win's kennels at Brewster, New York, to
buy any and all young dogs that Will might have with Ned's blood
in the veins.
Old dog trainers contend that this ability to go to game is nose;
that it couldn't be, because some dogs go so much farther than
they could possibly smell game. I have heard them say it is,
a sixth sense. They wish to give the dog some occult power to
local birds. Of course, that is nonsense. A brainy dog will look
over cover and hunt likely spots. He is no good in my book if
he doesn't, but that has no bearing on a dog that cuts straight
across stubble and goes to a covey of quail.
How far can a dog smell game? I wouldn't know. I gave Ted Trueblood
a puppy some years ago, a grandson of old Ned's. Last year Ted
wrote me that this dog Joe had caught the scent of covey of Hungarian
partridge a quarter of a mile away and gone straight to them.
He said there was a gentle breeze blowing from the covey down
a long hill, and the scent must have been carried along close
to the earth, where the dog picked it out of the air and raced
to the birds. A quarter of a mile is a long piece, but I will
believe anything Ted Trueblood tells me, even when he is talking
of his dog. I wouldn't like it if anyone else didn't believe
it and neither would Ted. My son Dan hunted over this dog, and
when he returned home he asked, "Why do you give away the
good ones?"
Summer before last, for something better to do I raised a litter
pups from two dogs I own. The sire goes back to Seaview Rex as
the first dog with a national reputation in his pedigree, but
Shot is an individual in his own right. As a grouse and woodcock
dog he rates. He doesn't go straight to birds, but he covers
the cover, and if they are there he holds stanch with high head
and tail until you get there, then he goes and finds |
another bird. I intend to keep him as long
as he lives. The dam is a beautiful little bitch sired by Ch.
Lucky Strike, and on the other side of the family her grandsire
was Jingo Ned. She couldn't help but be good.
There were six in the litter, four dogs and two bitches. I kept
the pups and played with them until they were four months old
so that I could pick out dogs with certain qualities for certain
friends. One of the bitches we called Susie was the best-looking
dog in the litter and seemed to have more promise than any of
the others as far as brains went, and that is about as far as
you can judge a puppy. I gave her to a friend of mine in Cuba,
with whom I hunt each winter.
Last year when I reached Cuba my first questions were about Susie.
"She is fine. A beautiful dog. So nice about the house,"
my friend said, and I sensed something was wrong.
That evening it came out in the open. "I am afraid Suzzie
will never make a dog for me," Ernesto told me with a great
deal of effort.
"Why not?" I asked.
"She does not hunt like other |
dogs. I turn her loose, and she dashes off and goes
right to quail and drives them into the cane. She does not point.
She goes right from one covey to another, and she chases them
and will not mind me. She obeys perfectly around the house, but
in the field no. I am afraid."
"Will you please repeat that part about her going straight
to the birds?" I asked.
"She does," he answered. "You will see. She will
find every quail in a field and drive them all out."
All I could answer was, "Well, that's too bad! We must take
her out in the morning."
Now, Ernesto has had bird dogs all his life. He had three dogs
when Susie arrived. One, a little black-and-white bitch from
France named Tila, could eat regularly in my kennels. Another
black-and-white bitch that suffers from fear of doing the wrong
thing and a big liver-and-white dog that will point where a quail
passed the day before made up his string. In handling these dogs
Ernesto never raises his voice.
The Bobwhite Quail by Lamar Underwood Reprinted with permission:
Copyrights Lyons Press 2004
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