Silk has exalted status at Northwoods Bird Dogs. She is the eldest dog at 13 years of age and at the top of the pecking order. Much like a Dowager Duchess governing her estate, Silk rules our kennel with gentleness and wisdom but will tolerate no fools.
Silk was only bred three times but whelped our two best-producing setter males. Blue Shaquille is out of a frozen semen breeding to Houston in 2004 and from CH Peace Dale Duke, Silk bore Northwoods Blue Ox in 2007. Through her sons, she has shown up in every setter puppy’s pedigree for many years.
Silk herself has an impressive pedigree. Her dam was our extraordinary Blue Streak, a four-time champion/four-time runner-up champion, and her sire, First Rate, was a multiple champion in horseback field trials. Besides a very sweet disposition, Silk inherited an accurate nose, uncommon stamina and a tenacious application. Prior to retirement, she amassed several placements in grouse trials and was a first-string member of our grouse-guiding team.
Silk has earned her special treatment and now spends evenings and nights with Jerry and me in the house. But before we head to the house and while we’re finishing feeding and kennel chores in late afternoon, Silk is free to roam. She trots outside the building and seemingly inspects everything—puppy pens, gates and perimeter fences. She then comes back to do a quick look-see at the dogs and runs inside the kennel.
One hot afternoon last week, Silk rested in front of the fan while she waited for us to finish.
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.
It began with the first pointer litter out of our dam, Dancer, in 1997. Jerry and I kept a male and named him Dasher. Makes sense, right?
Of all the pro sports, the only one we have followed with any regularity or interest is the NBA. My allegiance to the LA Lakers began in the late 70s when Magic Johnson came into the league from Michigan State University, my alma mater. Johnson encountered his nemesis from collegiate games, Larry Bird, who had been drafted by the Boston Celtics. For the next decade or so, Johnson and Bird and their respective teams played the best basketball games I’ve ever seen.
In the spring of 2004, the LA Lakers were on a tear with a new generation of players, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Even though the Detroit Pistons eventually won the championship series, my loyalty to the Lakers remained strong. We kept two males out of Paul Hauge’s Houston x Blue Silk breeding; the big, strong one became Shaq and the good-looking, smaller male we named Kobe.
Other themed litters we’ve dreamed up:
• Beer and Wine: Porter, Lager, Chardonnay, Chablis
• Cheese: Brie, Camembert, Roquefort, Parmigiano
• Minnesota Legends: Blue Ox, Babe
• Minnesota Wildflowers: Tiger Lily, Black-eyed Susan
• Ancient Egypt/Rome: Cleopatra, Tut, Zeus
• Planets: Mars, Venus
• Rock Stars: Kiss, Heart, Aerosmith, Led Zepellin
Of course, ensuing generations of pointers carried on the reindeer theme. Out of Dasher, we have Prancer and now her daughter, Vixen.
But, back to Grits, Biscuit and Sweet Tea, the title of this post.
One morning last winter when Jerry and I were staying in eastern Tennessee, we treated ourselves to breakfast out. We passed Perkins and IHOPs and chose instead a roadside diner. On the smudged, plastic-coated menus were offerings generally not found in Minnesota. Our excellent meal included traditional southern dishes like grits, biscuits and gravy and sweet tea.
Voila! Our two-month-old litter at home had their theme.
P.S. We sold Sweet Tea earlier this summer to the very nice Balfanz family from Stillwater. Biscuit was sold to good clients Ryan and Monica Gould, who had a special collar and name tag made for her.
Our 2011 litters by Northwoods Chablis and Northwoods Chardonnay represent the sixth generation of setters we have bred, raised, trained, hunted and trialed. It is so much fun to see various traits and characteristics that are passed along. Even if they skip a generation or two, we know our setters so well that we have a good idea where those traits originated. Here are some "family" photos. Enjoy!
Blue Silk and her sons, Northwoods Blue Ox and Blue Shaquille.
Linus comments to Charlie Brown: “You know what you and Snoopy should do? You should go to an obedience school.”
Snoopy’s cartoon bubble: “Why should we go to obedience school? He already does everything I want him to.”
~ Charles M. Schulz
I never miss the Peanuts comic strip in the newspaper. Its creator, Charles M. Schulz, died in 2000 but newspapers continue to run old strips……and I continue to read them faithfully.
The characters are wonderful. Charlie Brown is the perennial loser who tangles with kite-eating trees and comments, “I only dread one day at a time.” And who can resist loud-mouthed, selfish, crabby Lucy and her brother Linus, the sweet natured kid who is never without his blanket and believes in the Great Pumpkin?
My favorite character is Snoopy. He’s great whether he’s dancing “The Beagle,” imitating a fierce vulture or playing the World War I flying ace. And how can you not love a dog that lost everything when his dog house burned….but then resolutely replaced his ruined Van Gogh with a Wyeth?
While Charlie Brown can’t win on the baseball diamond or with the little red-haired girl, he has always been Snoopy’s devoted owner.
Several strips featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang hang on the bulletin board of our kennel office.
A couple of my favorites:
— A simple one with no talking or cartoon bubbles features Charlie Brown holding an umbrella over Snoopy and his dog dish while Snoopy eats.
— Snoopy is barking during the night in the first frame. Lucy comments, “Listen! Do you think Snoopy sees a burglar?” Charlie Brown replies, “No, that isn’t his ‘Burglar Bark.’ That’s his ‘barking just for the sake of barking’ bark.”
— In a longer Sunday strip, Charlie Brown says, “It’s kind of cold tonight…it shouldn’t be so cold this time of year…I wonder if Snoopy is warm enough…I think I’ll take my sleeping bag out to him…”
Charlie Brown then takes his sleeping bag into the back yard for Snoopy and comments, “I can sleep well myself now, knowing he’s warm.”
The final frame shows Snoopy tucked into an enormous sleeping that hangs off the roof of his dog house and flows onto the ground.
When Jerry and I designed our kennel building, we thought long and hard about the size of the runs—both inside and outside. Since our goal was a small yet efficient space, we wanted to keep the number of total runs to 20 but how big to make each run was our conundrum.
After many drawings, lengthy discussions and permutations, we ultimately settled on 16 regular-size runs at 4’ in width and four larger runs at 6’. The larger spaces would be for whelping and raising litters.
An unforeseen benefit has been the opportunity to keep two dogs together in one run. The dogs seem to enjoy it and, in fact, become pals. (Jill and Shaq are currently together as are Prancer and Oscar.) They sniff and nuzzle each other, roll around in their runs and play together with their chew toys. Jerry is careful who gets kenneled together and there is always one male and one female. He also considers size, age and temperament.
Jerry and I walk down to the kennel about 9:00 pm each evening to make one final check and to give all dogs a nightly biscuit. After treats are given in the larger runs, the two pals drink together out of their water bucket, curl up next to each other on the bed and settle in for the night.
With monster drumming counts last spring and evidence that Minnesota and Wisconsin are approaching the peak of the 10-year grouse cycle, this seems to be the year to hunt ruffed grouse. But I have other reasons.
#1. There are only so many autumns in one’s life and whether at the peak or in the valley of the grouse population cycle, there will be grouse in the woods.
#2. Fluctuations in grouse populations don’t matter to dogs. They will hunt their hearts out and search for birds like they do always. They will carefully select which cover to hunt by following their noses along damp alder edges and into aspen cuts. Excitement will mount when one dog catches a scent, gets birdy and stands on lofty, intense point.
#3. Autumn is a fine season to be in the woods. The dogwood berries will be white on bright red stems and the aspen leaves will turn golden and, permeating the entire forest, will be the evocative smell of damp, fallen leaves.
I can’t predict if my dogs and I will find few or many grouse in a given day. Some of my best days were in “low” population cycles and, conversely, the biggest disappointments have been in “high” grouse years.
But it doesn’t matter. My dogs and I will be out in the woods and we will be hunting for them. For me, the sport is in the pursuit.
My favorite character is Snoopy. He’s great whether he’s dancing “The Beagle,” imitating a fierce vulture or playing the World War I flying ace. And how can you not love a dog that lost everything when his dog house burned….but then resolutely replaced his ruined Van Gogh with a Wyeth?