slow bake and a craving for rain...

...not down here in Phoenix necessarily (although we have had our share of incredible weather phenomena, and our haboob in particular). Bill tried to explain the particular combination and sequence of things like relative humidity and dewpoint that we need in Phoenix so that we might reasonably anticipate rain in the White Mountains -- but as many times as I read the definitions of these things, for some reason I can't figure out how to interpret these numbers.

While the Wallow Fire is now 95% contained, the developed campgrounds at Big Lake, Greer, and others are scheduled to open again this afternoon, and InciWeb will no longer be posting any updates on the fire's status, we still don't have any updates to tell us when we can leave the Valley of the Sun. As far as we're concerned, we're on 24hr standby. But with the opening of the developed campgrounds, hopefully general access to the Apache Forest will come soon.

In the meantime, we continue to train a little north of Phoenix -- getting up at 3am to get everyone loaded and to be at the grounds to start at 5am. It certainly can be beautiful as hopefully this picture shows. Taken at roughly 5:30am before the direct rays of the sun, it felt relatively cool -- but it was already 88degsF and by the time we were done at 8:30am, it had already broached 92degs. For where the dogs are now in their breaking process, it's actually important not to try to do too much irrespective of the weather -- but especially for the dogs that get run later in each session, we have to pay particular attention to their demeanor because of the additional stress factor of temperature. Besides the pretty colors and striking backdrop, I realise that this picture also has one of our carded, training pigeons in the right foreground. Carded pigeons are a huge part of Bill's system for breaking dogs (and while I don't agree with everything in this article, it's more right about more things than most). (Lacking the kind of open spaces that Bill has to train with, Maurice Lindley uses homing pigeons and launchers for much the same effect.) But going up to the mountains means that we set up our larger johnny-houses for quail (and maybe chukar again this year), and our smaller 'Evil Empire' johnny-houses on what will be our horseback course. In the progression of things, dogs will get broke on carded pigeons, then have the lessons re-affirmed on johnny-house quail, and if they've progressed quickly, then get turned loose and run from horseback. (In the meantime, the horseback courses will get used by the already-broke dogs in camp for conditioning and polishing.)

A quick word on what 'broke' looks like in this system: a customer came by this week to pick up his dog, a started dog he'd bought sight unseen and, looking for a broke dog he could take hunting almost immediately, he'd sent the dog to Bill for three months of training. He'd never seen his dog before, he'd never met Bill, and he's had several good dogs from several reputable folks before -- in short, he was not a novice to bird dogs. We have also been blessed with a crop of very spooky, healthy pigeons -- and so the first thing he saw was his new dog stop-to-flush, high and tight, without command on a bird that took us all by surprise. He then went on to point two more birds and had the third shot for him -- all in order and all without any vocal command. He was stunned. He asked Bill if he'd bought a miracle dog: "No, they should all do what he just did. He just looks particularly pretty doing it." This is to say that in several ways, Bill's breaking process relies on dogs being exposed to honoring and stopping-to-flush at the same time as being steady-to-fall. In fact, using Capo as an example, I would guess that she has been asked to point perhaps 4 birds in a month, but has been exposed to roughly 20 stops-to-flush or honoring situations.

In other news, Jake gets bigger and bigger. Taken over the Independence Day weekend, I love this picture for his high tail, goofy smile and his loping stride. We also got confirmation that his official registered name will be Seabank's Dancing Pirate. Meg and I decided that we'd like to start naming our own dogs with out own kennel name (hopefully in anticipation of moving and actually having outside space for our dogs) and Seabank was the name of my maternal grandparents' house in Campbeltown. 'The Dancing Pirate' was the name of a very early Rita Hayworth movie in honor of his mother, Hard Driving Rita.

holding pattern

First of all, I may need to come up with a new collective name for the congregation of dogs formerly known as Team Vizsla -- Bronx Chapter so I have a good shorthand moniker for Momo, Jozsi, Jake, and the fourth member of our road crew, Capo. And maybe, especially because I've been reliving my appreciation for Motörhead, The Road Crew may in fact need to be it.

We left New York and headed south for the Conestoga Vizsla Club Fun Day -- where I judged several dogs for the Field portion of their Versatility Certificates, and where Momo got to see his brother, Tavish, for the first time since they were littermates. As you can see, they share more than a little resemblance to each other.

I had then planned to long-haul it directly from VA to west TX in one giant 23hr leg. The reasons for considering this were that, with four dogs in tow, any fewer nights I could spend smuggling dogs into hotels would be a good thing. (Even pet-friendly hotels rarely accept more than two -- and for good reason.) And while I am sure the dogs would have adapted just fine, having two dogs in crates on my back seats, and two more dogs in wire crates in the bed, plus all the stuff I need for three months away from home, I wanted to minimize the possibility of any negative associations with road-tripping -- although arguably Jake has more road miles under his belt than most other dogs his age. The primary reason for making Woodson, TX, our destination was also two-fold: Woodson is the home for Jones Trailer Company where we were picking up our new dog trailer, and fairly close to Alvord, TX, home of Christie Saddlery. I've spoken to Lary Cox pretty regularly since I first started getting involved with trial dogs -- and, in person, too, he is one of the true gentlemen in this sport and a real master craftsman. He was kind enough to let me and The Road Crew recuperate for a day before we made our next jump to Magdalena, NM.

In the meantime, we'd already started to hear the news and get the phone calls from Bill that there was a serious fire in the White Mountains. As of writing right now, the Wallow Fire has become the largest fire in Arizona's history and while 51% contained, there is still a lot of dry fuel on the ground, unpredictable winds, and no start in sight to the summer monsoon season.

Even though it was no longer en route, we dropped down to Magdalena to see Libby and Steve again, to enjoy a home-cooked gourmet meal, drop off some more ammunition for the Sidley that I'd since found in the garage, and catch up on gun and dog gossip. When I got there, I knew that that US60 to Springerville was already closed and there was a solid pall of smoke off to the west. After a fabulous dinner of mushroom risotto, the examination of firearms new and old (Steve's new Ithaca, my Holloway & Naughton), spirited conversation, and a breakfast at the Magdalena Cafe, I headed east and north back up to Albuquerque to skirt around to Phoenix via Flagstaff. The wind had clearly changed direction and the soot and smell of the Wallow Fire were clearly discernible some 170miles away.

It was nice to come through Flagstaff and spend an extra day with Denise and Steve -- and for them to also finally meet our dogs. Having a fenced-in yard, a dog trailer, and access to public land to run the dogs was a real blessing. I hauled the dogs over to Marshall Lake to give them all room to really stretch and was really pleased to see both little Jake and Capo really get their legs under them and handle for me. This picture is of Momo and Capo watching a random pair of ducks hidden in one of the few damp, marshy spots -- and I love her intensity and style. She's taken to life on the road and to training like a real treat.

For now, at least, then we're based down in Phoenix and getting up at 3am so's we can get to our training grounds to start at 5am. For now, at least, Momo and Jozsi are making do with kennel life and getting run twice a week; Capo is part of the regular training string and coming along really, really nicely; and Jake gets to beat up on two of Bill's puppies every night. We did take Jake, Tina, and Fey out on Sunday to let them all stretch their legs and get used to handling and going with us. Tina and Fey are from a repeat breeding of Hytest Skyhawk and Tekoa Mountain Phoenix ('Remi') that produced Bill's two, nice Derbies, Jack and Jill. They are roughly a week younger than Jake who turned 4mos old the day we were out. I love this picture of Fey thinking she's about to ambush Jake who's in full tilt. (She failed.)

All of The Road Crew have been getting used to the various prickers, stickers, lizards, jackrabbits, mourning doves, and decomposed granite underfoot and in front of them. Figuring out how to extract a cactus spine from a pointer puppy's tongue was an interesting, novel challenge -- I imagine he'll think twice about trying to lick spines out of his foot pads. Nevertheless, he has been showing both really nice initiative and an attentiveness to me that is reassuring in lots of ways. This picture came out really nicely with the arm of McDowell Peak in the background and the simple colors of the sky, path, mountain and dog.

a couple more updates

After almost a week with us, both our regal vizslas have realized that the little, long-tailed terror is here to stay -- and in that realization have decided to welcome him into the pack. Jozsi, in particular, was a little intimidated by the whirling white fireball but, with reassurance and encouragement from us, has embraced his role as big brother. For all his little quirks, Momo has always had both a strong sense of self and control -- and as such, has given Jake appropriate feedback since Day 1. But three-dog group-play in our living room is quite the sight to see. We're still structuring their days pretty heavily with solid spells of crate time in part because while accidents in the crate have been non-existent and accidents in the house have been minimal, we are still hyper-vigilant about Jake's puppy ADD taking over in an instant as the need to relieve himself suddenly crops up in his juvenile consciousness. Here is the little prince with his new favorite pacifier! What a handsome chappy!

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Jake had never worn a collar till he came to us -- and now he wears one constantly. (You can see in the picture that while we had an old one of Jozsi's that would go tight enough, I had to make a zip-tie retaining loop so he couldn't chew it.) It struck me that this was something that he should get used to because his initial training cues will come through a collar, whether for yard work or field work. A friend told me that Delmar Smith had told him that when the pups were very little, he put tiny collars and cords on them, just long enough that if they didn't hold their heads up, they would trip themselves. In any case, we're working on having him wait to be told to come out of his crate, to stand and wait to be told to go through the front door, and to stay to the front when we're out walking off-leash. He's doing great. Jerry Kolter, incidentally, also starts his pups out young on a stake-out line also to acclimatize them to neck pressure -- preparing them for leash work. I also much prefer a stake-out chain to a minefield of individual stakes, and while I don't know if I'll have a legitimate chance to chain out our dogs before heading to Arizona, they will all spend a good chunk of each training day waiting their turn on the chain gang.

What I didn't mention about Jake was the primary reason we got this particular pointer at this particular time. After seeing some nice dogs at the 2009 Northeastern Open Shooting Dog Championship, seeing more at Bill's camp last summer (including Harold's beautiful bitch, Sage), I knew I wanted to own at least one pointer in my life. And unlike vizslas, there are no shortage of pointers -- which are arguably the Ford F-150s of the pointing dog world -- and so I wanted to wait for a special breeding. While Jake's mother, Hard Driving Rita, has yet to earn any major field trial wins, she contains the genetic code of two phenomenal grouse and woodcock dogs -- Joe McCarl's Hard Driving Bev and Frank Lanasa's Centrepiece -- who between them have accumulated at least 12 wild bird championships. I don't mind saying that I have been in love with Jake's daddy, White Powder Pete, since watching the 2008 National Bird Dog Championship DVD. And everything else I've learned about Pete, especially, tells me that he is something special -- an all-age dog who is also used as a quail plantation guiding dog, a pointer who would as happily as any vizsla sleep on your bed with you. Pete ran his seventh and final National Championship this past February shortly before his pups were born -- and William Smith, who scouted for Colvin Davis this time around, has written a nice tribute to Pete's trial career on Strideaway. (The pictures of Rita and Pete are both borrowed from Chris Mathan and The Sportsman's Cabinet.)

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In other news, my official report for the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic appeared in the May 7th issue of the American Field and which has also recently appeared in full on the Strideaway site.

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And in a pleasant repeat, I heard the segment of NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" from September 25, 2010, and recorded on location in Oklahoma City that featured Delmar Smith as a celebrity guest. What a hoot that man is!

forgive the absence

So much has happened in the last six weeks and it's time to come clean.

While we were in Sweden, Jozsi was bred to Mike & Kim Barry's Rogue, also a super nice, hard-running dog who, like Mr. Enthusiasm, will hopefully blossom into a great trial dog. I kept quiet about it because it was the first litter for both of them -- and I wanted to be sure everything had gone right before announcing my grandfatherly pride in my boy. As of this evening, I believe all the puppies (which were born on April 25th) are spoken for. But here's a great picture of Rogue, taken by Jaida, nursing her three boys and three girls. At this early point, Blue Boy seems like the earliest iteration of his father both in terms of looks but also in terms of his fondness for taking Jaida's hands in his mouth.

We also had our CVVC Spring Field Trial ten days ago. Momo ran in AGD and did a fine job -- unfortunately his greatest display of manners also meant that his race, such as it is, was also cut shorter. He stood perfectly through his bracemate stealing point and then grabbing the bird, but in the absence of a bracemate, his run shortened and while he got round clean with another find and a stop-to-flush, I was pleased with him but knew he wouldn't get put up. Jozsi's run in AGD was short, but he got picked up for an honest mistake after relocating too close, so I was disappointed but not displeased. His run in ALGD later that day was, frankly, and I know he's my dog, virtually everything I could have asked of him. He flowed great, checked covers, and handled like a dream. I took him around his bracemate twice to avoid a possible honor situation -- the first time gave me an opportunity to run him down a line I'd always wanted to try with him and which few dogs ever attempt. And he did it beautifully. But sadly, he took himself out at minute 29 when his bracemate raced in, 'honored' touching him, then broke on the bird, and Jozsi went with him. It was another illustration that you need to proof your dog for as many scenarios as possible and that you can only pray that your bracemate is as well prepared.

The other detail I've been keeping fingers crossed about was our decision to bring a third dog into our house (and he will be a house dog). It has been in the works for at least a half-year, but we now have a pointer in our house. I may need to rename this blog, but I want to reassure my loyal readers that we will always be a red-dog house. But I like how pointers do their job, too, and I'd rather get one than try to make my vizslas be pointer-substitutes. And so, welcome to Jake! We're now into Day #2 and things seem to be going well -- although, much to the chagrin of our two, we're trying to make the transition easier by starting with a lot more structure which hopefully we can relax as they all find their place. But for now, lots of structured crate time, lots of structured play time, and LOTS of exercise.

Speaking of crates, but maybe I'm late to the party -- but after talking to several friends, we bought a MidWest Life Stages crate for Jake. After having one dog who cribbed on the wire, I have been wary of them and, heck, you can't fly with them, so where's the versatility? All I can say is that whether it's the internal divider, whether it's the fact that he was hauled up here in a crate from AL to PA, or the frequent exercise, but we've had no crate accidents so far. He even slept seven hours without waking me up to go to the bathroom last night. So, for now, at least, I'm loving the Life Stages crate.

Momo is being a really good older brother, putting Jake in his place in appropriate moments and with the appropriate amount of wrinkle-face. Jozsi is unsure what he's supposed to do just yet. Bearing in mind we still call him 'Big Puppy,' you would think he'd recognize puppy energy as non-threatening and just put him in his place. But in addition to fathering puppies, this will be another part of his maturation process. But Jake is enjoying his new brothers and feels quite comfortable jamming along with Momo on the trail --except when his puppy ADD takes over and he has to sniff flowers or ponder the meaning of life in a tree. Pardon the crappy cell-phone picture, but it's also been raining here for a gajillion years.

And the next detail that has been in the works for a little bit is my intent to go back out to Arizona to work with Bill Gibbons -- except this time, it will be for the entire duration of summer camp. I leave here June 4th, head down to the CVC Fun Day so that in addition to seeing a number of our Confederate friends, Momo can see his brother, Tavish, for the first time since they were littermates! And then not back to NY until mid-September.

congratulations + training updates + plans

Before we go any further, a hearty congratulations goes to my FTFG (that's 'field trial fairy godmother'), Joan Heimbach, and FC Fieldfire's Spark of Genius SH, aka Geena, aka the G-Funk Endurance Express. Handling her own dog, Joan and Geena took on the rolling, muddy course of Blake Kukar's Circle B Farms in Somerville, TN, at the VCA National Gun Dog Championships. I mean no disrespect to Mark Spurgeon and Ruger, a truly great dog I feel privileged to have watched and who has now won the NGDC three times in addition to the NAFC, but Mark doesn't have a medical exemption from the AKC that allows him to carry a walking stick if need be or have the services of a horse handler (in addition to a scout). In short, Joan handled Geena to third place and I am in awe of both of them.

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On the way back from the Armstrong-Umbel, I did stop off at Zukovich Game Birds to pick up a new flock of quail to repopulate my Evil Empire. For a variety of reasons and with the kindness of Tom Mackin, I finished a fourth barrel and did move the empire over to TMT Hunting Preserve. With the NY preserve season coming to a close in ten days or so and with Tom's business largely shifting to sporting clays shooters, it was a good time to get the barrels and birds installed so that by the time they have 'cooked' long enough and gotten habituated to the safety and security of the barrels, we can start training them to recall without worrying about hunters inadvertently bagging them.

I've set up the four barrels in mostly mix hardwood glades which should start to leaf up and offer more aerial cover from predators, but which don't have a huge amount of ground cover. In my ideal training world, I want to be able to see my dogs from a distance, have no problem with a dog sight-pointing, but as importantly want a good flying bird to be able to see the dog -- and pop if the dog starts to move and pressure it.

Folks have asked me for detailed plans for each of the barrels, none exist as such. Besides a 55gal drum, the two core pieces of hardware are a Less Mess watering and feeding system from Quality Wildlife Systems and a decent, framed recall funnel like this one from GunDogSupply. Each drum needs three doors: two roughly 4" x 4" ground floor doors, one with the funnel installed; three-quarters of the way up, and on the side away from the recall funnel, there needs to be a flight door (roughly 7"w x 4"h). You will also need latches, hinges, and either a snap-link or a lock for each of the doors, two long carriage bolts to lock the caps on the Less Mess tubes and prevent raccoon filching, a pair of handles to carry the whole thing easily, some right-angle braces to support the 'sun-deck' and the floor, some solid wire-meshing, a ratchet strap to lock the thing against a tree and stop it getting toppled, and then a rivet gun, a jig-saw, and a drill (with a 1" circular cutter as a useful accessory). Cut out the bottom of the drum, flip it over, and then work from the top down. Install the Less Mess feeders, cut the doors, put in the 'sun-deck' by the flight door (I wouldn't suggest having it extend more than a third of the way into the interior), install the recall funnel, then put in the suspended mesh floor. (In case you are wondering, the other lower door is for sticking your hand in and spooking the birds through the upper flight door, if they don't immediately seize that opportunity when you open it.) Finish carpentry this is not -- and I am no handyman genius.

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Bob and I went up to TMT yesterday to see how his younger setter, a rescue I might add, got along and to give Momo and Belle some tag-team fun. Eva looks like she's come with a few gun-shy issues, but we have a plan for her and hopefully we can convince her that birds are a lot more fun than she thinks.

Bob will be the first to tell you that Belle isn't hardly trained and at ten-years-old not likely to suddenly get trained. This is to say that she'll break point while you're moving in on the bird, will break on the flush, and steal another dog's retrieve. But she backs like a fiend. Sure, she'll move when you go to flush the bird for the front dog, but she gets herself stopped and focused like a champ. This was a great photo opportunity on their penultimate bird. And thanks to Bob for the pictures.

We then took a final swing in a spot we'd been before to try and pick up the first bird that I missed -- when we'd just had Belle and Eva on the ground. And Momo got to show his own honoring style even when all he could see was the feathers of Belle's tail. Despite a charging setter, I managed to safely take the chukar down for Belle to retrieve.

We had put down a couple of quail to see if we could get Eva excited, but she seemed reluctant so we didn't force it. And while I had hand-planted them (and want to be careful about getting him on birds that might not be fully awake), I then put Mr. Enthusiasm down briefly. He ran over a bird unexpectedly, stopped-to-flush like a champ, and was then sent on. He ate up the field we were in and started to dig into the denser cover to fulfill his quest for coturnix. He nailed another quail in a thicket, tail looking like a million dollars, held while I thrashed around after the pitter-patter of quail feet, then went back to him and relocated him. Shaboom. I got the bird up, fired the gun, then sent him up the hill away from the bird. And he lived up to Bill's description of him as 'industrious,' finding a running chukar left over from someone else's hunt. Again his manners were good and I took him back to the truck, very encouraged. Once we get the Empire up and running, hopefully we can get the final polish on him and start trialing again.

formula 1: grouse-a-palooza

I just got back from the 3rd Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic held out in western Pennsylvania on the historic Marienville trial grounds. I still have to write the official report, and so what follows is more about the general experience of not merely a wild bird trial, but a true canine endurance event.

As far as I can tell, grouse dog trialing is a game of faith. It might even be blind faith because a true all-age contender will be out of sight for large periods of time, and ideally seen through glimpses in cover coursing across the front in search of the next most likely covert. It takes faith on the part of handler and dog, again, because maybe 75% of what is happening is happening by sound alone. The talisman of such faith is maybe 1.5" deep and 1" at its widest, often copper, sometimes brass or nickel, frequently with an apostle's name attached. (Bob Sorri's is the one that immediately comes to mind.) The chorus of this faith is the jingle or clank of a bell through the trees, and the whoops and hollers of handlers trying to steer their dogs as the course turns and winds. Wild bird trials take faith, too, because one hopes, prays, and makes mystical incantations that grouse and woodcock will be in those next most likely coverts, and that the luck of the drawing also coincides with the luck of weather, course, and cover.

It was cold this weekend -- which might sound goofy from a guy who takes vacations above the Arctic Circle -- but I doubt it got much above freezing, if at all, all weekend. Long-timers familiar with the courses didn't lament the cold so much as the sunshine, claiming that birds would be even harder to find in clear sky weather. And along with the luck of finding birds, there's also the equally strong prayer that a dog doesn't get pulled off course and out of contention by the white flash of deer, or get embroiled in a painful argument with a porcupine. Both of which happened.

A two-hour stake, especially relatively early in the spring grouse trial season, is itself a game of faith -- especially if you live in the snowbelt and don't have the ability to send a dog south for the winter to be conditioned for a two-hour slugfest through mud, marsh, water, high-bush blueberries, and conifer thickets -- in short, grouse cover. I saw some dogs never get their ground race on, a bunch of dogs downshift noticeably at the hour mark (but still finish strongly, credibly, and to the front), and a handful still pulling away as strong as they started, still craving the next objective. It takes faith to run a dog for two hours. And the dogs that can will make all our dogs stronger.

I don't normally care too much for most of the articles in North American Hunter, but Joe Arnette wrote a great piece in the February/March 2011 issue called 'High Octane Dogs Aren't for Everyone.' He concludes in the following way: "Although I still have no interest in following dogs on horseback, and I've long ago thrown away my track shoes for chasing points, when spring is on the make, I'll continue to dream dreams that will never be. Magical dogs with music in their feet, speed in their stride, and distance in their brain are better left to range the forgiving covers of the mind's eye." (p. 61) Nevertheless, as William Brown wrote in The Field Trial Primer back in 1934, "It [the sport of field trialing] aims to provide competition of the highest kind among bird dogs, to stimulate enthusiasm among owners, and to act as a practical guide for breeders by setting a high standard of performance." (p. 8) In short, while most of these screamers will make the average foot hunter a little nervous, the genetic cache of their stamina, strength, and bird-sense is something all of us would want in even our hunting dogs.

But the game of faith is perhaps even more profound when one considers that, firstly, an all-age caliber dog will be stretching the limits of bellshot. (And keep in mind that at this time of year, in these temperatures, with this much moisture underfoot, handlers were frequently de-icing bells to be sure that their mutual faith could hold.) The paradox of course is that the adrenaline actually only truly spikes when the bell falls silent. The true genius of the grouse dog handler is knowing when the quality of an absence of sound signifies that a dog is now standing a bird -- as opposed to having slipped over a rise, the sound of its moving bell caught in a hollow, trapped by brush. And then triangulating the likely invisible dog's position from a sound that only meant something truly crucial after it had stopped.

In ancient Greek, the word pharmakon has multiple oppositional meanings including both poison and cure. And arguably the bell is the same. I know I'm not alone in saying that when I hunt grouse I don't use a beeper or a bell. And Dennis and Bob have seen the proof of what happens in our western Maine covers when a hard-running, jangling dog approaches a brood sunning by a trail. And so, it was no surprise to come across at least two dogs, stopped and silent, but who before even a flushing attempt was made were indicating that their bird had left, if not as it heard the bell, then perhaps as it heard the relative cacophony of a handler calling point, horses carrying judges, and maybe even the gallery's whispered conversations down the trail. The short version is that the single piece of equipment critical to locating the dog locating the bird may also be the same thing that scares the bird out of its roost.

Besides watching mostly red-phase grouse boil out of covers ahead of dogs standing tall, the other major highlight of the trip was getting to meet Joe McCarl's 7x grouse champion, Hard Driving Bev -- there to be run by Joe's grandkids in a junior handler's stake after the main event. At 12yrs old, a little deaf, and a little heavier from a well-earned life on the couch, she was still looking into the trees, eager to to get going and find just one more ruffed grouse. I can only imagine how many hundreds of grouse and woodcock that dog has smelled and seen -- I know I'm still having audio-hallucinations, wondering if the bells I can hear are really there or just out on the edge of my imagination.

exciting spring

Just got back from a weekend down in northern Virginia at the Old Dominion Vizsla Club trial on the grounds of the very beautiful Blandfield Plantation. I was asked by my wife to be out the house one weekend in March so she could do our taxes -- and then my field-trial-fairy-godmother, Joan, asked if I'd care to run her nice little (Field Champion) dog, Geena, in a couple of amateur stakes to see if a) I could earn a placement or two towards my judging qualifications, and b) we might get a few more points towards finishing Geena's AFC. That was all the excuse I needed.

Jozsi isn't ready to run yet, so I elected to enter Momo in Amateur Gun Dog as well to merit the six-hour drive. We met up with Jamie Fountain, the professional trainer who is getting Geena and Joan's great dog, Octane, ready for the VCA National Gun Dog Championships at the end of the month. I had first met Jamie at the VCA Nationals in Danville back in 2009 and was really pleased to spend a bunch of time with him. In addition to scouting for Jamie in the Open Gun Dog stake, I also ran his Brittany pup, Chip, in Amateur Walking Puppy, and was then able to scout for my southern friends, Michelle and Stephanie, with their Derby dogs, Luna, Frida, and Reece. All three of them ended up with a ribbon, but amidst three solid performances, the highlight came while scouting Reece.

His third find (of six) was that thing of complete magic that we all want to see a pointing dog do, a full 180 skid stop, high and tight front and back, and a bird too uncertain to move because of his precision and certainty of motion. It was a truly lovely moment in a very competent run. And while at least one other dog ran bigger and required some actual scouting, Reece looked so much like an aspiring, and potentially great, broke dog that he came away with the blue ribbon. I have been to a number of trials recently where it seemed that 'run' was being prized more than anything -- even if the dog was gone for minutes, never found on a bird, and brought forward by a scout -- and this was reassuring to me that even for a Derby stake, bird finding and style were being placed on a premium.

Shortly thereafter it started to rain. The birds started to get wet and the wind even less predictable. Joan's Geena has a heck of a nose and, like Momo, is a bird-finding machine. After breaking away like a bat out of hell and a solid first find, sadly our AGD run together was cut short as Geena then found herself on an exposed slope and stuck a point. I was already working the bird in front of her when the wind puffed from a slightly different direction and indicated that the bird was in fact running behind her, and she did a full 180 to indicate her mistake. I was allowed to relocate her, worked the bird successfully, and sent her on. However with the other dog committing a felony on a random resident pheasant ahead of us, and the rain coming down, Geena's previous footwork was sufficient to now get her picked up and end the brace. In the meanwhile, Momo had gotten bumped to the final brace and hit his first bird within 3-4mins. Three more finds, a perfect stop-to-flush, and a really nice run in the back course, and he and I were having a great time!!! My hunting buddy (who's only been trialed from a horse once before) came through like a champ. He placed FOURTH!!! I was told by one judge that if he hadn't taken a couple of small steps before I got in front of him to work the bird on a couple of his points, he would have placed higher. I knew he'd probably creep some after he saw his first bird, the steps an attempt to stay in contact with a wet, running bird -- and I couldn't really fault him for it. But his style was good and his footwork after the flush great, so I was still really satisfied.

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I am also very excited to serve as the official reporter for the 2011 running of the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic, a two-hour wild bird stake under the auspices of the American Field. For those of you who don't subscribe to the Field -- and especially those of us that live in the snowy northeast and would rather be working dogs than digging -- it's almost like a time-travel trip getting that white-covered magazine every week. It's like being a kid again, literally waiting beside the letter box every Wednesday morning for my comics to drop through -- Warlord and then 2000AD -- so's I'd have them to read on the way to school. In this age of Tweeting and Facebooking, actually reading paragraphs devoted to trials big and small all across the country, sometimes months after they'd happened, feels delightfully idiosyncratic.

But then again, I like shooting a hammer gun.

In any case, I was flattered to be asked -- and I hope that I can not merely accurately capture the details of what happens but also the dogs' enthusiasm and application. If I can come remotely close to the skill of the great reporters -- Bill Allen, William Brown, William Bruette, amongst others -- I will be pleased with myself.

*******

Next weekend is back to Virginia to meet up with Jamie again, this time for the Conestoga Vizsla Club trial -- and hopefully Geena and I can figure each other out a little better and maybe Momo can squeak out another meritorious performance. Wish us luck.