Friends in the Field

Hunters like to tell about the bird dog that once pointed a pike in a pool. When the pike was caught and opened, it contained a partridge. A fish story? Probably. But last week, as 10 million hunters expectantly tramped out across the golden fields for the start of the upland bird season, the lucky man was the one with a dog--a good, solid, well-trained pooch to find the bird, wait patiently until the master is ready, then retrieve in tail-wagging triumph.

Not that birds are scarce. South Dakota alone has more than 14 million pheasants, or something like 70 for every hunter. They just make monkeys out of men with guns. A pheasant will flush 50 yds. out of range, lie frozen while the hunter blunders past inches away, or run maddeningly on ahead, never flying, never presenting a shot. And when a bird is killed, the hunter may never find it among the tangles and hedgerows. In South Dakota last week, longtime Pro Quarterback Bobby Layne and seven friends managed to hit 31 in an afternoon without the aid of a dog--but failed to retrieve twelve in the thick underbrush.

Collies & Champions. There are 500,000 pedigreed bird dogs in the U.S.--silken-haired Irish, English and Gordon setters, springer spaniels (named for their ability to "spring" pheasants from thick brush), high-strung German Weimaraners and Dutch Griffons. Some hunters swear by collies and cockers, and it is not uncommon to find a German shepherd or even a great Dane ranging through the cornfields. But for speed, range, endurance and nose, no dog matches the pointer. A good pointer can scent a bird 100 yds. away. He will hold a quivering point for half an hour or more, and once a pair of pointers named Juno and Pluto stood frozen for a full hour and a quarter while an artist painted their portraits.

Pointer puppies cost anywhere from $100 to $500. But there is always a chance that the dog may turn out to be a champion and pay his own way, like Rig-A-Jig, a five-year-old owned by A. L. ("Pon") Lippitt of Virginia Beach, Va. This month, in the National Open Pheasant Competition at Baldwinsville, N.Y., Rig-A-Jig pointed six birds in less than two hours--enough to win him $1,600 and the tenth field-trial victory of his career. With nearly 750 professional field trials in the U.S. each year, many a breeder grows wealthy on the winnings and stud fees (up to $200 a service) of his four-legged friends. Alabama's Clyde Morton, at 65 the dean of U.S. breeders, has won eleven National Bird Dog championships, sells dogs to such fanciers as former Treasury Secretary George Humphrey and British Cine-mogul J. Arthur Rank, once turned down an offer of $8,000 for Palamonium, a liver-and-white pointer that won the 1956 and 1959 Nationals.

Collars & Chaws. Training a pointer, says Morton, is "like training a child --each one has to be handled differently. You get some of them to work by coaxing and some by whipping, but whichever way, when you're finished, the dog has to want to work for you." The process takes anywhere from three months (for ordinary hunting) to ten (for field trials), and costs the owner upwards of $50 a month. It can also be a mighty rough business.

A kennel tack room is no place for the squeamish with its whips, pistols, hoke collars and spike collars. If a dog is gun-shy, the trainer places a feed pan outside the kennel; each time the dog starts to eat--wham!--a shotgun goes off over its head. For "false pointing," trainers keep a chaw of tobacco handy; when the dog points at air--plop!--the chaw is thrust down its throat. For a dog that insists on mangling downed birds--a cardinal sin--the standard treatment calls for sinking long needles through the carcass of a quail or pheasant.

And then there are times when improvisation is called for. Take Harold Dinges. Vice president of a Kansas City chemical company, Dinges was hunting quail with his company president, and things were a little tense. Dinges was bagging bird after bird, but his boss was 0 for 7. At long last the president downed a quail, and off raced King Victor, Dinges' brand-new dog, presumably to retrieve the dead bird 60 ft. away. But King Victor forgot his manners, began to munch. Dinges did the only thing he could think of: he leveled his shotgun and fired a charge of light bird shot straight into King Victor's hind quarters. At last report, Dinges was still vice president.

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