two months in

Two months into camp and things have definitely taken shape.  Since the last post, we went through about a two-week period of 90+degs and high humidity that made things pretty wretched, necessitating early mornings and a seven day week to get everything done without having to really try and cram everything.  Since then the weather has begun to change and with it, the birds have started to move around too.  Some of our covers have gone barren, in others the balance of birds has changed -- and so we're seeing more sharptails than pheasants -- but in the cooler, but stormier weather of the fall, it seems like we're having more hit-or-miss days as the birds stay hidden in the sunflower and corn crop fields (which are still up) till they feel comfortable leaving.

A good illustration might be the story of the last two days.  Sharptail season opened on the 19th, but I finally got my license to start yesterday.  I took 5 dogs to a piece of private land we lease access to and which we normally run dogs off horseback on.  We've been over most of it and have a pretty good idea where the likeliest bird locations are.  It was sunny, but blustery.  And despite trying to get Momo, then Jozsi, then one of the camp dogs, into previously productive spots, we didn't even see a sharptail.  I then moved the truck a little ways and got Capo out.  She started trailing a covey about a 100yds out of the trailer, and we had a constant point, flush attempt, relocate cycle going for about a half-mile.  Whether these were the same birds I don't know, but I saw four birds fly into a spot about 200yds upwind from us.  We tried to sneak up a drainage unseen, but I saw them fly and relocate another 100yds further ahead.  (I don't think they could see or hear us, but the wind was just making them spooky.) As we came into the wind, Capo started pointing about 75yds across the wind from where I thought the birds were -- but was looking into the wind as at least two of the covey now flushed downwind from us.  I worked her through the area they'd left and decided it was time to head downwind back towards the truck.  In another draw, she stopped-to-flush -- and I'll admit firing two Hail Mary's just out of frustration.  She then stopped-to-flush again, but as I walked in another bird flew and I dropped it.  The same routine happened about 75yds further downwind.  I couldn't fault her terribly because I was taking her directly into a 10-20mph wind.  So when she managed to point a third, I was especially happy to take it for her.  I have no pictures of her from today, but astute, loyal readers will note that limiting out on our first day of sharptail hunting was done using my 135yr-old Stephen Grant hammer gun.  (The picture below is of Capo, but getting a pheasant poult pointed in a cut wheat field.)

Today, however, it was cold and blustery to the extent that I actually wore a jacket under my strap vest and thought I was going to get soaked for the first two hours.  I knew it was unlikely bearing in mind the cover and the wind direction, and sadly despite working hard, Jozsi drew a blank in the first field.  I then got Momo out in a spot that he and Jozsi had found two good sized sharptail coveys three days before.  To get there, you have to cross a cut wheat field.  Momo stopped to poop and a sharptail flushed wild about 10yds ahead of him.  We never saw another sharptail.  After working the initial cover thoroughly, I then took him across another cut wheat section towards a treeline.  It was a shame it wasn't pheasant season.  He pointed a large, mixed covey of hens and roosters right by the fencelines, three waves of 2-3 birds getting up.  He looked at me like I was a dumbass.  He ended his trip out with a nice solo rooster find towards the road, still a little annoyed that his father apparently didn't remember how to use either of the triggers on the shotgun.

Post-Script: since I started writing this post, I took Momo and Capo out into one of our local covers that afternoon once the weather had cleared out.  And over a point-and-back from the two of them, up went a covey of three sharpies, and in a miracle of miracles, I took a double.

*******

Jake the Snake has been doing well, too, finding both his range and his nose for both sharpies and pheasants.  Here's a nice picture of him with a rooster pinned in low, sage scrub.  With all the dogs, I've been surprised by the kinds of cover and how close some of these wild birds will hold in.  We've seen sharpies and pheasants share mid-summer alfalfa fields, sharpies in high weeds, and hen pheasants especially holding in tiny strips of cover left from mowing in hay fields. Earlier in the summer, we saw a fair number of hen pheasants decoying, trying to draw birds away from the clutch of poults.  All my dogs are trained to stop-to-the-flush -- and situations like that often mean that you when the dog performs the skill reliably they still get the reward of seeing other birds fly when you get in front of them.

*******

I have been breaking out two dogs, as well: my infamous Amy Winehouse, Rye, and a very nice dog belonging to my friend, Dick.  It's been neat to see them both respond to the West Method albeit coming to it from very different directions.  Rye is smart enough to know when she's being messed with or set up and will use your own pressure (or lack of it) against you when she feels like it -- and the challenges are often how to keep changing up the game to keep her slightly off-step and when to recognize her broken-pride-broken-wing routine as a bluff.  But she most definitely has the ability to make a nice broke gun-dog.  Ben is a great, young dog who has come to me with very few other hands on him, very few kinks, and a great attitude to do the right thing.  He is now at the point that, as can be seen in this picture, I am turning him loose in the bird field wearing a harness and dragging cables to slow him down.  This picture isn't the greatest of his overall style, in part because he is pointing a bird close up that we've already worked once and so hasn't been producing scent in that spot for a huge period of time.  But he is thoroughly used to the ecollar cue and so, as with his last workout, he inadvertently ran over a bird and it flushed ahead of him -- he knew he was supposed to stop, wanted to keep moving after it, but successfully rolled himself to the stop with the e-collar cue.  This is the sort of stuff that makes more of an impression to me about how the dog is learning.  They all know where the breaking field is and where the birds are likely to be, but after showing them the drills and contexts for stopping and staying stood still, I like to get away from launchers or releasers as soon as possible.

big wide open

We're now through with the first two full weeks of summer camp -- we've had our first round of scratches and scrapes and trips to the vet and what I am sure will be merely the first round of bitches in season driving all the boys completely nuts.  We have 20 dogs here in camp -- 17 vizslas, 2 pointers and 1 German Wirehair -- and after a busy first week, we now have proper kennel runs set up to accommodate all of them.  Ken has 14 dogs, I brought the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Capo, Rye, and the handsome Ben (who belongs to a friend of mine).  We had an uneventful trip out. happily, stopping over at our friends' house in western PA (Brian and Brandy own Dot, Jake's sister, who sadly is out at summer camp of her own), then a great visit with Meg's father, Bill, and his brother, John, at the Riordan family compound in eastern WI, then a short day's drive to Red Wing, MN, to visit with the fabulous Janeen McMurtrie of SmartDogs fame, before hauling out to north-central South Dakota.  On the right, here's Momo, Jozsi, Capo, and Rye celebrating what it means to be a Hungarian hunting dog in America!

We've got a pretty good regular schedule set up that ensures that every dog gets roaded twice a week according to their output and goals (for example, Momo is primarily an 8-10mph dog whose primary function is to be an all-day hunting dog and he and Rye make a nice pairing), we work the walking dogs (ie. the ones who will primarily be hunting and hunt test dogs) twice a week on wild birds, and we work the horseback dogs twice a week on wild birds.  Dogs like Rye and Ben are also here to get broke and we work those dogs three times a week on pigeons and johnny-house quail.  Sunday is a day off for all, if possible, and we like it like that.

But my Road Crew came to South Dakota for big spaces and wild birds -- and we have both.  Unlike last summer, it rained often and till late and so we still have a lot of crops (like wheat, corn, and millet) in which reduces our available training spaces, but we have seen what looks like two clear clutches of young birds -- and we have seen Huns, sharptails, and pheasants.  And Ken has done a nice job securing leases from landowners to run dogs on their properties.  It is amusing to think that we have maybe only covered about half of one of the properties we ride on after now taking dogs there twice -- and that that property is about 6 or 7 times the size of the Flaherty Field Trial Area that we normally compete at.  This picture is actually of Capo, first time turned loose after eight months of no birdwork on a species she's never smelled before (a sharptail).  This is why we love her so much, looking so good it looks fake.

Jake already took a good gash across one of his front legs and a speargrass seed in one of his ears.  If we had been at home, I would probably have taken him to the vet to get a few stitches put in and I certainly debated whether to break out the stapler but after conversation with Wendy at Widdershins (who works at a vet practice we stopped by at several times last year while up in Ripley) I decided to go with air and frequent flushing and, now ten days later, Jake got run off horseback for only the second time since he got here.  With twice daily flushings using a syringe and saline solution and only a spray of liquid bandage to protect it, the wound has filled in in nicely.  Ten days ago after his run, though, he was shaking his head a little too insistently and carrying one of his ears a little low.  After a week of flushing with an ear cleaner, there was only minor improvement and so he was one of the dogs that went to try out the facilities at Oahe Veterinary Clinic in Mobridge in an attempt to locate whatever it was that was bothering him and to try and rule out the possibility of a nocardia infection.  Happily, he seems back to his usual goofy self.  And this picture is from this morning -- click on the picture and you'll see him, standing tall for a sharptail about 15yards away.

Hopefully this will be the first post in a series, but bed is calling.  Have fun out there, everyone!

spring has sprung

It's hard to say that spring sprung because it seems like we've been through a bunch of schizo weather patterns which merited the air-conditioners being put back in and then fleece jackets and/or waterproofs.  I was just at Flaherty this past weekend judging for the Nutmeg GSP Club and between the hot, humid, still weather on Saturday (especially) and the jungle-like cover, I was glad I wasn't running any of my dogs.

Since the last entry, I did run the dogs and judge for the Long Island Pointing Dog Field Trial Club out at Sarnoff Preserve out in Riverhead, Long Island.  I like Sarnoff as a venue and would have loved to have hunted there back in the day when the LI pine barrens supported wild quail -- but it is a little too wooded on the edges and the course area a little too compact for me to run our Dancing Pirate, but I did run both the Mominator and Mr. Enthusiasm.  But it was a weekend of screw-ups: canine and human.

While the first mishap with Jozsi wasn't a screw-up as such, and it indicates the strengths and challenges of the venue, I told the judge that the decision I was making was going to be either brilliant or disastrous.  On the first major bend in the course, Jozsi headed into the piney cover dead ahead -- and as I got closer I heard him bark.  While not generally a trait we look for in pointing dogs, Jozsi has barked to me up in Maine when he knew he was potentially off course and has a grouse pinned.  I've gone to him in both instances and been able to shoot a grouse.  And so I ploughed into the woods hoping he had some kind of game bird pinned.  Maybe he did and maybe it left, but after probably only 5mins of wading around, I realized he wasn't there and I didn't know where he was and so, for the first time ever in a trial, asked for my Astro to locate my dog.  He was 600yds to the front.  But these are tactical decisions you need to make sometimes based on what you know about your dog -- and this time it was the wrong one.

I then ran Mominator -- and to illustrate the point in a different way, when he disappeared into the cover on the left at around 0:25 and didn't reappear, I told the judge he must be on-point in the thick stuff.  And he was.  I think he had four finds in that brace, competent and probably not the firmest dog in the world, and so imminently beatable.  But conditions were clearly tougher than I had expected and he was called back for the retrieve with just one other dog.  But, and here is where while it's fine to have high standards, don't sell your dog short.  He found the bird, I got it in the air nicely, it was shot cleanly, and when I turned to look at him, I could see he'd moved a couple of feet.  And being a dumbass, instead of waiting and demonstrating that he hadn't broken, I rushed to send him for an otherwise perfect retrieve.   I sold my dog out and we didn't get a ribbon.  I know we were the #2 dog and that all of this is fun for Momo -- but I sold him short and if he knew the depth of regret I have for doing that, I know he would still go get any and every bird and lick me anyways.  (As I write this blog entry I scanned over some previous posts and clearly I am a dummy: "Let the judge judge your dog"!)

I then ran Jozsi again, this time off a horse.  It was pretty hot, but he hunted like a beast.  He started with a genuine stop-to-flush, then had two finds off to the side in pretty good cover although his style wasn't great, and then around 0:26 decided he would step into the final bird and put it up.  He is now off birds and on the remedial plan.  He might have been hot, but he knew I was right there and hosed both of us.  My initial feeling is that we're going to go all the way back to some basic obedience and not let him actually work a bird until he's done a bunch of 'working behind' -- if nothing else, he needs to understand that I give him the opportunity to smell birds and watch them fly and not the other way round.

*******

I was glad to be judging, and not running, dogs this past weekend at the Nutmeg hunt test -- in particular because I knew I was going to get to see Ottla run in Senior Hunter.  And hunt she did. Despite the heat and humidity, she was clearly in physical and mental shape to deal with the craziness that is often the case in the forced environment of a hunt test brace -- and in this case, a bracemate who ran right across her and then stole point.  (Again, to revisit the topic of handler decisions: if you're being asked to bring your dog in for an honor, pick the open side, pick the uphill side, don't pick the downhill side where even if your dog could see over the knee-high grass, it probably won't have a good view of the other dog till the very last second.)  I tried to barely acknowledge her before her brace, but as you can tell she clearly remembered who I was at the end of things.  It was a real pleasure to be able to judge and qualify a dog I got to see as a pup on her first birds.  And so, all hail CH Broad Run's Ottilie of Red Oak SH CGC!

*******
Our friend, Jeremy, has been out a couple of times with us since he got his handsome GSP, Jackson, back from winter camp with Maurice Lindley.  Ever since we first saw Jack, we knew he was going to be a bold, stylish dog and his two weeks up in Maine this past summer reaffirmed to both of us that Jack was ready to take the relative stress of being broke.  And besides, with winters being what they are in the northeast, what could be better for a dog than a warm, working vacation in South Carolina?  But now that he is back, he and Jeremy need to find their rhythm together: Jeremy is finding his touch with both the e-collar and the checkcord and pinch-collar; Jackson is learning that the rules are the same with his owner as they were with Mo.  And for now, he's going to continue on the steady, incremental climb to earn the trust of being allowed to run free.  But, as this picture makes clear, he looks awfully nice even when he's 'merely' backing another dog.  But today was also a special day: Momo's eighth birthday!  I do wonder at just how far this goofy dog has taken us in the last eight years -- and wouldn't trade him or the experience for anything.

*******

Speaking of long journeys, it feels a little odd to have a plan all set ahead of time, but short of something disastrous happening I will joining up with Ken Kuivenhoven at his camp in SD for August and September and potentially not coming back till after VCA Nationals in Eureka, KS, in mid-October.  Ken and I had a chance to actually meet in person and chat at the NGDC in April and he's got a great set-up.  At this point, the Road Crew will be the Three Amigos plus Capo plus Rye.  If you're on the East Coast and would like to get your dog out on wild birds in big open spaces, I'd be happy to haul your dog.

back into the thick of things

It has been a busy six weeks -- as most of you who follow this blog could probably guess from the delay since the last posting.  We had a great time up at Julie & Gordon's farm this summer and got a lot done with all the dogs.

But before summer camp ended, I hauled the entire crew down to Crane WMA for the VCCNE + Mayflower GSP Club double-header hunt test -- for Jackson and Rye to try their luck at their first two JH legs and for Capo to try her luck at her first two MH legs (and for me to judge a couple of stakes).

The short version is that I quickly remembered that Capo is really only 2.5yrs old and, relatively speaking, hasn't seen a ton of birds and so, while broke, getting her exposed and proofed to all the random scenarios that come with the hunt test format just hasn't happened yet.  Julie ran her in her first leg and I don't have a clear picture of exactly how it came to pass, suffice to say there was a bird in the air and she was moving after it; I ran her in her second leg and when her bracemate stopped-to-flush on a covey of 6-8 birds, she didn't recognize the situation as a stop-to-flush situation and kept moving.  (She did then go on to honor, stop-to-flush, and then point so it wasn't all wasted.)  But what our little whizz-kid really needs is a season of having birds shot over her to really get her primed for the hunt test big-time.

I handled Jackson in his first JH leg so that he understood that even this was a new venue and he had already seen his father on the grounds the same rules applied.  And he did a really nice job both for me -- and for Jeremy the next day.  I gather he and Jeremy will try to complete the JH title next weekend at the CVVC + Nutmeg hunt test double-header.

To look forward a little and condense things, Rye did a great job out on the Cape and then again at the Vizsla Club of Long Island hunt test out at the Sarnoff Preserve in far eastern Long Island.  I had already agreed to judge and while it meant a lot of driving to pick her up and drop her off, I was eager to get her back out on birds and hopefully finish her title.  Which she did.  It was the first time I had been to the Sarnoff grounds, but it was a great place for an energetic, but still moderate ranging dog to do her stuff.  And she looked as fabulous on point as she did in the previous post.  And as can be seen, the VCLI has fabulous ribbons for those finishing titles at their test.

Momo also got to run as a bye-dog and I was able to run Jozsi and Jake on the grounds after the test.  I have to admit that I am not sure how they run horseback trials at Sarnoff because it seems like your maximum vista is about 100yds and Jake, especially, was out of sight quickly and took some hollering to keep him on track and away from roads.

The rest of this fall is really about two things: trying to get plenty of horseback experience for Jake in trial settings and trying to finish up the final 2 points on Jozsi's Field Championship.  My work schedule has gone a little funky so in order to do that, I've had to sacrifice our usual trip to western Maine to hunt the rumpled grouse.  But hopefully, the additional experience will prove beneficial if not successful for both of them.

*******

Here's a quick salute to Upwind Tonka Geode now called back to the second series of both the 2011 and 2012 VCA National Field Championships.  At least for the 2011 edition, "only dogs with flawless manners on game and good ground pattern were considered for the second series."  'Rocko,' as he is known, is our Jozsi's full brother from the last litter that Lisa DeForest bred;  I happen to think he and Jozsi look very similar in terms of their profile.  I am so pleased that, like Rye, after an initial hiccup or two, he is also performing at the very highest level. Thanks to Phil Stout of WindDance Vizslas for this photograph from this year's second series -- and congratulations to Phil, Tori, and Jamie Fountain for their selection to the second series as well.  And heaven knows, all three of these dogs are just hitting their prime years and so hopefully all of them will have this opportunity again.

wrapping things up

 We're moving into our final week of camp and things are starting to come together for all the dogs -- in some way or other.  Since I last wrote, Jeremy dropped off Jackson for two weeks of camp in anticipation of the VCCNE/Mayflower doubleheader hunt test down at Crane WMA this coming weekend (and in anticipation of his own wedding the following weekend).  And while I wish I could claim to have really set up this picture this way, sometimes you just get lucky: from near to far, Jackson, Rye, Capo, Momo, and Jozsi.

Jack has enough strength and drive that he has caught a few (too many) birds and so I am working on having him establish a meaningful, deliberate point for at least as long as a judge can see him.  In my opinion, I don't have enough time and he has too much drive to try any kind of 'pre-breaking' and so have been using good-flying pigeons in launchers that I set off as soon as he breaks point.  I'm hoping that somewhere in his tiny, tiny mind there is a light going off that says 'movement = no chance'.  I am also working him on coming back to me at a suitable point after he's chased the bird in the hope that we can keep a handle on him in the JH birdfield.  I may not even try him on quail before we head down there with the goal of having him not catch any more birds before the test.

Rye has proven that she certainly has an inner bird dog -- and that she is pretty damn smart and has a dominant personality.  I'm pretty sure that she has transitioned from blinking birds to pointing birds in launchers to blinking launchers, that she isn't gun shy, and that she has the capacity to point like a champ.  She has a couple more days to go after quail up at camp and then we'll see what she does down on the Cape.  But having an 'Amy Winehouse' (a rehab dog that someone else has already fussed with and confused) has been an interesting challenge in terms of trying to figure out how and where she became seemingly indifferent about birds and then trying to stoke her bird drive all over again. I ran her this morning and am having a minor 'moral' dilemma about posting a picture of a dog I don't own before her owners get a chance to -- but here she is, tail fuzzed out in the middle, and staunch.

I have been trying to put the polish on Capo for her MH debut at the hunt test -- working her with another dog to get her into backing situations, giving her retrieve practice, making her heel away from a find to avoid a delayed chase.  Here is Momo backing the Princess in the quail pasture.  It has been interesting doing this with her in part because I have seen the competitive side of her personality -- which also inclines her to make mistakes that she might otherwise not normally do.  But one of the reasons I am so fond of her (and of Jake, too) is the relative calm with which they take corrections and bounce right back, eager to get on with the next task and do it right.

I have been working Jozsi out by having him pull cables every third day or so -- although the one piece of equipment I wish I'd been able to scrounge up for this summer is an ATV so that I could give more dogs a more structured exercise program, particularly on their off-bird days.  Jake, Capo, and Jozsi, for example, have pretty similar gaits and cruising speeds; Momo and Rye would have paired up nicely as another team.  It would also have saved my ankles somewhat: I figure I walk about 8miles a day, a lot of it in rubber boots with little ankle support.  I also need to remember that the dogs are running in hay fields and that chest-high timothy and alfalfa provide plenty of resistance training as well!

I don't remember where I picked up this tip regarding exercising dogs, but I've seen plenty of evidence of its validity this summer that it's worth restating.  Heat, by itself, won't necessarily hurt a dog, but the combination of heat and humidity will definitely sap a dog's energy and endurance.  This is to say that asking a dog to run full-out in 95degs in TX without having adequate water on hand to cool and rehydrate them is irresponsible; but having water on-hand won't do a lot for a dog trying to work full out in 70degs and 80% humidity.  The magic number I've heard some place is 140 -- as the combined total of temperature and humidity --  and which I like for a couple of reasons: there is no elaborate heat index formula to calculate, and it seems a more accurate predictor of low temperature exertion.  While it might sound ridiculous to think that your dog would somehow get exhausted early running in 60deg weather, if you're on the verge of a thunder storm you'll watch them get tired in front of your eyes.  (Thanks to Joe for sending me this interesting link to the Canine Hydration Calculator -- which in turn led me to this animal physiology course on canine thermoregulation.) 

Jake the Snake has been doing great -- and has transitioned from pigeons to quail, and from running wearing his full uniform of pinch-collar, checkcord, and e-collar to running free.  He's certainly not perfect, but happily he seems to fully understand his corrections and bounce right back with a clarity of purpose.  While I have deliberately not been running him in the woods, he did take himself in there the other day and had to be cued to stop-to-flush on a woodcock that burst out of the woodline.  While the johnny-house quail are not as dynamic as either the woodcock or grouse in the woods, that itself becomes a training asset for a dog that is relatively far along in the breaking process -- because while they might ultimately fly under enough pressure, flushing them can often be quite theatrical and the temptation high for a dog.

clearing the hurdles

To start here's a picture of the entire crew staked out under the big willow tree -- and which includes Capo's sister, Moxie, and Rye's son, Waylon.  It's been great to have Rob + Kacey be so close to bring me donuts and pigeons on a fairly regular basis -- and to be able to show them how I train so they can make decisions for themselves about how to bring along their own dogs.  Incidentally, if you click on the picture, you may notice the new spiffy stainless stakes anchoring my chains: these are from Mike Coleman at Heartland Dog Stakes and all I can say is that they're worth every penny.

In the last post I mentioned that I had seen a few potential hiccups and was working out some strategies to deal with them.  Martha Greenlee has posted a similarly-themed article on Steady with Style which is definitely worth checking out.  I experienced something similar with Bill back in 2010 in that first month I was able to spend out in Arizona (before the White Mountains went up in flames).  But the points are several:

• The dog determines the speed of the training, not the competition schedule, not the friend or the pro bragging about breaking a dog in 6 weeks;
• Keep it simple, stupid;
• Establish a solid foundation: this can be tough if you're working largely by yourself because working one dog behind another can provide both a great canine model for the dog you have, the distance that hopefully prevents the dog behind associating the pressure they will experience with the bird, but the reward of seeing a bird in flight;
• When you or the dog do make mistake, the solid foundation gives you something to come back to restart;
• Stick to the plan, a mistake doesn't mean the plan is flawed -- merely that you now have an opportunity to reflect on why things didn't go to plan.  Were you asking the dog to be perfect in less than ideal conditions? is it late in the morning and getting hot? is the air still and scenting conditions are lousy? is the air thick and humid such that even normally good flying birds just don't want to get up until absolutely pressed to?
• Assuming your execution of the plan was perfect, a dog's mistake can be a great learning opportunity for the dog because a dog that is otherwise perfect only knows what's right, it doesn't know what's wrong -- and as such only has half the picture.

To give you an example, working behind this spring, Jake made few, if any mistakes and I wasn't even entirely sure that he was registering the e-collar cue to stop when overlayed with the pinch collar.  I wrote about this in my next-to-last post and the remarkable silver lining experience we had despite having forgotten a key piece of training equipment.  As I mentioned last time, though, as he realized that birdwork was going to be part of his regular day-to-day experience, his intensity and drive went through the roof -- and where heat, humidity, and far-from-explosive birds hadn't driven him mental before, up here in Maine he blew through the e-collar on at least two occasions faster than I could turn the dial as he broke on the flush and went for the bird.  Again, mistakes help frame situations for both the dog and the handler.  A week or so later after getting a nice solid rhythm of reliable stands, I decided to enlist a friend to shoot a bird for him.  I popped the bird in the launcher and it flopped in the still air -- and instead of saying to heck with it, I picked it up and threw it.  My gunner shot and missed and Jake was off to the races, ignoring the e-collar cue to stop.  I wanted so hard to end on a positive note but could feel myself getting knotted up in my own confusion and decided to stop.

As I sat down with a sandwich, I recognized several things.  While I don't want to waste valuable resources like pigeons, I had chosen a poor flier as the sacrificial bird.  After being sure he wasn't sensitive to the gun (and in awareness of the various articles in The American Field about human and canine hearing loss), I have deliberately not fired a lot of rounds off around him.  When he was working behind and a bird was shot for the dog in front, I would ask him to stand while the dead bird was waggled and thrown ahead of him, and then send him to go grab it.  And while he might still be a pig-headed demon dog, I realized that I had put him in a situation where there were several cues that might have encouraged him to break -- a shotgun being fired, a crappy bird he knew he could catch, and a thrown bird to boot.  I took him back out in the evening once it had cooled and a light breeze had gotten up with two uncarded birds in launchers with the intent just to work on stopping-to-flush, something he knew and could do well.  Despite deliberately coming from mostly upwind, the breeze fishtailed and he caught of scent, began to style, and as he took a couple of steps, I popped the bird.  As it turned out, he turned his head as I did it, missed the initial flush, then saw the bird flapping and stopped himself.  It turned out to be a not-to-great bird and I was admittedly nervous.  He took a half-step, got a correction, stopped, and I walked out in front of him and fired the pistol.  As soon as he got scent on the second bird, he stopped and styled up.  I walked out in front, kicked around, popped the bird, fired the gun, and all was good.

As can be seen from this picture, if there is one thing about this dog that stuns me, it is that when scenting conditions are good, he will point a pigeon at 25+yards out.  This picture is actually from this morning -- two or three sessions since I started writing this post -- but part of why I think he is doing so well now is because I eliminated those various points of potential confusion for him.  I'll restate them, not to preach but to hopefully help other folks understand how they might not be clearly communicating to their dog and how they might unpack other training issues:

•  Weak birds can be useful for less-experienced dogs whose fire and drive you really want to stoke by letting the dog break or chase up and catch a bird;
• Weak birds are not useful for dogs who are in that intermediate stage before being fully broke but whose drive is intense -- and so use the best birds you can find.  In an ideal world, your pigeons are strong-flying homers who don't need cards and your quail accustomed to a johnny-house and never touched by your hands;
• If you've helped a dog understand the concept of standing still by throwing a dead bird for them during the introductory phases of this method, then make a decision about how far they are in their development and then never throw a bird for them again;
• If the only time you bring out a shotgun is to shoot a bird (which they already understand they will be sent for), then keep the dog guessing by using a shotgun with a 209 insert or a primed, empty hull.

Talking to Lary Cox at Christies Saddlery last week, he reminded me of Buck Brannaman's introduction to Bill Dorrance's True Horsemanship Through Feel.  It's a great story for many reasons, not least of which because Buck concludes his interaction with Bill by saying "Considering I wasn't really listening to me, he could have said a number of things to me."  If you take time to consider your mistakes and ask for help, sometimes the solution is often exactly opposite of what you'd have thought.

In other related news: my johnny-house quail are now in fine form and so some of the dogs have graduated to them.  After all my trials and tribulations with Jozsi outlined in this blog over the years, watching him do so nicely this morning was a real treat.  He is another example of why, even after you've started down the wrong path, the first six points in this post hold true.

silver linings

As the title and delay in posting would suggest, it has been six weeks of frustration waiting for some kind of clear plan or purpose for the remainder of the summer and fall to develop.  Here in New York, all the moisture that you might have presumed to have appeared in January and February and coated the ground in ice and snow waited till May and June.  And so we've had to try and slot things in between thunder storms and increasingly tall covers on our training grounds.

We did manage to fit in another group training day at TMT in the third week of May with Jack, Juli, Scotch, Dustin, Lyric, Gabi, Paige, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  It was nice to see friends again -- and we were blessed with good weather although a little more breeze would have made it perfect.  But we got everyone run and everyone had fun.  The top picture is of Scotch on just his second set of birds -- as I said to Josh, he's still very young and the fire needs stoking but when he gets scent, he knows what to do.  Look at the tail on that dog!  Fabulous.  For young dogs, I prefer to use birds that are fully awake and placed in spots that require the dog to use its nose.  For younger dogs with less prey drive, I think there's a lot of merit in a handler 'taking the dog for a walk' close to a planted bird -- in part because the young dog associates going with his handler with the excitement of finding birds.  And as the dog associates going for that particular kind of walk, that will also build drive as well as reinforce the desire to work with his handler.

After a great winter starting the breaking process with Jake, we lost our rhythm due to crappy weather coinciding with my days off.  He has been at the point of making the transition from the pinch collar to the e-collar for correcting him when he makes a mistake (ie. fails to stop or needs to be re-cued to stop) for some time -- and my challenge has been that he was simply not making very many mistakes.  Jake seems to have internalized all the external cues for stopping -- pointing, stopping to flush, and honoring -- and was standing very nicely through each of those things while either someone else flushed for him or the dog he was working behind.  In short, he wasn't doing anything to merit being re-cued to stop and stand still.

As I wrote two summers ago about knowing when to stop and when to keep going, my dilemma has been whether to assume he does know it and potentially create a problem by going too fast or to potentially lose style by boring the dog with lessons he knows he knows.  One nice part about the West method is that you're essentially teaching the dog the same skill in a variety of scenarios -- which is to say, you don't break the dog pointing birds, then teach the honor, or the stop-to-flush -- and so in that sense, you can mix things up with the dog by asking him to the same thing, albeit in a different (and hopefully interesting) set of circumstances.  Maurice Lindley had suggested that I use the stop-to-flush as the means to test whether he'd internalized the e-collar cue to stop -- in part because I could do it by myself using a launcher while still keeping myself in a position to correct him with the pinch if the e-collar didn't register.  The challenge remained that he would stop himself properly and then, very often, make little or no effort to move after the bird.  Nevertheless, the advice was sound.  What I've also seen with him is that he seems most reliable on birds he's not pointing, whereas having scent drives him that little bit crazier even if I'm standing by him with the pinch collar and someone else is flushing for me.

Today's silver lining was that I got up to TMT to feed my birds and hopefully get some training in on pigeons with Jake and discovered that, of the five checkcords that I can think of that I own, I didn't have a single one with me -- and certainly not the one with the pinch-collar on it.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  So I cursed.  I had been tidying up all the stuff in the back of the truck and in the trailer and had just plain forgotten to make sure I had one or the other in the truck again.  I had already put out one pigeon in a launcher and two on cards but debated what to do.  The short answer is that part of me wishes I'd brought a camera with me to get some nice pictures of me in front of a high and tight Jake, but then again anyone who reads this blog would have laughed their butt off if they'd seen his regular purple nylon leash hanging off his collar.  He handled his stop-to-flush perfectly, broke on the first pointed pigeon after I'd flushed but I managed to stop him with the e-collar to style him up and reflush the bird, and he handled the final pointed bird really nicely.  And this is one reason I have been frustrated by our intermittent training schedule -- because he handles corrections really nicely -- and wish we could have gotten a bunch of nice even repetitions in.  This is largely what you pay a pro for: the time to establish a routine of (hopefully) productive behaviors.

But the real silver lining wasn't that Jake did well, but that forgetting a key piece of equipment that I would have otherwise used as a psychological crutch in the name of 'taking it slow and steady' forced me to take a chance.  Sometimes you need to have faith in yourself, in the training time you already have in, and of course in your dog.  This picture is actually from a couple of days ago, but he's a pretty happy chappy.

*******

In other news: Craig Doherty at Wild Apple Kennel has written a series of five blogposts on grouse trialing.  Whether you do grouse trials or not, there's a lot of really useful and interesting stuff for trialers in here.

And: I had a nice time judging SH/MH at the Nutmeg GSP Club hunt test a couple of weekends ago and was pleased to watch another set of really nice Spinones.   I realize I'm admitting to a stereotype-proven-wrong, but if there was a breed that has genuinely impressed me in the last year of judging hunt tests it has been these mostly white Spinones.  And not because they performed the skills well enough, but because they looked animated and excited to be doing it.

Also: if you ever send something back to Garmin to get fixed, remember to take out your memory cards or the after-market extended antenna.  I remembered the first but figured they'd just repair the busted screen on my Astro 220... no.  They sent me a whole, newly refurbished 220 back instead.  Fortunately, this is now my back-up unit and the 320 comes with an extended antenna in the box.

busier than heck

There's nothing like a good bird-dog addiction to keep you busy -- and April was another good example.  Mid-month, I hosted a training day for a bunch of friends -- including son-of-Sally, Jackson, and son-of-Jozsi, Judd, as well as Scotch, PJ, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  This picture is of Judd throwing a really nice point during what was only his second time working birds.  It was great to have a bunch of young dogs and watch them figure out what they had been bred for.

We then held our CVVC Spring field trial at the end of the month, for which I served as the chair.  It was my first time chairing a trial and thank heavens for a good group of folks behind me.  In an effort to minimize some of our costs, we elected to run it as a two-day trial and still managed to run 100+ dogs in the course of 48hrs.  On the one hand, it was a little frustrating not being able to accept all the entries received for our Amateur Walking Puppy stake, but on the other, it was truly exciting to see two large Puppy stakes with a bunch of first-time trialers trying their hand at the sport.  Hopefully everyone had a good time running their dogs even if it probably felt a little frustrating to be the last stake of the trial run in the later afternoon on Sunday.  Hopefully, they also came to understand two of the weird quantum physics phenomena of field trialing: on the one hand, even if you don't have many dogs to run, the trial will fill the entire time allotted; on the other hand, even if you do have a ton of dogs to run, your brace won't come soon enough.

After an exhausting weekend of seeding courses, filling bird bags, and marshaling volunteers (all of whom I greatly appreciate), it was especially rewarding to read the placements for that 14-dog Amateur Walking Puppy stake and to hand over the blue ribbon to my friend, Kim Barry, and her exciting puppy, Zoom, who is out of Kyler and Rene Blakemore's very handsome Dual Champion, Remington.  As you can see in the above picture, our club has a special trophy for the highest placed Vizsla in our Amateur Walking Puppy stakes in memory of a much beloved, much missed club member, Saul Himmelfarb.  The Open Limited Gun Dog stake also has a rotating trophy in memory of another lost-too-soon club member, Patrick Cooke, the owner of the great Yogurt.  Yogurt is an aunt to our Jozsi through her mother, Shaker, and so it feels especially rewarding to announce that Jozsi won the OLGD stake for 2 retrieving points towards his FC.  A big thank-you to Dave Margolin for taking the picture of his successful retrieve.  After a lovely long cast, he had a stop-to-flush, then quite literally a limb find -- a bird 4ft up on a branch -- which he handled beautifully and then hunted and searched like a madman for the remainder of his brace.

What follows is not to brag about me or my dog (in part because it's based on a compilation of several observations) but to hopefully encourage folks to think about what they're doing when they're trialing.

• Your dog needs to point a bird to place, but one spectacular find might trump a half-dozen ugly finds;
• If your dog finds a gazillion birds, then it simply doesn't have time in a 30minute stake to really demonstrate speed, range, and/or confidence;
• As a handler, you're putting on a show for the judges -- and whether you are or not, try to make it look like you and your dog are working as a team;
• If your dog has faults, then don't give it the opportunity to demonstrate them by trying to show its strengths instead;
• At some point, you will probably have to make a tactical decision about what is better for your dog's performance: if my dog has already had positive finds, does it make more sense to take an unproductive at the end of a stake rather than try to flush one more bird that might run or fail to fly or flush back into your dog's face?
• AKC weekend stakes might only be 30minutes long, but everything else being equal the dog that finishes looking like it's just warming up should place higher than the dog that looks like it's happy to be done.

This past weekend I was out in central PA at the GSPCA National Amateur Gun Dog Championship held at Warrior's Mark Wingshooting Lodge -- I think largely because I can ride a horse and am a fairly good shot.  For the first 30min series of the championship, every dog with birdwork had to demonstrate a successful retrieve -- with the first chukar encountered shot-on-course where possible.  Maybe because it was an amateur event, maybe because it was a single-breed championship, but the atmosphere was very supportive and encouraging.  For me, despite the slight pressure to shoot birds absolutely dead, it was a great opportunity to meet a bunch of new folks and to see a bunch of very nice dogs.  It was an honor to shoot birds for all the dogs and especially those that made it through to the second series (which was a 45min brace with all the birds being pop-gunned).  And while congratulations go to all the dogs that placed, it was very nice to see that Greg Nicholson and Greta took a 4th place and that our dear friends, Jen & Dennis Hazel, won the 2012 GSPCA NAGDC with their fabulous little dog, Raven.

May will hopefully be fairly quiet -- although I have just committed to hosting another training day.  June will be busy with three judging assignments on back-to-back weekends, two field trials and one hunt test.  In between all of that, hopefully we can keep working on breaking Jake and keeping Jozsi on track to finish up his title sometime soon.

where did spring go

As ever, it feels like I have to start a blog post with an apology, but sometimes writing really does have to take a second place to more important things like dog training, dog exercising, judging dogs, watching dogs, and trying to make plans to do more of the previously mentioned.

The beginning of March saw the League take a road trip down to Sumerduck, VA, for the Conestoga Vizsla Club spring trial -- and while none of them were actually entered, I made my debut as a field trial judge judging three of the juvenile stakes. In much the same fashion that I actually enjoyed my apprenticeship period as a judge, I also enjoyed the opportunity to share opinions with my fellow judges and learn some more about how they assessed the dogs in front of us. While I know that you will most likely only make one person happy with your decision, I'm finding the opportunity to look at so many dogs with a different kind of eye also makes me look at my own a little differently, too.

And in terms of perspective, I was also lucky to have lunch with someone with second-degree knowledge of several of the dominant field trial pointers of the pre-WW2 period. I wrote about it here at Living with Bird Dogs -- but it was neat to learn a little more about Mary Blue, Norias Roy, and their owner, Walter Teagle. While certainly from a subsequent generation, I was lucky to spend three days with Fred Rayl, son of Hall of Famer, Bill Rayl, at the Armstrong Umbel Endurance Classic way over in Guys Mills, PA. After the first day's running, sitting around a dinner table with various people, a discussion about pedigrees, breeding plans, and famous dogs inevitably occurred. Suffice to say, while one person was trying to tease out where the Rambling Rebel line had emerged and prospered, Fred asked him if he knew who owned Rambling Rebel's most famous daughter, Nell's Rambling on? The other person said "no," to which Fred replied, "My daddy." There was no ego or oneupmanship in the entire conversation -- and the answer brought plenty of laughter around the table. It should be noted that, in addition to her own election to the HOF, Nell whelped two other sons who have also been recognized to this same degree: Guard Rail and Addition's Go Boy.

Going back to the Armstrong Umbel to report the trial was a treat. The admiration I felt last year for the handlers, trainers, and owners was no less diminished, but I had a greater sense of what I should be looking for to capture for the official report for the Field. It was also nice to see many of the same folks I met for the first time last year again -- including Joe McCarl and Marc and Scott Forman. This year's trial was no less a game of faith than the previous year. If you go into the 'Galleries' section, you can see some of Chris Mathan's great pictures from the trial here at the Sportsman's Cabinet.

While it was sad to learn that his father, White Powder Pete, had passed away at the beginning of the month, it was great to see Jake's mother, Hard Driving Rita, run and lay down a powerhouse race for her two hours. I wish I could have met Pete in person and seen him run in more than National Championship DVDs -- but it was also really nice to see how much of Rita is in Jake, too. Jake had a family reunion of sorts, as well, with his brother, Hard Driving Mo (owned by Joe), and his sister, Hard Driving Dot. Dot is owned by my now friend, Brian, and is as much the firecracker as her brother; she actually went on won the 22-dog Venango Puppy Classic the weekend after the Armstrong. As you can see, these pictures came from Chris Mathan who co-bred the litter with Colvin Davis: Mo is the upper dog, Dottie the lower.

Since I started writing this post, I was also sad to see that Bert Wimmer, Pete's owner, had also passed away right around the same time. The Wimmers, both Bert and his father, Walter, were an integral part of the Indiana field trial scene for over a half-century. Here's hoping that owner and dog are reunited in a better place where the riding is easy and the quail plentiful.

In other news, I have also begun my spring hunt test judging assignments, this past weekend up at the Swift River Sportsman's Club for the Central New England Brittany Club weekend, judging SH/MH the first day and JH the second. I had the whole League with me in the Luxury Cruiser and was able to get in some nice training runs with all of them. Momo is... well, Momo... not quite enough ooomph or style to be a trial dog, but if you ever need birds to be found, he's the doggie! Jozsi is actually starting to act like he's a broke dog: his final find at Swift River in three-foot tall pines on top of a stone wall a piece of brilliance. I walked around him twice, trying to use the Astro to locate him, and then realized I should probably just kneel down and try to look under the evergreens to find his feet. And he stood the whole time when he had plenty of opportunity to be a jackwagon. He's even starting to honor of his own free will (!?). His tail issues haven't entirely disappeared, but I suspect that the more reps we get in where he does well and earns praise, the less frequent that little tick or wag will become as he realizes that if he stands there and lets me flush then he'll get both a) to see the bird fly and maybe even get to retrieve it, and b) he'll get love from his pop. Mark Coleman at Wingshot wrote a nice piece recently about his own experience with patience in dog-training -- and I hope Jozsi's increasing willingness to do what I want and to make it his own is the product of my patience with him. As for Jake, he's taking to the breaking process really nicely, again, I hope the product of the 'slow is smooth, smooth is fast' approach I learned from being out in AZ with Bill Gibbons. For those of you familiar with the West method, we're about at the point where we transition him to cues from the e-collar if he chooses to move after he's stopped himself. This picture is from our weekend at Swift River and, as you can see, he's showing tremendous restraint for a young dog sight-pointing a quail running in the open.

We have a big training day planned for this coming Sunday and hopefully we'll have a bunch of pictures of a motley crew.

happy new year

Since I last wrote, we've only been able to get out and train a couple of times with the League. Between trying to find windows in the weather and coordinating various friends, it's been a challenge. Arguably the biggest hurdle to training using the West method is one of manpower -- and it is no wonder that a lot of folks migrate to something like the Rick & Ronnie Smith method with its utilization of 'whoa posts' and such. And I mean no disrespect to the Smith family who have trained more great dogs than I ever will -- but I have seen the West method and it makes sense to me. Even though Maurice Lindley has figured out ways to train dogs by himself using the West method by using launchers, I know that he prefers to work dogs with a group. Fortunately I have been blessed to have found friends with broke dogs to work behind and others with puppies who can also flush and shoot.

I recently wrote a small piece for a Vizsla Club of Long Island newsletter which, in short, hopefully encouraged folks to get their dogs out and do fieldwork with them. One of the highlights of our training trips has been watching Jeremy and his puppy, Jackson, really come along as a tag-team. Jackson is from the most recent litter out of our friends', Jen + Dennis Hazel's, Sally. His whole litter are looking like bird-finding machines and there is no shortage of drive in this little dog to the extent that I asked Jeremy what he wanted to do with his dog -- did he want to play the field trial game? did he want him to be a hunting dog? These aren't exclusive categories, but to my mind I'd develop a pup a little differently if I knew I wasn't going to play the trial game. As I've said in previous posts, my goal with Jake was to establish a handle on him -- but if I had also intended him to be primarily a hunting dog, I'd also be working on limiting his range when I turned him loose. (And so, for example, when Jake lights out on a cast when we're out for a walk, I keep singing him out and only really reel him in if he's headed off in a drastic tangent or headed behind me.) I think it's also easier to encourage a dog with drive to stretch once they're broke, than it is to try and hunt with a free-running, green-broke dog. And so Jeremy and Jackson have been doing long-line work to really encourage the pup to go with him and not hunt independently -- and in doing so, to be rewarded by bird contacts.

We had run Jackson on johnny-house quail and after still managing to catch a couple and seeing his intensity, we decided it was time to get him on a checkcord to develop his handle and nurture the idea of working with his handler. The last time we got together (which may have been two weeks ago), we tried using chukar with flight limiters -- but the challenge I've had doing that is that there is a huge variance in the relative strength of chukar and if you weight the limiter too much they can barely fly and then you end up with a very expensive, dead training bird, too little and you lose both the limiter and the bird. And to my mind, the goal at this point is to have birds that will fly promptly when a pup charges in on them (and have the checkcord stop them after the flush, not before). Because Tom's property is much more wooded than the desert plains of Arizona, I was wary of using carded pigeons -- but decided we would give it a go. Now sometimes it's important to make your own mistakes so you know why the guy you've spent three months apprenticing with in the last year does something the way he does. And that thing is: don't sleep the pigeons. We had some concern the pigeons might disappear before Jackson and John & Linda Morris's pup, Dustin (whose handsome picture is alongside), or that if the pups came across the birds walking in the open they might be less inclined to point and more inclined to chase. But here's the thing: if a dog tries to chase up a healthy bird and it flies when the dog gets too close, the bird will get away and then the dog will get checked by the cord; if the bird can't escape quickly enough because it's dizzy, the dog maintains the hope that it can grab a bird on the ground and will probably keep trying longer.

This was where I was with Jackson, concerned that he might be turning into a diver, emboldened by his successes. And I mean this as no slight on him or his owner, but this is a young dog with a ton of drive and if others will read this and see parallels in developing their own dogs and so avoid a few hiccups, then all of this disclosure will have served its purpose. And so, Jackson got to run on fully awake carded birds -- and as much as I will try to encourage young dogs to find their first birds with their noses, the important thing to consider when beginning to encourage a younger dog to establish a solid point and stand is that whether it's a hunt test or a hunting situation, if it comes across a bird in the open, it is still expected to sight-point. But whatever it was about the pigeons, whether they were deep in tall grass or walking in the road, they stopped Jackson in his tracks. And he stood really nicely all the way to the flush. I was so very pleased with both Jeremy and Jackson. The next question for Jeremy is how he wants to break his dog now that we've started down this path.

By contrast, Jake has started down the West method path and is doing great. This was his third time being worked behind John's Juli -- a very pretty dog I have been braced with and who I was fortunate to judge in both SH and MH. And it was great to have Jeremy there to be the designated gunner so that Juli could also get a nice chukar retrieve or two. The amazing thing with the little white demon (who has now weighed in heavier than Jozsi!) is his natural inclination to honor -- and sometimes from so far away that he has already figured out the context for a situational honor. Again, while a judge might ask him to move up in a hunt test sensing it was not a true honor of another dog's point, in a field trial a situational honor is as good as any other -- and I'll take it. What I hope this picture (courtesy of Linda) illustrates is multifold: first, this dog has style; second, he is wearing all his work clothes -- his e-collar and his pinch-collar; third, that there is very little tension in the actual checkcord and collar as evidenced by my loose grip; and fourth, that he is being rewarded by two things for standing still -- the sight of a bird being flushed and a gentle reassuring pet before being moved on. At this point, I touch him more than Bill does, meaning that if a backing situation is becoming complicated and taking time, I will gently stroke his side in the middle of it in addition to petting him and tapping him on the side to move him on once we're done with a situation.

To round out things: I've been trying a new twist on things with Jozsi, adding a little more pressure and adding a much bigger reward. If it works out, I'll post specific details -- but suffice to say, he's being kept to a higher degree of honesty and in return, he gets birds shot for him which he then gets to retrieve. He is broke in practice, but I think that once he's actually broke in his head then all his tail issues will disappear -- which is to say that I think while he knows what I want, he hasn't settled the issue in his own mind that this is also what he wants to do. On the upside, while it's not quite a Master Hunter quality retrieve, his retrieve is solid, to-hand, and will hopefully satisfy field trial judges should he get called back.

Like Bill said to me, two summers ago, "If you can get him straightened out, you'll be able to genuinely call yourself a dog-trainer." If breaking Jake is all about starting a dog right the first time, then Jozsi is a conundrum that is so very worth the challenge. I love all three of the Gentlemen albeit for different reasons, but Jozsi is such a goober that you can't help want him to be fantastic.

missing in action

Apologies to the faithful followers of the Regal Vizsla for my absence. On the one hand, we've been busy and any time spent outside with birds and dogs is good time spent. Since I wrote last, we've been to a couple of trials, taken our annual trip to western Maine to chase rumpled grouse, and started to break Jake. All in all, a pretty busy schedule.

The first few days of November we went over to Flaherty to support the Mayflower GSP Club's first field trial in many years. Congratulations to all the folks there who contributed to making it a well-run, enjoyable event. Momo did his usual, not-quite enough horsepower performance and we both had fun; Jozsi ran in an uncharacteristically odd fashion, was honest but didn't look great on his birds, and took 3rd in ALGD; Jake suddenly decided he likes to run.

The transformation of this little pup from the excited little gun dog who ran at Conestoga to the horizon-seeking demon was remarkable. I was genuinely surprised. And very very happy. He showed his intensity, his application, and his handle and left me just remarking at how much he must have inherited from all the great dogs behind him. My plan for developing him has been pretty simple: establishing a handle on him, giving him just enough birdwork to see what his style looks like and to keep him hungry for birds, and to break him to the gun. I did enter him in a JH stake and I will say no more than he got hosed. But the intent had been to see if he would stick with me without singing him too much, to run him with a bracemate, and to reassure myself about his being broke to the gun. In that regard, he exceeded my expectations.

Know the rules: you may not be able to change a judge's mind, but you'll figure out quickly whether you'll run under him or her ever again. After the fourth invalid reason for his non-qualification, I realized the judge was either not looking at my dog or had forgotten the standard for Junior Hunter. I do believe there is merit in JH for any pointing dog, whether they are going to be trial dogs or hunting dogs -- and my plan had been to get Jake broke to the gun and then run him while he was wicked young just to get him fired up and used to running with a bracemate. From his first trial down at Conestoga to his JH run, he has shown no interest in his bracemates whatsoever. But with the summer getting all messed up due to the Wallow Fire, Jake's development was a little out-of-synch with the plan, and with the JH title really being a means to an end, his 'not-qualifying' run was disappointing and will probably be his only run at that title. In short, I got a pointer because I like their style and, frankly, I wanted to see what it would be like to try and raise a potentially all-age dog. And trying to handle a young dog into a small birdfield four more times for the sake of a introductory level title doesn't fit the plan in the long view.

*******

After the Mayflower trial we headed up to Widdershins to pick up Miss Capo and take her for a ride in the Luxury Cruiser. It was hard to imagine that it had been four years since we were there the last time when I went up to pick up Jozsi -- but it was great to see Chris & Wendy, to see all the renovations they've made to the farm, to get reacquainted with Munro (the ridiculously ripped cat), and to meet the goats, cows, and sheep. We headed over to our usual spot around Oquossoc and waited to meet up with our friend, John DeSantis, and his great young vizsla, Luna. Unlike all four previous years, the weather was in the 50s with bluebell skies -- no hint of snow or rain in the air -- and it proved to be a real challenge when it came to finding birds. Luna ran over a bird in our first cover which I shaved some feathers off, but which otherwise left unscathed. And then we hit a drought. We saw a few other birds, but I don't think either of us fired our guns in the next day and a half. I felt bad for John who could only stay 36hrs, but I guess this is why they call it hunting. The picture here is of Luna standing behind a couple of trees scarred up by fresh moose scrapings.

Nevertheless having five dogs to run, I left with a whole new-found appreciation for pro trainers like Joe McCarl who specialize in field-trial cover dogs. We were certainly able to pair some dogs: Momo, Luna, and Capo are pretty evenly matched; Jake & Jozsi seemed like it could work nicely, too. I wasn't smart enough to get data off my Astro to figure out what I actually walked, all I know is that I walked for four hours straight the first afternoon and then had two seven hours straight days after that. What I did discover was that pairing Jozsi and Jake was akin to dedicating profound faith in the battery life of the Astro and the ability of the whistle to penetrate grouse cover. Our little dancing pirate clearly enjoys a little competition -- and Jozsi was not up to the task. In the cover I shot 'Grousezilla' two years ago, John and I watched Jake tow Jozsi out past 500yds before Jozsi clearly realized he was further out than he felt comfortable. After another hundred yards, and realising he was about to crest a hill, I hurriedly chanked up the path and ultimately needed the e-collar to get his attention. I don't want to imply that Jake was blowing me off, I genuinely believe that he couldn't hear me in his excitement at that distance -- but again, with all the work I've put on him developing his handle, and getting him used to the e-collar, he knows my touch well enough to know the difference between being punished and being cued and showed up shortly thereafter cheesey grin on his face and happy to see me.

(Of course, as we all walked back to the truck, in much the same spot that I missed an easy bird two years ago, John and I were caught entirely off-guard by a grouse that had sat tight through two dogs running past it but which popped off as we walked by in conversation. We quickly christened this the 'FU Bird'. I resolved to come back for it the next day with Mominator and The Princess.)

John then left and I resolved to find more birds the next day. I took Momo out early by himself, carrying my precious Grant sidelever, hoping to find birds still on their night roosts and hoping to extend the life of this beautiful gun. We found nothing in the strip of cedars along the path, no trace of the bird Luna had flushed the day before, but as I rounded a corner where Dudley and I had both missed a bird over Momo four years before, there he was 25yds ahead pointing with a 90degree bend in the middle. I snuck toward him, cocked the hammers, and when nothing flushed, I relocated him. The bird must have left its roost shortly before Momo got there and kept moving as I came up because as we then headed off in a new direction, we heard the bird flush off to our left.

Jake had actually had a spectacular point on a grouse the day before, looking just marvelous all the way through the flush (which I can only credit to the genetic payload that he carries from his mother's side and especially his grandmother, 7xCH Hard Driving Bev). But I felt bad for Capo who had, so far, failed to have any bird contact. This picture is from our failed attempt to find a new cover, but it was a neat downed tree and a good place to take a quick break. Sadly, the closest she got was a nice honor on a stopped-to-flush Momo after we went back for the FU Bird. Jozsi redeemed the team the final day, too, stopping-to-flush on a grouse in what I call Momo's Rain Cover and then repointing it in a tree with wonderful intensity. We were past being terribly sporting at that point and one tossed branch later, the bird came down -- it's crop full of clover leaves like all the birds we've taken in November. The sad statistic was that in the indian summer weather we had a total of 9 birds moved in two-and-half-days.

*******

After a couple of judging assignments, the first weekend of December meant our Connecticut Valley Vizsla Club all-walking trial -- and the joys of bird-planting and hosting the raffle and trying to fit in running the dogs between all that. Although a little out of sequence, to summarize: Momo wasn't going to be a contender anyways, but got picked up early somewhat uncharitably; Jozsi acted like a complete ass and I didn't need to be told to pick him up; and Jake ran like a real champ. And won. All I can say is that we'd put the work in and he and I have figured out our timing so that I can let him make a good cast, anticipate a turn in the course, and then sing him around without having him necessarily lose ground. And so, with a win in both AWP and OP, he is done with Puppy stakes and the process of breaking him begins.

My plan is not to run him in Derby till I feel like he is virtually broke -- and then either till he has his Derby points or till he starts obviously misbehaving and acting on his own behalf (whichever comes first).

*******

Since we all came back from Arizona, I began working with Jake just using his regular leash and collar to get him used to the idea of a small tug as a cue to stop and stand still. (This is in addition to the more general, good citizenship kinds of routines where he isn't allowed to leave his crate or step through the front door until told and to stand to be wiped down when he comes in from a run in the woods.) We have since transitioned to the checkcord and pinch collar as part of his regular yardwork -- and also to the whistle as a cue to stop-and-stand-still. For us, the whistle cue to stop is an important one in our life here in the Bronx where we never know when we might need to stop and/or corral the dogs when we encounter a deer/a paintballer/a drunk/a park ranger/someone looking for random stranger sex. In any case, we've also begun to overlay the e-collar over both the whistle and the pinch collar in preparation for his actual birdwork.

And that began this past Wednesday. We were lucky to have both Jeremy + Jackson and John + Juli + Dustin. While Jackson and Dustin are still puppies, Juli is a MH qualified dog and a great candidate for Jake to learn what 'working behind' means. He's already shown some fairly natural inclination to stop-to-flush (which he actually displayed earlier that morning on an exultation of mourning doves) and to honor (which he did rather humorously on a birdhouse in his first trial down at Conestoga). But now it becomes about combining natural inclination and structure. And he did a great job -- and while this is a wide-angle lens, he has already figured out the cues for either a situational back (on the humans) or an actual honor (on Juli) even at some distance. Exciting stuff, for sure.