Pointing

Where birds are not plentiful, the element of luck enters largely into the question of the dog’s bird-finding ability, more so than it does on a course where birds are abundant. It is not wise, therefore, to rate dogs under this head by the number of birds found and pointed. The character and excellence of the finds and the points made should be considered, the dog being preferred that goes boldly to point on the body scent, over one that dwells on foot scent. A difficult find that results from intelligent searching is to be valued more highly than one that did not require such wisdom, bird sense, or industry.

Locating Birds
Dogs that refuse to maintain a staunch point on foot scent, but move on so that they will always have the body scent in their nose, are to be rewarded for locating their birds accurately. They are preferred to a dog that holds fast to his original point on foot scent, even if the birds move beyond the reach of his nose. Here, particularly, does a dog demonstrate his ability to match wits with the bird. Accurate location of game is highly desirable. Quickness is a plus. The astute handler permits his dog to certify exact location without undue coaching.

First published in 1934, William Brown’s Field Trials: History, Management and Judging Standards has been revised over the years but is still in print and available from The American Field. Highly recommended, it belongs in the library of every field trial participant — competitor and judge alike.

The young dog will probably make a point as stylish and probably more intense than the aged campaigner when he comes upon his game, but being untrained and therefore knowing no restraint, he will jump in, flush and chase, and the more of this he does the keener his desire to find game and he develops a passion for hunting. The pupil possessing this passion is a most promising one, for the dog which has no desire to seek for game is worthless and it is a waste of time to endeavor to educate him in the other qualities of the bird dog...

Having a puppy, however, which possesses this instinct to a high degree, the trainer must know when to steady him on his game and that is the crutial time in the bird dog’s life and the most delicate period in his training, for it is at this time when more dogs are made or marred than at any other. It is the period when blinkers are created. The handler must use due caution and treat each pupil which comes to him for training as an individual. Some dogs develop steadiness with little cautioning or correction; others require more time. What may be beneficial for one puppy is ruination to another. The teacher at this stage must know how to govern himself as well as the pupil. The calm, levelheaded man who constantly keeps his temper well in hand may bring a dog through this period and have him steady on his game, still not taking one whit of the natural quality out of the puppy, while another might make a slow, mechanical, pottering dog out of the same animal, and still another ruin him entirely.

Hochwalt always insisted that “the subconscious personality of the handler is reflected in the pupil. Indeed, the close observer following field trials year after year can, almost to a certainly, pick out the trainer of a dog by the latter’s action in the field, even though for the time the animal in question may be in another’s hands. The method of the teacher are recognizable in his pupils. For instance, a dog that has been developed from early puppyhood by a handler who believes in constant coaching by the use of his voice, will come to depend upon this coaching as a necessity and unless he hears the same yelling from his new handler, he will not work in his customary manner, or at least it will take a long time before he can adapt himself to the altered tactics of the trainer who works quietly.”

The date of Luminary’s win will be officially recorded as of Tuesday morning, March 10, 1942. But in the opinion of many who braved as adverse a bird-finding day as ever faced a brace of dogs, the magnificently conditioned, courageous Luminary drove through to victory on opening morning of the trials, Wednesday, February 25. Scheduled to start on Monday, the 23rd, rain, snow and sleet held up proceedings for two days. Wednesday arrived with brickbat underfoot and dull, aching cold.

It was a prospect to strike terror to any handler’s heart, the kind of going from which 95% percent of all bird hunters would recoil. But, like the play, a field trial must go on, and handlers like Clyde Morton and Dewey English, with Luminary and that splendid animal, Freebooter, in charge respectively, faced the issue with fortitude. Such men know the game and shoot fair. Loving their dogs, they have faith in and respect their courage. We have watched field trials a long, long time, and here was the call to raw courage. The dogs were ordered on.

For two mornings the handlers had been given starting option. Morton and English are not the type to blink. The gallery wound its way across drab, winter stricken terrain. Freebooter scored first, handling well a bevy racked up in a thicket-head. Made a swell job of it, too, and English’s gun spoke. It was eight minutes before Morton, between the first and second roads, was sighted waving his hat.

A wild ride and there stood Luminary, embedded in high sedge and sapling stalks. Failing to dislodge game, Morton ordered him on. The barrel-chested, lithe-hipped pointer made short work of the relocation chore. Clyde’s gun evened up the score, and Luminary departed thence. But again it was the worthy Freebooter who tallied, on top of a sedge pine knoll. He had ’em too, and just like the rulebook said...

They exchanged right and lefts, so to speak, on single-bird points from that find. Honors were about even and gun manners perfect. Then Luminary really began to go about his business. After a sweep that took him to the country’s utmost bird rims, he was found in the field marking an hour and a half on the course. At Morton’s command the dog did a perfect job of pile-driving relocation. Then he “sold out” far to the right and was not located until several minutes later.

The gallery had long since swung past the creek corner in which the dog was found on a shelf above a high ditch. Birds boiled from about him. Thrown on, he spurted past the crowd. Two hours were off his chest. Freebooter, though tiring, struck gamely. Riding close behind Morton, we were privileged to see Luminary in a surprise contact evoking considerable discussion among those who could not possibly have seen exactly what happened in this case. The dog, coming full tilt off a slope and up through some sparse woods into a mud-floored washout below us, caught scent and literally swirled in putting on the brakes.

We had ridden over to the very brink, not only because we saw Luminary coming in, but because we had seen birds moved from that basin before. And this time we saw the birds scramming off the floor of the place. Morton’s cry of warning wasn’t needed. No dog on earth could have stopped more suddenly or been less open to censure.

And around the corner, several hundred yards away, came another incident that set tongues wagging. Luminary, plunging through a grassy depression alongside the gallery, struck scent. Morton, up ahead, instantly assumed control and was off his horse and hurrying down the ledge, out front. Luminary’s birds were moving swiftly away from there. They ran up a red-earth bank and zoomed almost in Morton’s face.

Again Luminary checked out under a full head of steam. His two next finds, accompanied by a corking Freebooter location, came on the two last broad turns of the course. They were masterpieces of relocation, deft approaches, any step of which might have spelled disaster. The last one especially will linger long in the memories of those so fortunate as to witness it. Striking his quarry while on the far side of a wide, shallow depression, Luminary waited impressively until Morton threshed out the brush heaps between his dog and the excited gallery. Then he ordered on.

Luminary darted up the rim of the sink, crossed it and, literally ablaze with crafty discernment, charged along within twenty feet of the horses. He flung himself at a reef of straw and high-headed seemed to shout, “Here they are!” And they were too. When we passed into the last open spaces of the heat’s end, Morton’s whistles was scarcely needed to reach the winging Luminary. He struck the end of the course under all valves and chased down by proud scouts.

Just then some sunshine struggled through the cold murk. We stooped down with Morton and examined the dog’s pads. They were scuffed, and his toenails were a bit shaky at the moorings. Freebooter was also game to the end; and your correspondents were agreed that they had just seen about the finest heat either had witnessed at the National, or for that matter, on any course.

1942 National Championship
Run at Grand Junction, Tennessee, February 23.
Judges: Nash Buckingham, Dr. T. Benton King and Reuben H. Scott
Thirty-five Starters —Twenty-eight Pointers and Seven Setters.

Winner—Luminary, 275718, white and black pointer dog, by Doctor Blue Willing - Lullaby. A.G.C. Sage, owner; Clyde Morton, handler.

Used by permission.

Fundamentally, the real purpose of field trials is breed improvement, and the elevation of pointing dog performance in the hunting field...

Among the vast number of outdoorsman interested in bird dog competitions, there are some who do not seem to have the faintest conception of the true purpose of field trials. Therefore, it might be well to stress that field trials were not instituted for the purpose of bringing to the front a dog or class of dogs eminently suited to the wants of the average gunner whose primary object in using a dog afield is to swell the game bag, regardless of the manner that his dog performs. Rather it is for the purpose of bringing to the notice of the public a class of performers best suited to perpetuate the most desirale qualities possessed by the high-class field dog.

These dogs are not at all times the most desirable to shoot over, for the reason that their individuality is such that it cannot be dominated by the handler’s use of “foot-rule” methods, whereby a dog of subserviant temperament is forced to range so many yards to the front, to the right or to the left without consulting his inclination or judgement. In some instances, the really high class field trial performer verges on the edge of bolting, so great is his ambition to find birds. While it is by no means our wish to encourage the development of such an undesirable trait, we feel certain that more harm will attend breeding from sires of soft, deferential dispositions than will accrue from the use of those whose independence is so great that it is with some difficulty they are persuaded to work to the gun in a manner satisfactory to the average sportsman.

Field Trials, History, Management and Judging Standards, page 149. Used by permission.