperate. Talk about serendipity.

Many clients were keen and signed up. With the puppies Betsy and I kept from those two litters, I had 11 puppies.

The adage is “It takes birds to make a bird dog.” More specifically and for me, it takes wild birds to make a wild bird dog. For the same reason beginning baseball players start with a ball on a tee, we can’t expect a 12-week-old puppy to handle wild birds—the equivalent of a major league pitch.

The Quail
Our ball on a tee for young puppies is quail from a johnny house. Our birds aren’t the standard quail—caught, handled and buried in the grass. Our birds are never touched; they run and fly almost like wild birds. It takes time, effort and specific habitat to get the quail to act wild, but that’s crucial to prepare young dogs to learn to hunt wild birds.

Quail sun themselves on the perches of the johnny house. Birds are released through the hinged door the swings open.

The Johnny House
A johnny house is a quail pen that, well, resembles an old outhouse. Ours are 4’ by 4’ square and 6’ high. All four walls are made from green-treated plywood except for the top six inches which is covered with ½ inch hardware cloth. The roof is either treated plywood or corrugated metal. The floor is made of ½ inch hardware cloth. There are perches just below the top six inches of hardware cloth where the birds fly to sun themselves.

An entry door is on one side with a feeder and nipple waterer attached to the inside of the door. Near the bottom of the door on the outside is an entry funnel for the quail to use to get back into the house.

Inside the door of a johnny house a feeder and nipple waterer are mounted. On the floor inside is a dusting pan. On the bottom left is the entry funnel.

How the Quail Act
At the beginning, most of the quail fly to the same areas near the house which makes it easier for the pups to find them. Then as the puppies learn to find, point and flush them, the quail run more, flush wilder, fly farther and become more difficult to find. Sometimes, with a dozen quail flushed out of the house, a group of puppies might find very few. But that’s ok. Wild birds are hard to find and the sooner the puppies learn they have to hunt hard to find them, the better.

Really good quail will flush strongly out of the house, flying up and over the trees for 100 yards or more. After a scattered landing, they will quickly gather together leaving foot scent for the young dogs to figure out. Once just one pup finds them, the quail react as a covey, giving the pup only one contact but that one contact will be wild-like.

At times, quail might not come back to the house for a day or more. And at times, I found some coveys more than 300 yards from their johnny house. When flushed, the birds flew another 150 yards in the opposite direction, and yet, they were back in the house the next day.

When to Start the Puppies
Young puppies’ brains are like sponges. Too, they are bold, curious and adventurous. But they lack the physical ability to run far or fast and so stay close to the handler. Like other stages in their development, there is a short window of opportunity.

I’ve found that starting puppies on johnny house quail by 12 weeks of age brings the best results. I work puppies in groups of two or three where they learn not only to hunt, find and point quail but also to read their bracemates which can lead to good things like backing. Often I’ve had several 14-week-old puppies backing another puppy that is pointing a quail.

In addition, puppies worked in groups become accustomed to distractions while hunting and are less likely to be competitive with bracemates in the field. Two or three months of this work, threes time a week is about enough. After that the window starts to close; puppies are stronger, start to hunt wider and are more independent in their search.

The johnny house quail have done their job and the pups are ready for the next stages of advanced training and wild birds.