The Pointing Birddog

STOCKLEY KENNELS EASTVILLE, VIRGINIA
THE POINTING BIRD DOG A few weeks ago I went into a city store with an eight month old English setter pup to heel. A long-legged, big-boned, clumsy footed pup, as all bird dogs of that age are apt to be, but his loose skin was filled with the old hunting instincts; inherent within his puppy brain was that unexplainable, man-developed habit of pointing that distinguishes a bird dog from all other members of the canine family. As this pup crossed the threshold of the store he stopped dead in his stride, stiffening instantly into immobility, muscles knotted, one big forepaw tight against his bony breast, ragged tail straight out, neck and nose outstretched in a beautiful point--at a feather duster! A clerk had been dusting the show cases when a customer entered and had placed the duster temporarily in a handy corner. Now the strange part of this is that, though clerk and customers thought it a clever puppy trick, and all laughed, not one knew or appreciated what the pup was doing. It really meant no more to them than if the dog had walked on its hind legs or sat up and begged. For so scarce have bird dogs become of late, now that our game birds are vanishing, that not one in the store knew what kind of a dog this was or had any idea of the significance of pointing. But not so very long ago, not more than twenty-five years ago, when our northern hardwood forests still echoed with the bump-bump-bump-bummmmmppp of drumming cock grouse and roared with the thunder of their wings; when the open fields of all the broad Southland were alive with quail; when the rolling praries teemed with chickens and there was a brood of woodcock in every alder swamp, then the bird dog was common enough. You would see big beautiful setters and pointers, riding in spring wagons early on frosty October mornings or waiting, leashed and coupled, in railroad stations, on their way to the hunting grounds with the guns. But, as game birds became fewer, when the open seasons narrowed down to a few shooting days each or vanished entirely, then these dogs began to disappear until to-day it is rarely that one sees a good bird dog in a whole days's drive. At a recent dog show in New York there were but a few setters, and these of the bench type. The entry of pointers was rather better, but nothing to boast about. A short time ago I was scoring the country for a certain type of English setter and one old kennel man said: "Them dogs are purty hard to find these days and if I had one you couldn't buy it!" There are bird dogs yet in the Southland, where there are still some quail remaining, but in all that great natural home of the ruffed grouse, from the Atlantic to the Middle West, from Canada to the South (where they insist upon calling the bird a "Pheasant") there are comparatively few well-trained bird dogs any more. This is equally true of the prarie country in many states where the prairie chicken, once so abundant, is now seldom seen. The bird dog is a bit older than the popular sport of bird shooting with firearms. For a long time before this these toothsome game birds were snared and netted for the table. This, however, was more of a business than a sport. It was left to the serfs and peasants to supply the master's table. Such is the protective coloration of most game birds that the hunter can stand within a few feet of them and never know they are there. All other game, bear, deer, elk, rabbits, could not hide away from the keen-nosed hunting dogs trained specially to find them, but these dogs were useless for hunting birds. So it was but natural that the early bird hunters, knowing as they did the value of dogs for all other kinds of hunting, should try to develop one for their business. The best tracking hounds only put up the bird coveys far ahead of the nets, for all the smaller hounds can be easily trained to trail the larger game birds. What they needed was some kind of a dog that would find the hidden birds and indicate to the hunter about where they were, not rushing in to flush them before the nets could be cast. Way out in China, even in those days, there was a small toy dog that liked to chase chickens and enjoyed running after birds. From time to time these dogs were brought to Europe by trading ships. The name suggests that they were first introduced into Spain, spaniel being a corruption of Hispaniel, and later taken to England. Certainly the toy spaniel is a very old dog, for they are shown in early Chinese art. Needing the services of a dog so badly, the bird netters, tried out this spaniel dog. It worked very well on water fowl. Spaniels are fond of the water and they were easily trained to swim around flocks of ducks and to drive the birds slowly in small creeks and bayous across which the hunters had stretched their nets. But when it came to land birds the spaniel did not work so well. Its instinct was to chase the birds into the trees and to sit down and bark at them. A grouse in a tall tree, in those bow-and-arrow days, was almost as safe from the hunter as from the dog! Nor could the spaniel be taught to hunt from a "cold" scent or to follow the old tracks of feeding birds. It still hunts, as most dogs do, by sight or by the warm body scent of the hidden game. The next step was to produce, by careful selection and breeding, a dog that would trail game birds, that would find the coveys and hold them, in some way, until the netters could cast their nets. So the spaniel, with the bird-hunting instinct, was crossed with one of the smaller trailing hounds. This, in time, gave a dog that would, when necessary, put ins nose to the ground and track a running bird through the cover. But still this dog was of little service because the birds were always driven up before the hunters, out of the reach of the nets. But then one day, as it must have happened, some hunter noticed that his dog had a peculiar trick of stopping for a second when the scent of near-by game reached its nose, hesitating just long enough to locate the probable hiding place of the birds before leaping in to catch one--if it could. This hesitancy was nothing new in dogs then, nor is it even to-day. All sight hunting dogs will do it. Scent, as every hunting dog soon learns, is an elusive thing. It is like an invisible aura around every animal, every bird, every human being, blown here and there upon the wind, subject to all the vagaries of air currents, and thus covering a considerable space many times larger than the bird or beast itself. So that a wide stream of this scent blowing through the cover does not serve to disclose the actual hiding place of the game. This must be ascertained by a more careful search with the nose, by drawing nearer and nearer to the source, before the dog will chance a spring to catch its quarry. Notice any hunting collie dog and you will see this very thing. You wil see him stop when his nose finds the warm scent, see him hesitate before the leap at the invisible rabbit hidden in the weeds. And then you will see these sight hunters leaping high above the cover to catch a glimpse of the fleeing game instead of running down the hot scent stream like a hound. When the first bird hunters took note of this momentary pause before the covey--for it was seldom more than a fraction of a second's hesitancy--they saw a way to profit by it. If the dog could be taught to hesitate for a longer period, until the netters could come up to it, then the animal would be of the greatest value in bird hunting. It would find the birds and locate them for the netters and it would serve to attract the attention of the birds and hold them there until the nets could be cast. So they taught this dog to stand at command. When the hunter said "whoa," or its equivalent, the dog would stand perfectly still. By watching this dog when it began to scent game and ordering it to "Whoa" at the proper instant, it would disclose to the hunters where game birds were hiding long before they took wing. Dogs that would hesitate longest, and obey the command to "whoa" best, obviously were the most valuable. They were used for breeding other bird dogs, through generations of bird dogs, until the point became a fixed habit. These dogs even learned in time that they were in the way when the nets were thrown, so they crouched upon the ground in order that the cast might be made over their heads. This is why they are know as "Setters" even to this very day. The trick of teaching these first bird dogs to "point" and "set" was soon acquired by all game bird netters and it was not long before the bird dog, as developed from hound and spaniel ancestors, be came a recognized and distinct family of dogs. Just as soon as the fowling piece was invented and bird shooting became one of the popular sports the development of the bird dog was rapid and thorough. For a long time the netters and the gunners contended for the honors of bird hunting. The gunners did not need a dog that would crouch upon the ground; in fact crouching only made these dogs harder to see in thick cover. They preferred pointing dogs that did not drop to earth. So the gunners developed the shorthaired bird dog that stood upright when locating game and these came to be called "pointers" as we know them even now. They were gun dogs long before the setters had given up the nets. For the nets held to their dogs long after the gun had come-- held on, in fact, until the guns had thinned down the birds so that it no longer paid to net them; or until the rich landowner, fond of his gun and proud of his "pointing bird dog," made strict laws against poaching, and a man caught afield with a bird net over his shoulder was apt to swing for it! After this the setters were taken over by the gunners and the two distinct strains have prevailed from that time on, each having its special qualifications. The nets have been gone for many years but this instinct of the setter to crouch is not wholly eliminated even yet. I have often seen my English setter, Ahwaga-Trojan, prone upon the ground, head upon outstretched forepaws before a woodcock, waiting for the guns to come up. The point of a good bird dog is a picture of beauty and wonder, savoring strongly of the supernatural. Why should this dog stand as though posed by a sculptor, minute after minute, without moving a hair, tense, eyes glazed, as though self-hypnotized, before a hidden bird which it cannot even see? These dogs are no longer taught to point; it is born in them, or they will not point at all. The truth is that the dog does not know why it points. A five weeks' old puppy will stand frozen, eyes fixed and jaws slobbering, before a fly! Of course, in time, bird dogs learn to associate the point with the shooting of game, but pups will point long before they know what a grouse smells like. A pointing dog has every symptom of being hypnotized. It acts like a bird that is being charmed by a snake, if such things ever happen. It is as though a new and unnamed emotion had been bred into the animal which reacts in paralyzing fascination at the scent of game. The point is uncanny, to say the least. A whiff of warm body scent and the dog freezes. Its forefoot is up because it stopped so suddenly that the foot was left in the air. They often point with a hind foot raised. You can't push the pointing dog ahead; the body is rigid, the mind deaf to sounds. But let the bird move and the scent grow cold then the dog will come suddenly to lift--only to circle for the magic scent again and point some more! Birds to not fear a pointing dog. Watching from the cover they know that the dog has not seen them. The bird dog makes no attempt to sneak up on the birds, traveling fast and noisily through the cover. So long as the birds know where the dog is and he makes no move to pounce upon them, they will not rise. Nor will they pay much attention to the hunter while the dog is there. All the pointers are short-haired dogs, except the pointing Griffon, rare in this country, which is covered with long grizzly wire hair. The setters are long- haired dogs, familiar as the Irish setter, a rich mahogany red; the Gordon, or Scotch, setter, mostly black with tan trimmings; and the English setters in black and white, tan and white, black, white, and tan. The Gordon setter is a rare dog in this country to-day, although this big slow-gaited dog was ideal for grouse hunting, capable of standing a lot of hard work in rough country and sour weather. The handsome Irish setters are still with us but in diminishing numbers. While the most popular breed of setters is the English, in its two strains of Llewellyn and Laverack, or a combination of both. A well-trained bird dog is an educated animal. It knows, it reasons, it thinks. Its nose is better, keener, more delicate than any hound's It has what no other dog has, the magical gift of pointing out and holding the game for the hunter. A bird dog's eduation is not considered complete until it will hold the point, and be staunch to the roar of rising birds and the thunder of the guns. He will "cone in" at command and walk "to heel" when ordered. He is taught to "quarter" the ground so as to cover as wide a bit of cover as possible by zigzagging in the wind. He will find the dead and retrieve the kill. And he is taught to do all this by whistle, by signal, or by the use of words. Do they think? Well, I have known dogs lost on point to bark when they heard the hunters trying to call them in. I have seen dogs, when told to go in and put up the birds, circle around so as to drive them toward the guns. I have known them to come back and bark for the hunters when a distant covey was found. And once I owned a dog who understood the gun so well that if you pointed one at him, by accident or design, he would get out of line with the barrels mighty quick. When the belled collar comes down from the hook, when the gun is taken out of the case, they dance and talk, they know! And all hunting dogs soon acquire an extensive vocabulary, understanding a great many words and sentences, such as, "Quit that runnin," "Get in the cover," "Come around there," "Not so far," "Find dead," and dozens of others, not to mention a whole language of calls, whistles, and signals. The nose of a bird dog is a continual source of astonishment to the hunter. It is not so strange that a hound can follow the tracks of a deer, or a fox, when it is remembered that both are very strong-scented animals, and even a human being can smell a dog fox for quite a distance on a frosty morning when it first gets up out of its warm bed in the snow. Even a dog's feet are strongly "Mousy" if you smell of them, and a wet dog is very noticeable in a hot room. The deer has scent glands, presumably to aid other deer to find the herd, and these glands leave behind a tel- tale scent that is easy for the dog to follow. A hound's nose is keen but not necessarily so keen as most folk think, because it hunts strong scented animals. The bird dog, I firmly believe, has the keenest nose of all, actually beyond human comprehension. This is necessarily so because our small game birds have very little scent and their tiny feet leave but the faintest scent traces on the ground. But good dogs will point single birds a hundred yards away down wind when scenting conditions are good. I have seen dogs stop time and again, whirl about to investigate a bit of bird scent blowing out of a distant bush, only to flush a wren or a song sparrow! They will pick up old tracks of quail and grouse and follow them for long distances from where they fed at daylight to the other side of the cover where they are sunning themselves at noon. Now there is not much scent to a grouse, but once I saw a grouse fly down a woods road and turn sharp to the right into a cross road. As the bird turned, the tip of one wing brushed a few leaves at the corner, some two feet above the ground. Several minutes later my dog was sent down that way and he stopped instantly before the leaves, sniffed, and went on again. That requires a nose! Good bird dog retrievers evidence an incredible sense of smell. You can, for instance, mark an apple for identifation purposes, let the dog sniff it so that he knows what he is to be asked to fetch, and throw it far out into an orchard where there are thousands of windfall apples on the ground and, even though the dog does not see where you throw it, he will find that particular apple, without touching any other, and bring it back to you. I have seen dogs do this times without number. I have owned retrieving dogs that thought this great fun and they never asked to see where you threw it either. Now all apples smell more or less alike and imagine a dog's nose keen enough to scent your finger touches on just one of them, minutes after it was thrown bouncing over the ground! The bird dog, most beautiful and lovable of all dogs, will go when the game is gone. Utility dogs, companions of the hunt, they are not pets and house dogs, though they are gentle and affectionate. But the forests are going and the grouse are going. The great flocks of prairie chickens have vanished before the plow and the gun. So Jock and Mungo, Pat and Sheila, Wolf, Flash, Rock, Quail, Speck--all noble bird dogs dozing away your declining years by the warm fireside, dreaming of the good old days when the guns echoed on frosty mornings--when you are gone to the happy hunting grounds there will be no more like you.
By Don Cameron Shafer Country Life Magazine - November, 1925 Entered on our website for your enjoyment By Judy Lessard, some 50+ years later

E-mail: stockleykennels@esva.net

Return to Stockley Kennels index page

Neil and Judy Lessard Stockley Kennels P.O. Box 298 Eastville, Va. 23347-0298 (757) 678-0966 or FAX (757) 678-0039