I was browsing the magazine section of The Bookshelf, a very nice shop in Thomasville, Georgia, where Jerry and I are living for the winter. On the cover of the December 2014/January 2015 issue of upscale Garden & Gun, was Shadow Oak Bo, sire of one of our 2014 litters.
But Bo is a cover dog because he’s the champion in back-to-back wins of the National Championship (2013-14) and the first setter to do so since 1901-02.
The photograph by Robb Aaron Gordon is a beautiful close-up of Bo from the front. His dark nose and upper body are slightly blurred so the focus becomes Bo’s eyes—brown and fringed with white lashes. To me, those eyes reveal an inner calmness, kindness and sensibility.
The feature section is titled “Best of the Sporting South” and Tom Keer writes a good story about Bo and his triumvirate—Butch Houston and John Dorminy as owners and Robin Gates as trainer and handler.
All eight puppies (here at seven weeks of age) out of Northwoods Chardonnay by CH Shadow Oak Bo are tri-color.
When Paul Hauge, our partner in many ownerships and breedings, bought Northwoods Chardonnay early last summer, Paul and Jerry agreed that Bo would be a great fit for Chardonnay. Using frozen semen, we bred her via surgical implantation and on August 8, she whelped three males and five females. Paul picked two females and we picked two females and all four are with us now in Georgia.
The puppies are barely four months old but we’re impressed so far. They inherited Bo’s calm nature and the light-footed grace of Chardonnay. It will be fun to develop them and interesting to see them mature.
Who knows what we’ll have, but we’re always optimistic. Especially with a sire like Bo.
The Washington Post recently published an interesting story, “What our cats and dogs say about our politics,” by Aaron Blake. Together with The Post’s Graphics Editor Christopher Ingraham and data from the American Veterinary Medical Association, Blake discovered a remarkable similarity between dog vs. cat states and conservative vs. liberal states.
In other words, the dog vs. cat map of the country looks much like the red vs. blue map of the 2012 election.
In a related piece on Wonkblog, Roberto A. Ferdman and Ingraham (who also previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center) extrapolate further:
“We all know there are only two types of people in the world: cat people and dog people. But data from market research firm Euromonitor suggest that these differences extend beyond individual preferences and to the realm of geopolitics: it turns out there are cat countries and dog countries, too.”
I don’t know the political leanings of many of our clients but, obviously, I do know that all are dog people. Further, a large percentage live with multiple numbers of dogs. While the initial intent was upland bird hunting, these dogs of our clients live, for the most of the year, as beloved pets.
Many thanks to my friend Jan Streiff for telling me about this story. She is a cat person but has grown quite fond of our dogs.
Breeding animals, regardless of the breeder’s effort and knowledge, still involves randomness and luck. There is a very good reason that breeding is called an art and not a science. A good breeder can do many things to reduce the “luck” part. And understanding basic genetic principles, possibilities and probabilities is the place to start.
Genetics of the Dog by Malcom B. Willis is a classic text on canine heredity. Most genetic aspects are included—color, reproductive, conformation, eyes, behavior and skin. Special chapters on hip dysplasia and other defects are included. The chapters on polygenetic inheritance and selection methods, inbreeding and other breeding systems contain excellent, detailed information for breeders.
Willis writes that a person can’t predict the breeding worth of a given dog by just looking at it or seeing it in the field. What the dog displays physically is only an indication of what it may produce and the only way to find out is to breed it and evaluate its offspring.
Still, good breeding involves a lot of common sense and hard-earned knowledge. Willis gives us some of each in this book.
If all you know about a pedigree is the names within it then that pedigree is effectively useless as a guide to breeding worth.
…one needs to breed from those dogs which are outstanding even if they may have some particular obvious failing. Dogs which have very little wrong with them, but also very little outstanding either, are not the ones to choose.
All sires will produce inferior stock and it is the overall average that matters together with the proportion of progeny in the upper areas.
….success (in dog breeding) is not about producing a few winners – even a few champions – but rather it is about producing a generally high standard of stock.
Finally, Willis sums it up:
Clearly chance plays a part but, a breeder can, by careful selection of breeding stock and subsequent planning of their mating, increase his prospects of obtaining what he seeks. The better he is at selecting, the better his knowledge of specific genetic factors, then the greater his chances of success.
According to Doug: “It’s filled with stories and essays from numerous authors and experts on grouse biology, dogs, guns, hunting strategies and tactics, as well as some classic pieces by legendary authors long gone, including Gordon MacQuarrie. The book also is jammed with spectacular color photos, and even includes grouse recipes.”
The book is big (8½ x 11 inches), long (550 pages) and expensive ($100).
Even though I can’t vouch for the book’s content, I do like one of the photographs Pero includes. It’s a favorite of mine—a Dale C. Spartas shot of Jerry and his first setter Spring Garden Tollway (aka Charlie, 1986 – 2001) taken sometime in the mid 1990s.
Jerry’s copy will be under the tree next week. Go to wildriverpress.com or call 425-486-3638.
Guy de la Valdène has led a colorful life. He was born in a “small castle built in 1642” in Normandy, France, but has since spent a good share of his life in the U.S. He’s both an eloquent writer and a passionate bird hunter. He hangs around with cool hunting, fishing, eating and drinking pals, including notable writers Jim Harrison and Tom McGuane and Russell Chatham, the artist. Chatham’s beautiful landscape paintings grace the covers of his books and two include ink drawings of birds, dogs and hunters.
Both Betsy and I have read and highly recommend the following books by Guy de la Valdène.
The Fragrance of Grass, 2011
This book is about de la Valdène’s pursuit of and great appreciation for Huns, otherwise known as Gray or Hungarian Partridge. He begins with his first introduction to them in France and takes the reader on a journey through some of the best Hun hunting areas in North America.
Between the four pads of a dog’s foot, the fragrance of grass. ~ Jim Harrison
For a Handfull of Feathers, 1995
Since 1990, de la Valdène has lived on an 800-acre farm near Tallahassee, Florida. The book is a chronicle of his relationship to all things wild that live on the farm and, in particular, bobwhite quail. It’s also an insightful look into the life of these little birds, the effort required to maintain their habitat and the tradition that surrounds the pursuit of them.
A breeze ruffling a handful of feathers carries enough weight to enslave a dog to a bird in a covenant of uneasy immobility. ~ Guy de la Valdène
Making Game: An Essay on Woodcock, 1985
In his research, de la Valdène followed the woodcock migration across the country and met fascinating people along the way. Among them was Sally Downer, daughter of Bill Wicksall. Years before woodcock hunting became popular, Wicksall, along with his brother Jack, hunted woodcock and bred English setters that pointed them. This book is a great read that includes much wine drinking and delicious woodcock meals.
This book was published in February 2013 by the married couple Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. Hare is an associate professor in Evolutionary Anthropology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University. Woods works there as a research scientist. Both are both dog lovers.
The authors set out to scientifically prove the intelligence of dogs and to find where this intelligence originated. They define intelligence in animals by how successfully a species has managed to survive and reproduce in as many places as possible. By this definition, it’s easy to argue that dogs are the most successful mammals on the planet.
The book is divided into three parts. The essence of Part One is that dogs are inherently able to read human gestures and signals to solve various intelligence tests. In addition, dogs have communicative skills that are amazingly similar to human infants. They traveled the world studying wolves, silver foxes, New Guinea singing dogs and bonobos, a species of chimpanzee.
They concluded that dogs domesticated themselves by becoming friendlier to humans and learned how to communicate and work with us.
Part Two discusses how dogs communicate with humans. Hare and Woods prove scientifically that dogs are pack animals and that “dogs are best in a social network.”
In Part Three they compare breeds to determine intelligence levels. Ultimately (and intriguingly), Hare and Woods concluded that it can’t be proven scientifically that one particular breed is smarter than any other. One significant finding was that working breeds are better at reading human gestures than non-working breeds.
Here, the questions of how to train a cognitive dog is posed. They never really answer it but they do discuss Pavlov’s classical conditioning and B. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning. In doing so they resolve that neither completely addresses the best way to train a cognitive dog.
Hare and Woods also “prove” several things:
• Strictly using reward-based training is not a good, long-term training solution as rewards lose their effect unless frequently increased.
• Dogs learn better and faster in short sessions spaced over a period of time than in long, frequently repeated sessions.
• Dogs can learn by watching others of their own species and other species.
• Dogs know when you are paying attention to what they’re doing.
• Petting a dog, especially gentle strokes in a smooth, calm matter, has a positive effect.
All in all, the book spends a lot of time trying to scientifically prove many aspects about dogs that have been anecdotally known and used by astute trainers for many, many years. While dogs can be trained to react to various stimuli and respond accordingly, there is much more than that to dog training. Being able to read the dog, communicate with it and adjust the training on the fly are just a few pieces of the “art” of dog training.
Hare and Woods write, “Hopefully, we can transform the art of dog training into a science.” I say: Good luck.
Bottom line: Nothing in this book is new and I don’t recommend it. A much better book is The Dog’s Mind by Bruce Fogle.
No one would rather hunt woodcock in October than I, but since learning of the sky dance I find myself calling one or two birds enough. I must be sure that, come April, there be no dearth of dancers in the sunset sky. ~ Aldo Leopold
Too often woodcock are overlooked for its larger and louder woodland neighbor, the ruffed grouse, but they are amazing little birds. The spring sky dance is famous, of course, but I also like its twittering flush and those big, brown eyes.
The March/April issue of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer magazine has a nice piece on woodcock with information on the sky dance, banding chicks and habitat needs.
Minnesota Conservation Volunteer, a bimonthly magazine published by the Minnesota DNR, has long been overseen and edited by Kathleen Weflen, who deserves, I think, most of the credit. This outstanding publication is always filled with beautiful photographs and all sorts of interesting, outdoors-y stories.
Information on working terriers, dogs, natural history, hunting, and the environment, with occasional political commentary as I see fit. ~ Patrick Burns
Terrierman’s Daily Dose is one of a handful of blogs that Jerry follows with regularity. Patrick Burns, the writer, is erudite, literate and seems to have unlimited time to research and to write his blog. He can’t help himself either, apparently. A couple years ago, he suspended writing but took it up again as, I think, he just has too much to say.
On April 5, he posted How to Go to the Vet. We don’t agree with every point but it’s good reading.
Don’t laugh. After a day spent training bird dogs, guiding grouse hunters or competing in field trials, you might think I’d want to read some easy fiction—a Randy Wayne White book or the newest Daniel Silva. Betsy teases me: “How can you possibly want to read about dogs?”
While I do, occasionally, read fiction or other types of nonfiction, I really do love to read about dogs, birds and training.
One of the more successful ways to train a dog uses the principle of training with reinforcement. Don’t Shoot The Dog! by Karen Pryor is a 2009-revised edition of a book originally published in 2002.
Reinforcers may be positive, something the learner might like and want more of, such as a smile or a pat, or they may be negative, something to avoid, such as a yank on a leash or a frown. ~ Karen Pryor
While a good share of this book advocates training with “positive” reinforcement, Pryor explains the proper use of “negative” reinforcement to modify behavior. She makes excellent distinctions between shaping, extinction, stimulus control and clicker training. She does so in a practical as opposed to a theoretical manner and uses anecdotal examples to make her points.
The trick to making “No!” effective is to establish it as a conditioned negative reinforcer. For example, anyone who feels it necessary to use a choke chain on a dog should always say “no” as the dog does the wrong thing, and then pause before yanking on the chain, giving the dog a chance to avoid the aversive by changing its behavior. ~ Karen Pryor
This book is informative and an easy read. It’s beneficial to anyone trying to train dogs—or, for that matter, any creature.
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.
Don’t laugh. After a day spent training bird dogs, guiding grouse hunters or competing in field trials, you might think I’d want to read some easy fiction—a Randy Wayne White book or the newest Daniel Silva. Betsy teases me: “How can you possibly want to read about dogs?”