Field Trials Articles : Strideaway

Podcast Interview with Fred Rayl

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 11:39:56 -0600

The interview was conducted with Fred Rayl on his completion of judging the 2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic. The following is the standard that was written by the Black Ash Grouse Dog Club for judging the Classic:

Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic Judging Standard

The purpose of the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic for grouse dogs is to test the physical strength, endurance and mental fortitude of dogs over a two-hour period.

Bird work should be held to the high level of championship performance on wild birds. It should, however, be kept in mind that grouse and flight woodcock pose particular difficulties in the spring. Dogs should not be over-penalized for unproductive stands and leniency should be given to stop-to-flushes as spring birds are often running and skittish.

As in all field trials, the dogs should exhibit class and style in their performances. Their effort on the ground should take highest precedent, showing maturity and focused hunting efforts over the two hours. The dogs may show short periods of fatigue in the latter part of the stake, particularly in trying conditions, but must finish hunting with independence and determination. A strong finish to the front is highly sought after in this stake.

PODCAST INTERVIEW:

FredRayl_2012ArmstrongUmbel.mp3

2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:40:33 -0600

Scott Forman with Winner, Upper Cove Billy Babe, Marc Forman with R-U Chips Uncle Buzzy. Back row: Andrew Campbell, Shawn Thomas, Inday and Fred Rayl, Russ Richardson, Brian Ralph, Joe McCarl, Gary Sheets, and John McKellop.

Guys Mills, PA. — The Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic for Grouse Dogs was held on the stake’s original grounds in the Black Ash forest of western Pennsylvania. Sixteen dogs competed in the gruelling two-hour heat stake held March 22-24. Weather, for the most part, was hot, with temperatures reaching into the low 80s. Saturday’s running of the last two braces began in steady rain.

Judges Fred Rayl and Brian Ralph named setter female Upper Cove Billy Babe, owned by Bob Grassi and handled by Scott Forman, the winner. Runner-up was setter male Chips Uncle Buzzy owned by Steve and Ginny Chiappini and handled by Marc Forman.

Plenty of grouse were seen and heard but were, as is so often the case in the spring, difficult to get pointed. One hen pheasant was pointed. Flight woodcock, perhaps due to the early warm temperatures this spring, had mostly left for northern parts.

Great appreciation goes to all our sponsors: Allstate Insurance, Gary Sheets and Enhance Dog Food, Beretta Gallery, TAG Venture Partners, Ruffed Grouse Society, Mains & Tito Development and Mains Pointers, Kim Sampson, Shawn Wayment, DVM....and everyone who bought caps!

Thanks to Russ Richardson and Joe McCarl for their hard work laying out and cutting the courses...with help from Brian Ralph, John McKellop and Shawn Thomas. Thanks to Becky Richardson and all the club members for their help...Brian Ralph for judging and providing delicious lunches every day. A special thanks to Fred Rayl for making the long trip up from Georgia with his lovely wife, Inday, whose company we all enjoyed. Thanks to the Forman boys for their loyal support and belief in the Classic. Last but not least, thanks to Andrew Campbell for his support and for riding all the braces...we look forward to reading his official report.

Thanks to everyone who supports and helps make the Classic a success!

Start of the 1st brace...Joe McCarl, Fred Rayl, Marc Forman with River Edge Sadie, Russ Richardson, Andrew Campbell and Inday Rayl in the background.

Scott Forman getting ready to shoot for eventual winner, Upper Cove Billy Babe as the grouse is heard flushing. River Edge Sadie seen backing.
Start of the 2nd brace: Nic Mellon with Ben and Russ Richardson with Two Acres True Hope. This was Hope's third year competing in the two-hour stake.
Pointer female, High Desert Dream and setter male, Upper Cove Desert Devil break away on the 3rd brace.
Hard Driving Rita backed by L.B. Horchen in the 4th brace.
Grouse Hill Dixie and Grouse Hill Babe break away on the 5th brace.

Chips Charlie Brown in the second hour of the 6th brace.
Scott Forman with Grouse River Ace and Marc Forman with Lake Country Raden at the start of the 7th brace. Ace has competed in the Armstrong-Umbel four times and was R-U in 2009.
The last brace with Scott Forman with Texas Cherry Bomb and Marc Forman with 2012 R-U Chips Uncle Buzzy. This was Uncle Buzzy’s fourth time competing in the Armstrong-Umbel. Texas Cherry Bomb has competed three times, winning in 2010.
For more photos of the 2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic, please visit: http://www.chrismathanphoto.com (Galleries > 2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic)

Current Field Dog Vaccination Guidelines

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 06:15:17 -0600

The excitement of the 113th running of the National Championship at the famed Ames Plantation in Grand Junction, Tennessee draws attention to the tremendous athleticism and fitness of our canine athletes. Appropriate immunizations are as important as superb nutrition, proper conditioning, and thorough dental care to their overall health.

The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) assembled a group of veterinarians from veterinary schools, private practices and veterinary related industries to form a Canine Vaccination Task Force to aid veterinarians in the US and Canada on selection and use of canine vaccines. Members of this task force first met in 2003 and published a vaccination guideline for North America which has been updated and revised in 2006, 2007, and again in 2011. The complete 2011 AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines can be reviewed by clicking on the provided link and going to their website.

Veterinary medicine, like its human counter-part, is in an axiomatic tailspin of change. Current beliefs are constantly tossed out the window, so to speak, as we become more advanced scientifically and technologically. Several vaccines that were once recommended over the years have been discontinued and new ones have emerged onto the veterinary market. The ensuing paragraphs are a generalized summary of the 2011 AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines (PDF below). These guidelines are simply just that—guidelines or recommendations that are not rigid or set in marble. A thorough vaccination protocol/schedule for your own field dogs should be developed in conjunction with your family veterinarian. It is important to point out that animal vaccines in the United States do not have to go through the stringent system of approval through the FDA, but they must be licensed by the USDA. Animal vaccines approved by the USDA must provide sufficient evidence that the vaccine is safe and possibly affective to the specified targeted disease.

Canine immunizations are characterized as Core or Non-Core vaccines. Core vaccines are the immunizations that ALL dogs regardless of their geographical location and/or circumstances should receive. Core vaccines include rabies, canine parvovirus, canine distemper virus, and canine adenovirus-2. The Non-Core vaccines are those that are required by bird dogs whose geographical location, local environment or sporting lifestyle places them at risk of contracting specific diseases. A good example of the Non-Core vaccinations includes kennel cough (Bordetella), Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi), Leptospirosis (Leptospira interrogans), canine influenza virus (please see previous Strideaway article on CIV), and Western Diamondback Rattlesnake vaccine (Crotalus atrox).

Vaccines can be categorized further as being Infectious vaccines vs Non-Infectious vaccines. Understanding these terms is important when trying to comprehend the recommended interval (how long between immunizations until the dog is re-inoculated) between vaccinations. Infectious vaccines (i.e. canine parvovirus, distemper and adenovirus-2) are ones that are capable of infecting the dog’s cells to induce an immune response. This literally means that the dog is given a modified-live virus that can induce the disease or disease like symptoms in them to stimulate an immune response. Infectious vaccines stimulate a much faster and greater lasting immune response then Non-Infectious vaccines. The Non-Infectious vaccines (kennel cough injectable, Lyme, Leptospirosis, CIV, rabies and rattlesnake) are inactivated or killed and they are incapable of infecting the dog’s cells. These vaccines rely on a large amount of antigen or killed bacteria to stimulate the host’s immune system; the response to the vaccine takes longer for the dog to build antibodies to the vaccination and does not last near as long as the Infectious ones.

Another perplexing topic to discuss is vaccinating puppies that have maternal derived antibodies (MDA). Puppies that are born to bitches that are in a great herd-health or husbandry program and receive the proper immunizations for their geographical location pass on antibodies to their progeny through the colostrum found in the milk when the pups first start to nurse. These maternally derived antibodies provide protection to the pups before their own immune system is fully functioning. It is thought that these MDA are protective for the puppies until they are about 12 weeks of age. MDA’s can interfere with non-infectious vaccines (Lyme. Lepto, CIV, Rabies, etc) rendering them ineffective.

The following paragraphs are the AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines recommendations on when to vaccinate and how frequently to re-boost the Core and Non-Core vaccines.

Puppies starting at 8 weeks of age should be vaccinated with canine distemper virus (Core), canine parvovirus (Core), canine adenovirus-2 (Core) and an Intranasal Bordetella (Non-Core) in situations or environs where pups are at risk of exposure to kennel cough. The Core vaccines should be repeated at 3 to 4 week intervals until the puppies are 16 weeks of age. Rabies (Core) vaccine should be administered to puppies as a single dosage (no re-booster necessary) at >12 weeks. A single vaccination (no re-booster) of a 17-week-old puppy with an Infectious product is considered protective against those diseases. This means that if the puppy was not properly vaccinated from the 8 weeks to 16 weeks of age, a single vaccination with the Core vaccines is considered to protective against such diseases as parvovirus and distemper.

Puppies should not be vaccinated for the Non-Core vaccines until they reach 12 weeks of age (because of the maternal derived antibodies), and they should be re-inoculated again at 3 to 4 weeks (with the exception of rabies where one vaccination is adequate for the first year of life in both Canada and the US because rabies vaccines have a huge antigenic dose). The Non-Core vaccinations are Leptospirosis, Lyme disease, injectable Bordetella, Parainfluenza, CIV, and the rattlesnake vaccine. Remember that these Non-Core vaccines are dependent on the lifestyle of your bird dog and the geographic location of where you live or where you’ll be traveling to compete or hunt. A dog that lives in Colorado and travels to the Pacific Northwest to hunt or trial does not need the Lyme vaccine but probably ought to be immunized against Leptospirosis.

Adult dogs at one year and four months of age should be re-vaccinated for the Core vaccines and Non-Core vaccines. Core vaccine (parvovirus, distemper virus, canine adenovirus-2 and rabies) immunity from this series of vaccinations should last for a minimum of 3 years and might even last up to 5 to 7 years. Rabies vaccine is strictly dependent on the laws of the state you reside in. For instance a state like Texas may require rabies boosters annually where as Colorado allows a 3-year vaccine schedule. The Non-Core vaccines (Lyme, Lepto, CIV, Bordetella, Parainfluenza and rattlesnake vaccine) are generally killed or Non-Infectious vaccines and therefore they do not last more than 12 months and must be re-administered annually. The AAHA Vaccination Committee recommended leaving Canine Coronavirus out of the equation because the vaccine does not provide any form of protection or decrease in shedding of the virus.

One way to check how frequently to re-vaccinate your adult bird dog is to have serological testing (blood tests) to see how much protective immunity they have towards the core diseases. A blood sample can be sent to a diagnostic lab to see how large of an antibody titer they have towards the disease (i.e. parvovirus or canine distemper virus). The downside to these tests is the cost—they are rather expensive relative to the cost of simply re-vaccinating your bird dog. Rabies is a fatal zoonotic (all mammals are susceptible to rabies) disease. Because of the zoonotic potential, rabies vaccine (Core) titers here in the US have literally no meaning according to the laws and are not recommended in general practice.

Although AAHA did a very thorough job with their vaccination guidelines, you cannot fit each kennel or canine athlete into the same box.

2011_CanineVaccineGuidelines.pdf

The Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 06:54:08 -0700

A grouse find in the Black Ash, March 2011

The Armstrong-Umbel Classic, hosted by the Black Ash Grouse Trial Club, has been successfully run for the past three years, as the only endurance stake offered on the grouse trial circuit. The braces are of two-hour duration.

There is a historical precedent for extended-period stakes in the grouse woods. The Grand National Grouse Championship and the Pennsylvania Grouse Championship ran for two-hours or more for many of their early years, challenging dogs’ endurance and stamina. Reports from those championships, over the ensuing years suggest that the gradual switch to one-hour duration braces was due, primarily, to the inconvenience of conducting longer stakes with an increasing number of entries.

Justifiably, endurance stakes continue to be the pinnacle of the All-Age circuit. Prior to 2009, the grouse trial circuit was missing the opportunity to test and evaluate grouse dogs for endurance and stamina—qualities essential to all class field trial/wild bird hunting dogs. Having hosted the Armstrong-Umbel as a two-hour Classic since then, Black Ash Grouse Trial Club members are convinced that the stake successfully fills that gap.

The Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic has been conducted to the highest of field trial standards, securing the services of judges from around the country with impeccable credentials and experience field trialing and hunting over wild bird dogs. The stake has earned the respect of professional and amateur handlers, owners, breeders and enthusiasts in the grouse woods and elsewhere in the field trial community.

The Black Ash Grounds

In 1981, a small group of grouse dog enthusiasts petitioned the Pennsylvania Game Commission for permission to hold grouse trials in Crawford County in western Pennsylvania. An extensive cutting program in the Black Ash forest resulted in an explosion of the grouse population. Permission was granted and after two years of planning, laying out courses and clearing trails, the first Black Ash trials were held in the fall of 1983. They were well received and quickly became a focal point in the grouse trial season in Pennsylvania. In 1986, the spring all-age stake was designated a Classic.

For fifteen years the Black Ash forest was a popular destination on the grouse trial circuit. An eventual decline in the grouse population due to a gypsy moth invasion that resulted in the curtailing of the essential cutting program required the club to find new grounds. The Classic moved to the Marienville grounds, further east in the state, where it has been held through last spring.

Due to the rejuvenation of the cutting program in the Black Ash forest in recent years, the grouse population has recovered and permission has been granted by the state allowing the Black Ash Grouse Trial Club to move the Armstrong-Umbel back to its original grounds. For the past year, club members have cleared old courses, cut new ones and carefully evaluated the feasibility of running the two-hour stake in the Black Ash. Convinced that the grounds are more than suitable, holding a good number of grouse and a population of migratory woodcock, the decision was made. The 2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic will once again be held on the historic Black Ash grounds!

Above photos: Black Ash trial grounds

The Black Ash Grouse Trial Club thanks all the individuals and organizations who have so generously supported this event over the past four years joining club members in the firm belief that an endurance stake in the grouse woods is invaluable to the betterment of our bird dogs. Without their help, the stake would not be financially feasible.

The Club is pleased that Fred Rayl has agreed to make the long journey from Sylvester, Georgia to judge alongside grouse trialer/avid grouse hunter, Brian Ralph. The Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic will begin on Thursday, March 22 to conclusion. Drawing will be Tuesday evening at secretary, Russ Richardson’s home. All are welcome. Details in the ad below.

2012A-UEnduranceClassicAFAd.pdf

Thanks to Ted Eriksen for his recollection of the history of the Black Ash grounds.

The Scout

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:59:57 -0700

“Sam, you know I don’t take criminal cases anymore,” Ben Reach said as soon as his old pal began to lobby him.

“This is different, Ben. The boy needs you.”

“The boy” was Billy Culp, twenty-five years old, and the sole paid employee of Wilbur Page, an over-the-road professional pointing-dog trainer-handler based at Leesburg, Georgia, when not on the circuit. The circuit was the series of field trials held week after week from late August to late March from the prairie provinces of Canada to the red hills of North Florida. Wilbur and Billy traveled to the trials in a dually pickup, pulling a trailer hauling six walking horses and a “string” of dogs, usually ten to fifteen.

It was now March, and Wilbur and Billy were working from home, Wilbur’s small family farm where they lived in what was once a tenant house for a sharecropper, with its mule barn now a stable for the dog horses and its hog lot converted to kennels. The rest of the twenty acres served as horse pasture.

Billy’s criminal troubles had erupted at the Southeastern Championship. He’d been riding in the gallery, waiting to scout for Wilbur in the next brace, when he’d seen something in the woods that set him off. The result had been a gunshot wound, inflicted by Billy on Harry Eanes, a handler from Iowa. Billy had shot Harry in the buttox with the long-barrel pistol he carried strapped to the pommel of his saddle, there for dispatching armadillos and rattlesnakes and loaded with rat shot. Billy was charged with aggravated assault with a firearm, a serious felony.

“How did you get involved in this,” Ben asked Sam.

“Wilbur has been my patient for years. He brought Billy in to see me. He’s worried the boy will commit suicide. I got Billy to tell me his history. That told me you are the person to defend Billy.”

Ben could tell Sam was a believer in Billy. That was enough to tell Ben he should at least hear the boy’s story.

At the preliminary hearing next morning, Ben told the judge he’d not committed to represent Billy on the charge, but he was appearing to request bail. Sam and Wilbur were in court, and Ben told the judge Sam would go the bond if it were modest. In deference to Ben and Sam and their implied representation Billy would not skip, the judge set Billy’s bond at $25,000, and Sam paid $2,500 to a bondsman. (Wilbur had promised to take a gun-dog derby north for Sam in payment. Doc’s last pointer had died of old age the week after Christmas).

That afternoon Billy sat in Ben’s library-conference room. Sam and Wilbur were with him. Ben asked them to wait in reception. Joanne brought them coffee.

Billy sat nervously with Purina cap in hand, clad in Levies and a thin cotton shirt from Wal-Mart. His worn tan lace-up boots betrayed his previous occupation. Billy was very blond, his hair two inches long on top, clipped sidewall on the sides. He was thin as a rail, about 5’8”. His pale skin showed long exposure to sunlight, and Ben was tempted to caution him to use sunscreen, but he was sure Sam had already done that.

Billy’s expression was troubled. Ben knew why Sam had been drawn to him. Sam had never outgrown the compassion for troubled young men his Vietnam experience as a battle field surgeon had instilled in him.

“What was your outfit?” Ben asked Billy without preliminaries.

“And your specialty?” Ben asked after Billy had called out his Marine battalion and company.

“Service Dog Handler,” Billy said.

“Tell me why you shot Harry Eanes. I don’t doubt he needed shooting, I’ve known Harry twenty years,” Ben said.

Harry had a reputation in the field-trial sport as a renegade, a hothead who would do whatever it took to win. Of course, that reputation reduced his wins, for other handlers and scouts stayed alert for his dirty tricks. Nowhere did the saying “What goes around comes around” apply more surely than in field trials, where those who played dirty were always easy victims of the same tricks from the completion.

Ben’s assessment of Harry seemed to relax Billy, who showed the hint of a smile. Then Billy opened up as if the story were stored under pressure.

“I caught sight of Harry in the woods, off his horse with something white in his hand. It had to be his dog. I laid back and drifted over to the side. He had his dog by the collar and was lashing it with a flushing whip, hard as he could. Something took hold of me, and I pulled my snake pistol and shot him in the butt,” Billy blurted, obviously relieved to get the confession off his chest.

“What made you do that, Billy?”

The youngster burst into tears, burying his face in his hands. Ben waited, but Billy could not compose himself. Ben went to the door, and motioned to Sam, who came into the room and put his long thin arm around Billy. He said nothing and nodded to Ben to say nothing. Ben left the room. Fifteen minutes later, Sam came to get Ben, who was doodling in his inner office while Wilbur sat stoically in the client’s chair across the desk. Sam motioned Ben to rejoin him with Billy, and the two old men sat opposite the youngster who was nervous and shaking.

“Billy, if you can, tell Ben why you shot Harry.”

Billy stared at Ben, then at Sam, then at Ben again. He took a deep breath to begin.

“I was a dog handler in Iraq. My Hank was a Lab, and the best friend I ever had. Day after day, he went forward on patrol and smelled for IEDs. He saved my life and my mates lives day after day. Then my squad leader said, send him out to check a hut fifty yards in front of us. He took the line straight for it, like he was going to retrieve a duck, and he dropped ten yards before he reached it—that was his signal he’d caught scent of explosives. Then a sniper shot him, as he lay there totally exposed where I’d asked him to go.

“Whenever I see a dog being abused, I see Hank lying there in the sand with his blood oozing out of him, and I lose it.”

“We understand, Billy. You and Wilbur get on home now. We’ll see what we can do,” Ben said.

When Billy and Wilbur had left, Ben asked Sam,

“Have you gotten his service record?”

“No, but I’ve started the process, called in some chips with an admiral I treated in Nam for an STD.”

“What in hell is an STD?” Ben asked.

“Sexually transmitted disease,” Sam said, rebuke in his voice for Ben’s ignorance of the medical jargon.

Next day Sam called Ben.

“Listen to this,” Sam said, and read Ben the citation that accompanied Billy’s Silver Star.

“If that doesn’t do it, I’ll surrender my law license,” Ben said.

“There is more than that,” Sam said. “Billy suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and he’s not a malingerer. Genuine PTSD—I’ve talked with two doctors who’ve treated him. They’re surprised—and proud—he’s working, not surprised he did what he did. They say he ought to go back to a Veteran’s Hospital for therapy—suicide is a constant worry for cases like Billy.”

“We’ll see that he does,” Ben said.

“Of course we will,” Sam said, disgusted that his non-doctor partner was assuring medical responsibility for Billy.

Next day Ben went to see the District Attorney. He took Sam with him. For an hour they laid out Billy’s history. At the end, the District Attorney said, “If you get Billy checked into the VA Hospital and he stays as long as they say he needs to, we’ll suspend prosecution for a year, and if Billy’s clean then, we’ll dismiss the complaint for lack of evidence.”

As the curmudgeons walked back to their offices, Ben said, “Now I’ve got to go talk to Harry, convince him he doesn’t want to file a civil case against Billy. If he does, I’ll have the animal rights bunch down on him.”

“How hard will that be?” Sam asked.

“Not very, I think. I got a call from a farm boy in Iowa who worked for Harry a couple of summers. Says he can tell me where a bunch of dog bones are buried in North Dakota on land where Harry trains.”

113th National Championship

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:46:00 -0700

Connor’s EZ Button at the breakaway of the 9th brace.

This was my third trip to the National Championship, the two prior were in 2006 and 2007. I wanted to watch Strideaway cohort and friend Mazie Davis and her husband, handler Colvin Davis compete with one of their dogs. Patriote was scheduled to run in the 11th brace so I booked a flight. As luck would have it, several other dogs I wanted to see were drawn to compete during my stay. I was disappointed when last year’s champion, Touch’s Whiteout was scratched due to a shoulder injury.

The weather was most obliging with the only rain coming on Sunday. The rain, however, made for more mud and tougher going for the dogs in the days following.

The first brace I witnessed on friday morning was the 9th with the eventual winner Connor’s E Z Button, handled by Steve Hurdle braced with Game Maker handled by his owner, Fred Corder.

Congratulations to Steve, everyone’s favorite scout, Nick Thompson and the handsome E Z Button’s owner David O’Connor.

I first time I saw Game Maker was in 2006. He has qualified and competed in the National Championship every year since then. According to the brace synopsis on the Ames Plantation website, Game Maker has tallied 34 finds in the last five National Championships alone! This year could so easily have ended in tragedy when Game Maker was struck by a vehicle during the waning minutes of his brace. The dog recovered, finished the three hours and was rushed off to a veterinarian. A collective sigh of relief was heard when it was known that Game Maker had suffered no more than a few cuts and bruises. He truly exemplifies the steadfastness and courage in the best of our field trial bird dogs.

Game Maker competing in the 2006 National Championship

The other dogs I got to see were my friend Blake Kukar’s Survivor’s Little Bill handled by Randy Downs. I first met and photographed Bill as a youngster. Saturday afternoon, Coldwater Warrior handled by Weldon Bennett ran braced with Erin’s Special Force handled by Luke Eisenhart and scouted by Sean Derrig. I was very excited to watch Ben because he is a half brother to one of my females...their dam being Joe McCarl’s 7 x grouse champion Hard Driving Bev. He made a strong showing with a find and a back in the books but was lost to judgement shortly after a road crossing. Ben’s owner, John May, his wife and two daughters all rode the brace to watch their dog. I discovered that John originates from northern Maine and hunted grouse as a boy!

Scout Sean Derrig with Erin’s Special Force (Ben)

I also enjoyed watching the dogs I know from the Canadian prairies...the 2010 National Champion, In The Shadow whose owner Carl Bowman was on hand and Gary and Sally Lockee’s Patriote.

For anyone who loves bird dogs and has not been to Ames, a trip to Grand Junction, historic Hickory Valley and the National Championship should be on your list. If you compete in any kind of field trial, it affords a tremendous opportunity to watch some of the finest dogs in the country and to meet some of the most successful handlers, trainers and breeders. It’s impossible to fully appreciate the difficulty and understand the value of this grueling three hour endurance stake without witnessing it firsthand.

...And more welcoming and amiable people you won't find anywhere in the bird dog world. They made me feel proud to be a part of this wonderful sport!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to do interviews — John Rex Gates, Colvin Davis, Jack Huffman, Sean Derrig, Ike Todd, Nathan Cottrell and Herb Anderson. There were so many others I wanted to talk to. What a wealth of bird dog knowledge convenes at the National Championship every year!

Podcast interviews coming as soon as I can edit them. For photos of the few braces I watched, please see Galleries >113th National Championship at: Chris Mathan Photo The Ames Plantation website has lots of photos from the entire running courtesy of Vera Courtney, Jamie Evans and Brad Harter. Thanks to them, we’ve all been able to keep up with the action at the National Championship the last few years!

2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:04:55 -0700

The Black Ash Grouse Dog Club is proud to announce that Fred Rayl has agreed to judge the 2012 Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic this spring!

For anyone new to field trials who may not be familiar with Fred’s accomplishments as a trainer and handler on the major circuit and for anyone who may not have had the opportunity to read Barbara Teare’s interview with Fred, published in the 2004 Winter issue of Field Trial Magazine, please scroll down and you will find the entire interview.

Fred’s judging partner will be Brian Ralph from Sandy Lake, PA. Brian is an avid grouse hunter and began field trialing several years ago with his first pointer, Bar P. Doll. Doll, who competed in the Armstrong last spring, is a descendant of the famous Rayl pointer, HOF, 1980 National Champion, Builder’s Addition through her grandsire, Ch. Shadow’s Mark.

The Club is also excited to announce that the 2012 running of the Classic will be held on the original Armstrong-Umbel grounds in Guy’s Mills, PA. Club members Russ Richardson, Joe McCarl and Brian Ralph have been working on the courses for the past year. The cutting program on the gamelands was resumed a few years ago and grouse numbers are up substantially. The grounds also hold a good number of flight woodcock during the early spring.

Strideaway will again give its support to the two-hour Classic which, due to its nature, is a difficult event for a club to host through entries alone. We welcome anyone who would like to join us in supporting this prestigious and unique event. The recipient of $200 or more in support will get a banner ad and website link here on Strideaway for six months (including on the new website!!). You’ll also be listed in The American Field ad if you contact me by February 10. All supporters will be listed here on Strideaway and will get a 2012 Armstrong-Umbel cap. Or you can lend your support through the purchase of a cap. Please email me (chris@strideaway.com) if you would like to order one. The cost is $16.00 (or 2 for $30) plus $5.50 shipping. We’ll have them ready to ship by mid-March.

Thanks to all who have supported the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic these past three years...helping to make it such a wonderful success!

The American Field Ad will be posted here on Strideaway next week.

2011 Winners of the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic.

2010 Winners of the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic.
2009 Winners of the Armstrong-Umbel Endurance Classic.

A Wonderful Life

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:49:06 -0700

“Daddy always said, ‘Leave him alone. He’s the one with the nose, not you!’ ”

Knee-deep in late summer prairie grass, Fred Rayl is letting a young pointer prospect figure things out on his own. At this stage of the game, the pup is all instinct and exuberance. Rayl watches patiently. Suddenly, the pup catches a whiff to his liking, and the unmistakable light of recognition, age-old and inborn, fires his bright eye. He makes a couple of searching swings through the buckbrush, then snaps into point, and we glimpse the dog he might one day become: it’s the pose of a champion. The lone sharptail, an old bachelor chicken, departs with a volley of raucous complaints, and the image explodes as the pup takes off in wild pursuit.

“He’ll be back,” Rayl predicts. We follow his progress, squinting against the afternoon glare, and sure enough, a quarter mile out on the prairie the pup has abandoned the chase and is coming around.

“But, see that. He learned something there!”

The grin that breaks over his broad, sunburned face tells you Rayl is a man who loves what he does.

“I really do,” he admits. “The dog training life is a wonderful life.”

I ask for his story.

“It all started with daddy,” he says of late Hall of Famer, William F. (Bill) Rayl. “Him and his brother Allen Earl were hunters as boys. They always had good hunting dogs, and that was how they made their spending money up there in Athens, Tennessee.” Dressed quail, peddled for a quarter a piece to the local shopkeeper, kept the boys flush. Then Bill joined the service and his brother lost interest. The meat-hunting enterprise fell flat, but when Bill finished his tour of duty and came home, he found Allen Earl had kept an old bird dog around.

Bill Rayl

“Is he any ‘count?” he inquired.

Allen Earl didn’t know.

The next day, Bill grabbed his gun, whistled up the dog and set off across the farm fields to find out. The dog ran hither and yon, but Bill headed for a known covey spot. He walked the birds up and killed one.

“About the time daddy picked that bird up, the ol’ dog came running by, and daddy threw the bird out in front of the dog and shot his shotgun up in the air. He went over and picked up the bird and brought it to him, and from that day on that dog was broke, going down through there pointing, retrieving and everything!”

Bill Rayl was back in business. “It got to be where everybody would come out there and hunt with daddy and that dog. Otto and J.P. Kennedy were putting on a field trial down there at Athens, and they’d been out to hunt with daddy. ‘You need to bring this dog down there and run him in the trial,’ they told daddy. So he did, and lo and behold, he won first place with him, and that got him hooked!”

Bill trained dogs for a while in East Tennessee, got a lease in Canada for the summers and moved down to Georgia sometime in the mid-50s. Meanwhile, he had married Miss Jean and started a family. “My brother Eddie is five years older than me. I was born in June of ‘53, and they tell the tale that it rained that first summer they took me to the prairie, and a tornado came and blew the barn down. Daddy had to ride the horse seven or eight miles to the store to get milk for me, because I was nursing on a bottle. And I’ve never missed a summer on the prairie ever since.”

At the Rayl household, everybody pitched in. “From the time we were little bitty boys, we always had chores,” Rayl says. “That’s the way it was there with daddy. Even mama helped. She took care of everything when daddy was gone, and whenever we got up old enough, we helped her. It was just a dog-training house.”

“One of my earliest memories is, my mama used to drive the dog wagon up in Canada.” he recalls. “That’s when we had the horse and buggy. And because it was so cold, mama would wrap me up in a blanket where I could ride down there in the floorboards of the dog wagon while she drove.”

There was plenty of action and more than a few close calls for two fellows growing up in the dog-training life. “I remember one time I was about seven or eight, “he says. “Daddy had broke for lunch and had told us boys to take the horses over to the pond and water them. So we jumped up there and rode one and led one or two apiece. But the horse I was riding waded out in the pond and laid down. And then he started rolling and throwing me under the water. Eddie went to hollering, and I hollered back at him whenever I’d come up for air, ‘I can’t get a-loose, he’s a-layin’ on my leg!’ Daddy had to run over there and drag me out from under the horse to keep me from drowning.”

Luckily, boys have a way of thriving on such escapades. The Rayl brothers emerged from their youthful adventures unscathed, with a lasting love of bird dogs, and field trials and a strong work ethic woven firmly into the fabric of their lives. “Oh, there’s lots of good memories,” says Rayl, who eagerly traded his text books for the paraphernalia of a professional trainer upon high school graduation. While he worked dogs and campaigned with Bill on the all-age circuit, Eddie specialized in shooting dogs.

Fred, Eddie and Bill Rayl

Bill Rayl was a dedicated, hard-working man, up before daybreak each morning, sticking to a schedule that rarely varied unless a field trial intervened. “It was seven days a week,” Rayl says. “Even though we didn’t work on Sundays most of the time unless we were gone to a trial, daddy would still get up and go walk out there through the kennels.” That commitment set a strict standard and elicited the admiration and respect of his two sons. But after hitting a hard lick all week and kicking up their heels on Saturday nights, the boys looked forward to sleeping in on those rare Sunday mornings at home.

“Daddy’s thing about that was, he always raised a lot of puppies, and he would go out there at daylight on Sunday and turn the whole puppy pen loose. Twenty-five puppies would be going everywhere, and you couldn’t sleep a wink with all that mess going on. But that was daddy’s idea of a day off.”

Bill’s reputation for honesty, his warm, gregarious personality, and his deep love of bird dogs and field trials made him a favorite among his peers, and he made friends wherever he traveled on the field trial circuit. He went out of his way to bring people into the sport, to help them have a good dog. “Daddy was an outstanding individual,” Rayl says. “And he loved the field trial sport to no end. He could talk to somebody and convince them that they ought to come to a field trial, and he would help any way that he could. He always kept a big crowd around him, too. He had a knack of getting people together and everybody having a good time.”

Bill just had a kind of magnetism. People liked him, dogs liked him. It was a fortuitous combination. And when it came to dogs, he seemed to have a sixth sense that inspired unconditional trust and devotion in his charges. “He was one of those that could jump on a dog hard and in five minutes that dog would be all over him, wagging his tail.” Rayl explains. “He knew how to get on one when he needed it, and he knew how to praise one, and he knew how far to go with it.”

Rayl’s remarkable success as a trainer and handler of field trial champions may be equaled by his acumen as a breeder, for his effect in that regard has left an indelible mark on pointerdom. He was instrumental in establishing the bloodlines that put forth the great Hall of Fame dogs Evolution, Builder’s Addition, Fiddler and his celebrated scion, Fiddler’s Pride, and shooting dog sensation Little Diamond, along with a plethora of other notables.

Things began to click in a big way for Bill in the 60s with a dog called Highway Man owned by George Geoghegan of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. “I’m not too sure Highway Man wasn’t his favorite dog all along, even through the later years,” Rayl says of the dog that sired Builder’s Risk and thus became the fountainhead of that important line. “He was out of a dog called Llano Man that Jack Harper had. Daddy had Possessed, and Possess, and Bill Possessed, and they were all champions. And then, of course, along in the middle 60s was when he got Endurance and then from Endurance we got the Evolution line of dogs.”

Ch. Endurance

Bill always thought he would win the National Championship with Highway Man. It was not to be, but one shining moment at Grand Junction sticks in memory. Jimmy Bryan of the Ames Plantation used to tell the story that Rayl recounts.

“Now, this is what I heard, but it was told as the absolute truth: Highway Man was a statuesque dog on point and he would never let down, not even the blink of an eye after the birds had left. He had established point, and daddy had flushed and flushed and got nothing up. Went back to tap him on the head and send him on, but the dog would not move. So daddy goes out there and flushes again. Nothing gets up. He goes back and taps Highway Man on the head again, and this time the dog just turns his head from one side to the other, just kind of plants his head there, like. And daddy walks in front and out comes a covey of birds. And when those birds came up, everybody in the gallery went to clapping and throwing up their hats! And Mr. Bryan said it was the only time in his memory that a dog was applauded at the National Championship.”

Highway Man sired a number of good prospects in the 60s, and Bill had high hopes for two in particular: Highway Man, Jr. and Hi Man. Both died early, as first and second year dogs. It was not uncommon in that era to lose dogs at a fairly young age in spite of conscientious caretaking, and the Rayls suffered their fair share of casualties. “A lot of the old-timers will tell you, we went through a period there in the 60s and 70s where we lost several good dogs that probably would have eventually been great dogs. And we don’t really know why.”

The aforementioned Endurance had come into his own during this period with a number of major circuit all-age wins and was effectively crossed with a variety of bloodlines to produce some 50-odd field trial winners. The mating of Endurance with Miss Holmes of Riggins White Knight and Gunsmoke lineage proved particularly favorable, for it produced one of modern pointerdom’s most influential progenitors.

Evolution was whelped January 21, 1972. The Field Dog Stud Book registry shows A. E. And W. F. Rayl to be the breeders. Owned by Tennessee patron T. Jack Robinson, campaigned by the Rayls to a half-dozen titles in a career that was blindsided by speargrass complications, the prepotent “Hack” nicked successfully with 110 different dams to sire a total of 268 winners accounting for some 1,500 placements. He died March 9, 1985 at the age of 13, and was inducted into the Field Trial Hall of Fame in 1987.

HOF Ch. Evolution

A later breeding of Endurance with Miss Holmes yielded shooting dog celebrity Ch. Little Diamond, developed and handled by Eddie Rayl for owner Dr. L. G. Thompson of Vidalia, Georgia. Little Diamond was accorded the Hall of Fame scroll in 1983.

The mating of Highway Man progeny Builder’s Risk with Bearwallow Babe in the spring of 1973 was also a portentous one, for it produced the great pointer, Builder’s Addition, and established a nick that would result in more than a dozen winners, including the highly acclaimed Builder’s Free Boy. Dewey Mullins of Berea, Kentucky was the breeder of record; Bill Ball of Danville, Kentucky was the original owner.

Ch. Builder’s Free Boy

Ball sent “Boy” to Canada with Bill and Freddie Rayl with instructions to develop him as a derby. “He was a young derby, and he was not broke all that well when we came home,” Rayl says. The dog performed respectably that season, however, and they took him north again the next year. We had Chicago Fire, Builder’s Addition and Strongman. I worked Chicago Fire, and whenever Chicago Fire got distemper and died up there that summer, daddy said ‘You take ol’ Boy and work him now.’”

By the time Freddie and Boy won the International Pheasant Championship that fall, the pressures of campaigning both Builder’s Risk and Builder’s Addition were beginning to wear on Ball, and the decision was made to sell Boy.

A deal was struck at the Florida Championship in December that precluded leaving Builder’s Addition with the Rayls. Bill was not prepared to lose the dog.

HOF 1980 National Ch. Builder’s Addition

“Well, I’ll just write you a check for ol’ Boy,” he offered. Ball named his price and agreed. “Ted Baker and T. Jack Robinson were there at the trial,” Rayl says, “And daddy talked to them, and they bought ol’ Boy in partnership and kept him in daddy’s string.”

Many considered Builder’s Addition to be Freddie’s dog — he was responsible in large part for his development, had worked him and handled him to most of his wins. But when the time came to make a bid for the National Championship, the young handler deferred to the veteran and stepped into the scouting irons. “I had a thing with myself that I’d never run a dog in the National Championship unless daddy had won it first. And I didn’t.” Builder’s Addition had made a strong showing at Grand Junction in 1979 with Bill and Freddie helping each other. He came back the next year and won.

A consistent performer, Boy amassed nine titles in the course of his relatively brief career, earning four championships and five runner-up wins. The 1980 National Championship was his swan song. He died a few months later.

An abscess thought to be a grass infection had appeared in his side during the spring, and he was placed in the care of eminent Miami veterinarian, Dr. R. P. Knowles. By August, his condition was deemed sufficiently improved that he was sent on to the Rayls in Canada.

“Boy was not a dog that would ever quit. The only time I ever saw him attempt not to want to go, and he went even then, was up in Canada that last year. He had cancer, but at the time we didn’t know it.” Boy had appeared to be holding up well in the roading harness, but he labored during a workout in preparation for the Saskatchewan Open. Something was seriously wrong. In Winnipeg, he was diagnosed with a ruptured spleen, then spots were found on his lungs. They shipped him back to Miami, where Knowles removed the growths, but seven-year-old Builder’s Addition survived surgery by only a few hours.

Strongman, owned by D. C. Moses of Illinois, was another dog out of Rayl Kennels that would leave an impression on the pointer world in his own right as a champion and as the sire of Hall of Fame bird dog, Fiddler. Bill had done most of the groundwork with Strongman before passing him on to Freddie in Canada, but the dog was still a pretty good handful. “That was really a hard summer,” Rayl laughs, looking back. “Because I mean, that son of a gun was just knocking birds all summer long!” But Freddie met the challenge, and he won his first championship that season with Strongman.

Ch. Strongman

“Strongman was a beautiful dog on point,” Rayl says. “He was a tough dog to break on his birds, but he was consistent, and he was a dog that would not run off. He was an exceptionally strong bird dog.” With his uncanny eye for matchmaking, Bill Rayl paired the pointer with a prepotent Endurance female called Blythe Ferry Flack. Fiddler was one of ten pups in the resulting litter, whelped June 16, 1976.

In Canada, Fiddler and a littermate quickly distinguished themselves as the most progressive members of the puppy set. Turned out of the pen each evening to run the big fields around camp, they soon began to seek broader horizons. “Our closest neighbor was a mile and three quarters away,” Rayl recalls. “And Fiddler and his brother got to wandering further and further until they got down to the neighbor’s yard and got in the chicken pen. Of course, you know the rest of that story! So we couldn’t turn him out any more.”

On the way home in the fall, they stopped in Solon Springs for the United States Chicken Championship. “Dan Bonaguidi wanted to know if we had any puppies by Strongman for sale,” Rayl says. “Daddy told him, ‘Yeah, we got two over there, but I want to sell ‘em to somebody that will leave ‘em with us.’ Dan said he would campaign one with us, and daddy said ‘Well, if you want one of ‘em I’ll let you have one for $500.”

“Dan was such a good man. He was a lot of fun. He liked to kind of stir things up in a fun way, and keep things going. So he slipped around for a day or two, and he asked Joe Bush, who worked for us then, ‘Which one of those pups is the best?’ and Joe said, ‘I kind of b’lieve the black and white one’s the best.’

Then he’d slip over and ask me, ‘Which one do you like best?” and I said I thought that black and white puppy was a lot better puppy. And he slipped around and got daddy. ‘Which one of those puppies do you think is the best?’ He’d go back and forth, and he got the same story pretty much out of everybody, so he bought Fiddler.”

Bonaguidi ran the pup on his farm near Monticello, Wisconsin for a few months before returning him to the Rayls to begin his formal schooling. He was a quick study, an easy dog to break, says Rayl. “But he would always want to run off on you if he didn’t find birds.” Rayl attributes that tendency to the summer of the chicken coop. “I always said that was the reason Fiddler would run off as bad as he did. I really do think that taught him, whenever we turned him loose, he had to go in there a mile and three quarters.”

Freddie had the primary responsibility for developing the dog and handling him in trials, but Bill and scout Joe Bush were never too far away. “I broke Fiddler, and I worked that whole line,” Rayl says. “The Fiddler dogs were my dogs to work, but daddy would help me, and I helped him with Evolution and all them. That’s how we did.”

HOF Ch. Fiddler

The list of Fiddler’s victories is not extensive, but his crown is embellished with some singular jewels. His two runner-up wins were gained in the spring of ‘78 at the Continental Derby and National Derby Championships. He won the International Pheasant Championship in the fall of ‘79 and performed so convincingly over the three-day span of the Quail Championship Invitational in 1980 that judges John O’Neall, Jr. and Barry Saunders did not name a runner-up.

“He was leading by far the first day,” Rayl tells me when I press him for details. “The judges told me how much they liked him, and to go out there on the second day and just try to have a good, even day. So we turned him a-loose, and you know that son of a gun had that knack where, if you didn’t find birds with him pretty quick, he’d line out and take off on you.” True to form, he took off. Rayl had outlined a contingency plan for just such an occasion with scout Joe Bush.

“I just knew he was gone. Then, here comes Joe, riding pretty fast out through there. I looked behind him and there come Ol’ Pete.” They caught the front in the final moments, and Rayl sent the dog around one big field, then another. “Up on a rise, I saw him when he hit the birds. He smelled the birds and kind of roaded up there and locked down. I called point on him and went out there and flushed the birds.”

“You’ve got a minute and a half,” John O’Neall told him. “You can do whatever you want to, but my advice is, if it was me I believe I’d just sit there and towel him off until time’s up.”

“So that’s what I did,” Rayl says. “And then we went out there the third day and had eight finds. And he did an awful good job all three days.”

It was as a producer that Fiddler made his strongest contribution to pointerdom and to the field trial sport. As noted at his induction into the Field Trial Hall of Fame in 1998, he sired 122 winners representing nearly 800 wins. Most illustrious of his offspring was Ch. Fiddler’s Pride, whelped February 9, 1979. Rosemary Warnicke of Booneville, Mississippi was the breeder.

HOF Ch. Fiddler's Pride

‘Ol’ Joe’ found his way to the Rayls by way of Dan Bonaguidi, who had been impressed on first sight with the pup’s inherent qualities. “As usual, Dan was right,” says Rayl, who adds that Fiddler’s Pride possessed the most natural front-running and bird-finding abilities that he had ever seen.

Fiddler’s Pride won the Continental Derby Championship in 1981, and went on to prove his excellence repeatedly over the eight-year period that defined his competitive career, garnering a total of 24 placements that include eight major titles and six runner-up wins. He sired 84 winners, among them champions Fiddler’s Pride’s Iris and Melrose Buck. He died in 1992 and was honored by election to the Field Trial Hall of Fame in 1993, the first year of his eligibility.

The period from the ‘70s through the early ‘80s was truly a heyday for Rayl Kennels. “And it was all a tribute to daddy’s breeding program,” Rayl emphasizes. “Although he was not the breeder of record of all those dogs, he was the instigator behind all the breeding. And he kept us filled for years and years with good prospects, good derby prospects, good puppy prospects.”

Evolution, Builder’s Addition, Fiddler and their ilk would make “Rayl” a household word among fans of great pointing dogs. In 1979, a brilliant son of Evolution by the name of Arrival won the National Open Shooting Dog Championship at the hands of Eddie Rayl. And in 1981-82, yet another star was poised on the horizon in the form of his littermate, Heritage’s Premonition.

Johnny Robinson of Jacksonville, Florida had bred the litter, having acquired his good matron Pete’s Stylish Judy explicitly for the purpose of crossing her with Evolution. It was a good nick, and Robinson did a lot of winning with the pups on the southeastern juvenile circuit. “Then Johnny told daddy he was going to sell the puppies, and it was Heritage’s Premonition (formerly campaigned under the moniker, Robin’s Nest Sierra), Arrival, and another dog called Administrator which Eddie always said was the best of the bunch, but you never could keep him broke.” Bill fingered Heritage’s Premonition as the most promising all-age prospect and sold him as a derby to Jim and Judy Cohen of Berea, Kentucky.

1982 National Ch. Heritage’s Premonition

“Daddy pretty much broke him when he was a derby up there in Canada and Joe Bush fooled with him too,” Rayl says. He was but one of a coterie of outstanding prospects being worked at the time. “I was working Premonition and I won some derby stakes with him. But there were a lot of good derbies in camp that year, nine altogether. We had a setter derby called Chief Moon Mountain, we had Glenwood that daddy had gotten out of Johnny Robinson’s litter as a stud fee puppy, we had Heritage’s Premonition. And Eddie had Arrival as a derby at that time on the shooting dog circuit.”

A period ensued during which Cohen tested the dog with other top handlers, but it was not until he rejoined the Rayls’s program that Heritage’s Premonition began to hit the mark in earnest, winning the Dominion Chicken Championship and getting the runner-up nod at the All-America with Freddie up front. Winning the Alabama Open the following January qualified him for the National, and the Rayls took him down to Martin Davis’s grounds at Reinzi, Mississippi south of Grand Junction to prepare for the stake.

“Big was not a dog that would work real good,” Rayl says. “You’d see him in a workout, and you’d about swear he’d never …well, he’d go to this bush and that one, just not really do what he was supposed to do.” But when they turned him loose at a trial, he gave in spades and acquitted himself with distinction. He won the National his first time out, an achievement not many can claim.

He ran on the first Thursday afternoon. Bill Rayl was the scout. “There was a little bush on the edge up there and Ol’ Big was pointing on one side of the bush. Rex’s Cherokee Jake was coming from the other side, running down the edge, and when he got to the bush he stopped. He never did see my dog.” Rayl had seen a covey come out, and it was his opinion that the bracemate had stopped to flush. The write-up designated a back. “But when the judges got there, they hadn’t seen the birds. I told them what happened, and we went on and he had five more finds after that.”

“Ol’ Big was a pretty good handling dog anyways, but I had a certain call that I could call on him and spin him around on a dime.” Near the end of the race, the dog had cast widely down an edge to the left. As Rayl sat watching him go, he became aware of the crowd’s growing elation. “You know how slow they usually go at the National,” he says. “Well, they were all riding right up there with me,” he says, “The judges, the gallery. Everybody was really excited.” Showtime! Rayl squalled and the dog whirled in his tracks.

“He came on back and we went up there alongside the barn at the end of the course and I stopped him. And here comes Mr. Joe Hurdle, cantering up on his horse. He said, ‘Now, I want to see him go around the edge of this field.’”

“I told him, ‘Well, now, Mr. Hurdle, I don’t believe that’ll be no problem!’ And I sent him around and he was just a-whistlin’, he went right on around. And they said ‘Pick him up!’”

Just as they had stood in the limelight together in 1980 with Builder’s Addition, father and son accepted the laurels side-by-side for Heritage’s Premonition in 1982. In hindsight, it was a poignant moment. A timebomb was ticking, and its repercussions would be felt all too soon.

Bill was plagued by a series of heart attacks in Canada the next summer. “We thought we were going to lose him then,” Rayl says, and after more than twenty years his voice still cracks as he describes the ordeal. “They kept him in the hospital there at Winnipeg for about three weeks. When he finally started getting a little bit better, Jack Robinson sent his plane and picked him up, and flew him back to Georgia.”

At 56, Bill was still a young man, and for a while it looked as if he might fight his way back to good health. But his heart was giving out, inch by inch, and he was in and out of the hospital all winter. Bypass surgery was performed in February, but it did not improve things much.

“I was going to the Kentucky Championship, which was in March,” Rayl says. “I had some people coming over to the house, looking to buy a puppy that morning, and I needed to leave. So daddy said, ‘Well, I’ll show them those puppies.’ Of course, he was still recovering from surgery then.”

Bill showed the pups, but the physical effort tired him out and he complained of not feeling well. He excused himself and went to the house to lie down on the couch. “And when he laid down there, he just had a stroke.” Rayl says.

Rushed by ambulance to the hospital at Thomasville, Bill was now desperately ill. Freddie was met with the news upon his arrival at the Kentucky grounds, and caught the next plane home. “When I got there, they had done a brain scan on him and the doctor told us there was just no hope. Daddy died on his birthday, March 20, 1983. He was 57 years old.”

“There is one thing that I’m so grateful for,” Rayl stresses, “and it’s another thing about this sport that I dearly love. My dad and I shared a common bond and worked together and not many kids have been able to do that. I worked for my dad from the time I graduated high school in 1971 until he died, and that twelve years was probably the happiest times I’ve ever had in my life.”

Left to right: Joe Bush with Fiddler, Fred Rayl with Builder’s Free Boy, Bill Rayl with Heritage's Premonition, T. Jack Robinson with Evolution.

Bill left an enduring legacy, both through the great dogs he bred, developed and handled, and in the people he inspired. His contributions to the field trial sport were many and varied. He was elected to the Field Trial Hall of Fame in 1984.

Eddie Rayl eventually gave up the dog training life and went into the truck driving business, but Freddie has carried on the family tradition with a strong sense of purpose and pride. Except for a couple of off-season jobs to bring in extra cash, it’s all he’s ever done and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He keeps a couple of litters of puppies going. He has a good string of all-age performers and some promising young candidates coming on. He’s high on a talented first-year dog called Tom Pace. “We didn’t win any derby championships with him,” he admits with typical candor. “He’s a tough kind of dog, and he got kind of hard-headed with me last year.” But he’s got what it takes to win, Freddie thinks, and he’s aiming for the top.

“When daddy was alive and we were doing it, of course we had help. Back then you could get help for $20, $25 a week, and there was no big deal about all the things you have to worry about now, things like getting sued, or withholdings to the government. Daddy always had a big crew working for him, six or seven people pretty well all the time.”

Things have changed since Bill Rayl’s day, but though it may be harder to hammer out a living as a professional trainer, Freddie says the intangible, day-to-day rewards are what make it worthwhile. Like Bill, he sticks mostly to working and training dogs he has bred and raised himself. It’s where he finds his greatest satisfaction.

“Like these little puppies out here right now,” he says. “If I can work one of those puppies and fool with him all this year, then take him up to the prairie next summer and work him and see him develop, if I can watch him going down through there doing the thing that he’s supposed to do, tail cracking and slamming into point on a covey of birds, and then when he lets me go in there and flush those birds…I’ll tell you what! There’s just nothing in the world to me like that. I don’t believe the most powerful stuff in the world could give me any kind of high like that does.”

And that’s the payoff. Winning is great, Rayl concedes, and notes that, financially, a dog trainer has got to win to succeed. “But I get so excited watching a young dog work like that,” he says. “Or even an old dog. Even with Fiddler’s Pride when he got to be nine or ten, there was always people coming to the place saying ‘We want to see Ol’ Joe run!’ And we’d turn him a-loose and he’d go down through there doing his thing, and it’d just put your heart up in your mouth. And unless you love a bird dog, you won’t know what I’m talking about.”

Rayl tells a story about a time they worked dogs on Cherokee Plantation. “We averaged finding a covey of birds every four minutes,” he says. “That evening we were sitting around talking and they asked daddy, said, ‘Mr. Bill, what do you think of our place here?’ And daddy kind of set back in the chair and looked at them and said, ‘Well, about all I can tell you is, if I was down here working on this place they could just build a conveyor belt and I’d stay out there and work dogs, and whenever I got one broke I’d send him back in and they could send me another one out.’ And that was a man that did love what he was doing!”

Economic considerations, shortage of available grounds, liability issues, animal rights activists and a host of other obstacles challenge the life and integrity of our field trial heritage. Rayl is hopeful but realistic about the future of the sport. “I believe it will endure because it will evolve,” he says. “I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom yet. I think we will probably see some rougher times in the next few years, and it’s just my opinion but I think we’re going to all have to get together and sit down and say, ‘If we’re going to make it better, we’re going to have to start doing something.’ We need to try to get some rules and regulations going, things to help the trainers. But that’s a whole other book!”

Rayl encourages young trainers trying to break into the business, but he does not sugar-coat his advice. “It’s a tough life right now with the economy the way it’s been the last few years. And you need so much in the way of equipment and grounds. Unless you have somebody backing you, just to jump in cold would be an awful tough way to go.” His suggestion to would-be pros is to hang onto your paycheck and benefits for a while. Start out working a couple of gun dogs or amateur dogs, go to the weekend trials and build up a clientele. “Like any other business, start out small and just take it a day at a time.”

“Because there is one thing about bird dogs and field trials that will take the place of money or anything. Of course, I know that it won’t feed the kids, or send ‘em to college, and it won’t make the wife real happy. But if you will stick with it, it is the best sport. To be a dog trainer, and go out there and make your own dogs, doing everything like that, I’ve been at it for 33 years and I can look back on it and say it’s been one heck of a wonderful life.”

Barbara Teare’s interview first appeared in the 2004 Winter edition of Field Trial Magazine.

Barbara Teare, reporting the 2011 Alabama Shooting Dog Championship, Union Springs, AL. We are proud to add Barbara to our list of Contributors. Her bio is available on the Contributors page.

Photos courtesy Field Trial Magazine and The American Field Publishing.

Maine & New Brunswick Field Trials ~ A Perspective

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:48:33 -0700

Last July I visited my friend and longtime amateur field trialer, Dr. Warren Sims at his home in northern Maine on the Canadian border. We talked about how the clubs and trials in Maine and New Brunswick have changed over the many years that Warren competed with his dogs.

SA_Podcast4_WarrenSims.mp3

Standing: Frank Pride, Warren Sims, Walter Young. Kneeling: Davis Cox, Alan Moyer, Larry Mahar. Date unknown.

The Midcoast Maine Field Trial Club hosted Northeastern Grouse and Woodcock Championship which began September 23rd following this interview was well attended by amateurs. Of the 27 entries, 14 dogs were handled by 9 amateurs, 13 by 3 professionals. This is not a big entry for this championship which in past years boasted of as many as 60 to 70 dogs. However given that trials and several championships in the northeast have experienced particularly low numbers of participants in the last few years, it is a hopeful sign. The championship was judged by a well-respected amateur and by a local professional handler who kindly gave of his time and expertise in lieu of entering his own string of dogs.

The Midcoast Maine FT Club, of which I am a member, is to be commended for its efforts over the past years to attract new field trialers. The club’s spring trial boasts a Gun Dog stake so popular, the number of entries rival the regular stakes. The Gun Dog stake is non sanctioned and open to any person with any kind of pointing dog. It is run on Sunday morning, the second day of the trial, with club members and trial participants in attendance giving encouragement and tips to the newcomers. A revolving trophy goes to the winner.

The Maine Bird Dog Club was established in March 1972. Last published in 1992 the club’s 24 page booklet covering their bylaws, operating procedures etc., reads in Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution:

This organization is established for the purpose of improving pointing bird dogs, particularly by holding field trials to test the qualities of the dogs competing. Other objects are the promotion of good fellowship among sportsmen, a greater refinement in the use of dog and gun, and to increase interest in the conservation and propagation of game birds.

Further along...

The Northern New England Woodcock Championship was established to show-case the premier competitors of grouse and woodcock coverts. These competitors are expected to be fleet of foot, bold in application and animated in motion as they pattern their race to the fore. Their pointing style should be intense and pleasing and these dogs should back willingly if the opportunity is presented. The tightness of some coverts are such that dogs may not be aware of another dog’s pointing stance; therefore judges are discouraged from asking handlers to bring dogs in for a back and to be cautious when charging a dog with failure to back. A champion will finish its race with a reserve of energy.
Extreme range is a deterrent to the desired forward responsive race that marks the true champion. Indeed, the sine qua non of the winning performances by grouse and woodcock competitors is handling response. While extreme range is undesirable, it must also be noted that close handling, patterning dogs are not the desired standard.

(What constitutes “extreme range” has always been somewhat open to interpretation. What is extreme to one handler or judge may not be to others. “Handling response” is, however, much less open to interpretation and is, by knowledgeable field trial judges, a requirement of any worthy field trial performance.)

Southhill Molly

Pat LaBree with unidentified English setter. Date unknown.
Reports from Maine Bird Dog Club trials from 1976 and 1979:
1976MBDCTrialReport.pdf
1979MBDCTrialReport.pdf
Reports courtesy of the American Field Publishing, Inc.

First Preview: New Strideaway Website!

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:58:17 -0700

The new Strideaway website will feature more field trial photos, ease of navigation, a robust search engine to find archived articles, rich fast-loading photo galleries, links to popular social media, more unique store items...and much much more. And we’ll be offering great new advertising opportunities for our sponsors.

We welcome your thoughts, ideas and photos of field trial grounds and are looking for more regular contributors to continue to make Strideaway a rich resource for all field trialers.

Please contact us if you would like to help.

This year we are planning to present many more podcast interviews with trainers, handlers, judges and other field trial and bird dog enthusiasts around the country.

Stay tuned for more information!

Luther Smith

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:24:17 -0700

...Seldom does man achieve phenomenal success in the profession to which he has devoted more than half a century and still retain the candor, simplicity, and unpretentious modesty inherited from his forbears yet such a man was Luther Smith, dean of bird dog trainers—quail dogs, prairie chicken dogs, pheasant dogs, grouse dogs. He won championships from the sedge fields of Georgia and the Carolinas to the vast prairies of Saskatchewan, from the grouse coverts of New England and Pennsylvania through the pheasant areas of Buffalo and Baldwinsville to the pine woods of Michigan—truly an achievement seldom if ever accomplished by one man.

Born in Ripley, Miss., 78 years ago, Luther acquired his first bird dog at the age of twelve and thereby was generated by a love which activated the brilliant contributions which he made to the world of bird dogs and field trials. Perhaps his greatest achievement was acquired with the pointer Schoolfield, with which he won the All-America Prairie Chicken Championship, the All-America Quail Championship, and the National Pheasant Championship.

When World War II came along Luther interrupted his successful professional career to enter the K-9 Corps but his concepts of dog training were somewhat at variance with those of the military and he was subsequently transferred to the Burma Theater where, as the oldest doughboy in his outfit, he fought the jungles for seventeen months under the command of General Stilwell. Following an unexpected contact with some shrapnel and a precipitous dive into a foxhole, he spent several months in a hospital. When mustered out, Luther was told never to ride a horse again—truly unacceptable advice for a major circuit handler. However, fortunately for the grouse trial fraternity, he was discharged in Michigan and was persuaded by several men in that area to remain there and train grouse dogs, and what a career this handler of quail, pheasant and prairie chicken dogs carved for himself in the grouse woods! Winner of the Grand National Grouse Championship five times, the Grouse Futurity seven times with a total of 26-27 dogs placed in this stake, the Pennsylvania Grouse Championship and the Lake States Grouse Championship several times, the Grand National Puppy Classic and the Venango Grouse Puppy Classic more often that one can remember—truly a phenomenal record for a former big circuit handler.

Handler Luther Smith and Orchard Valley Melody. Standing: Mrs. Luther Smith, Mr. & Mrs. R. P. Habgood Jr., owners of Melody, winner of the 1963 Grand National Grouse Championship.

Luther was never loquacious, never known to speak ill of any individual or his dogs. No one ever knew exactly what he said to his own pointers and setters but he could “talk” them around a tight course in the grouse woods and come out with a National Champion which he did many times.

...Enshrined forever in the Hall of Fame (1970), his contributions to the sport of field trials will live for future generations to admire and revere. Luther Smith, “a better man,” has passed to his just reward. Peace be with him.

July 17, 1976 issue of the American Field

Read Bill Allen’s great report from the 1965 Pennsylvania Grouse Championship: 1965PAGrouseChampionship.pdf

Read Dr. Tom Flanagan’s Tribute to Luther Smith published in 1976: LutherSmith_DrTomFlanagan.pdf

Courtesy the American Field Publishing

Merry Christmas from Strideaway!

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 07:41:01 -0700

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our field trial and bird dog friends! Thanks to the continued support of our contributors, advertisers, and readers. 2012 brings our new website...design to be unveiled in the coming weeks!

Field Trial Judging

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:37:51 -0700

Editor’s (Karoleigh Nitchman) Note. Dr. Alvin H. Nitchman of Hurtsboro, Ala., has successfully competed in field trials since he joined the English Setter Club at age sixteen in 1930. Several multiple champions have carried the Nitchman colors during the past fifty years, notably among them Ch. Pantagleize, Smart, Melita and Pork Roll. He is still an active breeder, amateur trainer and handler. Dr. Nitchman was elected to the Field Trial Hall of Fame in 1980.

K: To begin, how about telling me what you think to be the single most important thing a judge should do.

A: Keep his eyes open.

K: You mean on the dog?
A: Yes, there are too many people judging who look down at the ground, or if they are talking to somebody, they turn and look at that person. A man has to learn, if he is going to judge, to keep his eyes on the dog and to continue to keep his eyes on the dog even though he may be talking to someone.

K: What are the judges’ other responsibilities and what are the club officials responsible as far as running rules are concerned?
A: Well, in my opinion, the club can make any rules or qualifications, standards, it wants. I think that’s a good thing—that a club should have a standard.

K: And so the club instructs these judges as to what they should be looking for?
A: Yes, and it’s the club’s (officials) responsibility to acquaint the judges with the standard that they would like to have the dogs judged by. Now, if a judge doesn’t care to judge under that standard, he should refuse the assignment. Once a judge told me, “I heard the standard but I have my own standard.” Then he should not have accepted the judging assignment or he should have announced the standard he intended to judge by.

K: For the sake of the poor handlers out there trying to win the dog trial by having their dogs adhere to it?
A: Right. If they read that standard and the club professes to be looking for a dog to fit that standard, then the judge should, to the best of his ability, try to adhere to it.

K: What about the question of running in the rain or other foul weather—whose decision is it?
A: The ultimate responsibility would belong to the judges, but it could certainly be shared with the club officials to decide if conditions are not favorable enough to give each entry his fair shot at winning. Too many times they’ll just run on to get the trial over with and the dog doesn’t have a fair chance and is running under conditions that a dog couldn’t possibly win under.

K: Give me your famous quote about that—hurrying up the trial.
A: Well, it’s true. I always say if you came to go home, you should have stayed there.

K: I’ve often heard you complain about dogs not being given the same chance as others.
A: As far as possible, each dog should be given the same opportunity to win. One time I was at a trial and I was to run a dog in the first brace. Well, in order to get the trial over with that day, instead of running a single brace the next morning, the club officials wanted me to put down my dog at 7:00 a.m. rather than 8:00, the time they had been starting. There was frost on the ground at 7:00 and the sun was just up. I told them that I understood that they wanted to get the trail over and I didn’t want any special favors, but I did want the same chance as everybody else had. When I explained how I felt, they agreed with me. More than anyone else, the judge has to see that everyone gets his chance, but often, it’s the judge who wants to go home.

K: So if they’ve been running seven braces a day and one day the club officials say, “today we’re going to squeeze in nine,” it’s the judges who should say no?
A: Right. The judge has the final say.

K: Okay, well what about the pace of the trial—what does the judge have to say about it?
A: The judge sets the pace and if the pace is too fast, it’s the judge’s fault and nobody else’s. If the handler wants to be a mile in front of the gallery, the judge should send a marshal to tell the handler to slow down. Many men say, “Well, if we just don’t follow him, he’ll get the idea,” but that’s wrong. There are two handlers and that front belongs to both of them. So if the judge just doesn’t follow and one handler rides way out, the handler has to as well, whether he wants to or not, and that’s not giving him a fair chance to show his dog the way he would like. If the judge just sits back and refuses to follow, he penalizes both dogs instead of just the one the handler is pushing.

I think the handlers today ride too far to the front. The handler comes out and maybe he only rides the braces in which he runs a dog. He races up on a little hill or rise and he’s a half mile to the front, and he sits up there and points his dog out. Well, he can’t be so foolish as to think that the judge who is riding eight or nine hours every day is going to gallop his horse to the top of that hill.

K: Do you think a lot of the problem with judges knowing or not knowing when to decide a thing like that is they are unsure of exactly what their responsibilities are?
A: True. But very seldom is a judge going to say anything to anybody because he doesn’t want to make anyone mad. Usually he just goes along at whatever pace the handlers set, galloping his horse when the man points his dog out, taking the easy way out. Now I think that when a dog points, the judge should hurry and get there in a reasonable length of time, particularly in a pheasant trial where the pheasant is not going to stay put. But I think it’s foolish to gallop to a stand. The dog is suppose to be broke.

K: So far, from what you’ve said, the judge’s real job is to see that everyone gets an equal opportunity to show his dog. What about the lost dog? The handler you’re braced with has lost his and is bellowing around the country trying to get him back.
A: Yes, well in field trials we don’t have many rules, but I think when a handler leaves the gallery, he should keep his mouth shut. When he gets way off to the side and continues to make a lot of noise, he’s got a good chance of taking my dog with him. That’s interfering with your bracemate—like riding off and taking your bracemate’s dog. Most handlers will stop and let you call your dog (mainly because that’s the way they want to be treated).

K: On the subject of interference, what about judges ordering dogs up?
A: The only time a judge can order a dog up is if that dog is interfering with his bracemate—and interference means trailing, fighting, flushing and chasing birds, refusing to back—in these cases, the dog should be ordered up. If a dog makes a mistake, many times a judge will say, “Well, you can go on and run him, but he’s out of consideration.” That’s not right. If the dog refused to back or chased, he should go on the rope right then. If you see him refuse to back, he’s not going to back when you’re not there and so, if you let him run on, you’re eliminating his bracemate’s chances to have a point honored and that could cost him the trial.

K: How about a judge coming and saying to you, “You’ve been down for forty minutes and we don’t like your dog and we’re not going to consider him. You can run him if you want to, but you may as well take him up.”
A: Well, that’s up to the handler. If the dog doesn’t please the judge and he doesn’t intend to place him, that’s it for the dog.

K: But he can run his dog on. He paid his money; doesn’t he have the right to be out there for his full time if he’s not interfering with his bracemate?
A: He has every right to run his dog the full time. George Hardin, when he was marshalling or judging, and knew the judges didn’t like a dog, would say “Course to the right, dog truck to the left.” Many people think that just because they are judges, they have the right to order a dog up just because they don’t like him. They do not.

K: Is that in the rule book?
A: According to Bill Brown, interference with a bracemate is the only reason for which a dog can be ordered up.

K: When a judge is judging a field trial, what do you think he should be looking for? Should he have in his mind a picture of the ideal performance and judge according to that?
A: Of course every judge has an ideal that he is trying to attain when he judges a field trial, but that doesn’t mean he is always going to attain that ideal. If, as a judge, you think you have dogs that are adequate but there are other dogs who might possibly do the job if you gave them another chance, run a second series. You can call back dogs you think can win if, in your opinion, it will improve the quality of the stake.

K: What about withholding a title?
A: In my opinion, if you have an adequate number of dogs, a representative entry, the dog that wins should win the title. I don’t think a judge should withhold a championship title unless there aren’t many dogs in the stake or unless they’ve run dogs a second time and have nothing at all. Dogs can’t help it if the conditions are poor.

K: There are so many championships now. It’s not as if there were only ten championships in the whole country and the judge withheld the title because no dog seemed of high enough caliber. Okay, the judge knows basically the kind of dog he’s looking for. How close a watch should he keep on the handler?
A: The judge is being shown the dog. I think a judge should ride at a reasonable pace and in a reasonable place but I see judges who ride in the horsetracks where a course is laid out and don’t deviate at all. The judges should take advantage of the terrain, ride up on a hill to look so that he can see what the dog is doing, but I don’t think he should follow the handler all the time. He should just try to be in a place where he can see what’s going on.

K: You have often stressed that it’s the handler’s job to show the judge his dog. How about assumptions? Suppose a judge sees a bird in the air and the dog in the vicinity. Should he assume the dog knocked the bird?
A: One time I was running a dog in the pheasant championship, and a bird flew off, high in the air, right to left. After a while, my dog came in the same direction and the judge said to me, “Do you see what I see?” “Well,” he said “you see the pheasant and you see your dog...” I said that I couldn’t see that the dog had made the pheasant fly just because she happened to be coming in the same direction. She wasn’t under the bird but he assumed she had flushed the bird and was chasing it. He just assumed that and threw her out of the stake.

K: How about if the dog had been gone for a while and someone in the gallery says he saw the dog chase some birds?
A: If the judge didn’t see it, he has to forget it. You can’t judge on assumption.

K: What about if you’re running a dog and you’re ten minutes into the brace and your dog has a find, you flush the birds and your dog gives a jump?
A: That’s a matter of personal preference. Some judges think that’s a terrible mistake and throw the dog out. But the dog could go on and have six perfect finds.

K: How about the other way? The dog had five perfect finds and gives a jump on the sixth one?
A: Home Again Mike the (1960) National Champion had pointed sixteen or eighteen perfect coveys of birds but put the last covey up and chased it. They still named him National Champion. It creates a controversy because most people think he’s out then. But those three judges thought that his entire performance was the best and they didn’t throw out their top dog for one mistake. Some people judge a field trial on the mistakes a dog makes. That’s wrong, they ought to choose a dog on his good qualities, a dog who stands out for many reasons. It’s possible to swallow a small mistake.

K: You’re saying not to throw dogs out to come up with the winner but to pick out the one who pleases you the most—it should be a selection rather than a weeding out. What about the year you and Bob Lindsey named Builder’s Addition the Master’s All-age Champion?
A: Yes, well he had six finds and jumped to shot on one of them but he was the dog we liked. He had it all—ran a great race and pointed his birds just right. It all depends on how the dog makes his mistake too. If, when he’d given his jump, he’d though he’d made a terrible mistake and laid down or rolled over and said his prayers, we couldn’t have used him. But he made a jump and just stood up there like a bull. So that jump didn’t matter to me or the other judge. He was the best dog, Maybe if there had been another dog we liked as much, we may have faulted him for it.

K: I remember there was a handler who gave you a really hard time for that placement.
A: He asked, “Why should we bother to break dogs then?” But what I said to him was that he wasn’t judging. I was. And that was the way I saw it. He’s entitled to his opinion.

K: What about this business of going to the judges after the trial and asking them about the placements?
A: That’s alright. Anybody ought to be able to come to a judge and ask, as long as he asks in the proper way and isn’t abusive. You can discuss the stake then.

K: What about discussing the trial during the running?
A: No sir. That’s a mistake. While the trial is going on, the judge should keep his own company, not go out drinking with the boys and should keep his mouth shut. I don’t think a judge should discuss the stake with anyone during the course of the trial, except the other judge, not the club official or the reporter.

K: What if a handler ran a good dog and is done running and asks the judge if he should go home or stick around?
A: That’s alright as long as the handler knows that if the judge tells him to stay it just means his dog is under consideration.

K: Everyone complains about judges. How do you get good judges? Should everyone have to judge?
A: When you judge a trial, it certainly changes how you think. Every professional ought to have to judge if only to give him a little different insight on what the job is. He’s used to looking only at his dogs, and then, through rose colored glasses. But when you have to look at everyone else’s and none of your own, you come out with a clearer perspective of the whole game.

Alvin and Karoleigh Nitchman with Champion Elhew Strike
Champion Melita
Champion Smart
Champion Pork Roll
Alvin Nitchman was a knowledgeable dog man and a highly successful amateur field trial competitor. Many of the dogs he bred, and/or trained and won with made an important contribution to the pointer breed including Ch. Smart, Ch. Pork Roll and Ch. Elhew Strike. He died on February 17, 2000.
Photos and Interview courtesy of the American Field Publishing.

The Importance of Females in a Breeding Program

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:10:23 -0700

Last month I sat down with Jerry Kolter of Minnesota's Northwoods Bird Dogs and asked him about his breeding program. Jerry and his wife Betsy have been breeding their line of English setters since 1995. Jerry has had a long successful career in field trials though today he concentrates more on training dogs and breeding setters and pointers for grouse/upland bird hunting and field trialing alike.

Thanks to Jerry for his insight.

Jerry Kolter in 1995 with Minnesota/Wisconsin Shooting Dog of the Year, Ch. Dance Smartly.

Champion Blue Streak, 2004, North Dakota

Click on the link below to listen to the Podcast Interview:

SA_Interview_JerryKolter.mp3

The First Point

nospam@example.com (Strideaway) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:32:45 -0700

One claim I lay to uniqueness in this Life is the way my first sight of a bird dog pointing affected me.

It was existence-changing.

That shock...that frisson of awe...was only matched by one other revelation in my ongoing young life — an open-lipped kiss from my favorite cousin and tennis partner in another autumn.

Here is the scene.

I was eight, just two years in Georgia from a New Jersey apartment building, still stunned and numbed by my parents’ divorce, and I had gravitated to “male-bonding” with my paternal Uncle Pat.

Pat came by the “Big House” to see my grandfather often, and demonstrated his prowess at calling up a Bob White quail during the summer.

This magic was developed in thick shrubbery along the frail wood fence of a five acre fallow pasture. To a youngster from suburban Jersey, the sharp “Bob-White” of a bird in answer to the tremolo invitation of one high note from Pat’s lips gracefully slipping and rising in scale...well it was a hypnotic new experience. And when the Bob White cry came closer and seemed at my feet in a sprawling red leafed bush, it was startling.

My avian familiarity was with sparrows and starlings in East Orange, and Mrs. Goldstein’s nasty old parrot.

So now snoozy summer was gone and Pat arrived with the most magnetic and huggable canine I had ever seen. She was an almost blue tricolor setter with orange mouth markings and two punkin seeds on her eyes. Somehow she put more bite in the fading November afternoon just being there.

“Let’s see if we can find old Bob and the covey he’s been tending for Jenny,” Pat said, repeating a tutorial fact.

“How?” I asked.

“Ol’ Kate’ll do it FOR us...watch...” And he released her over the fence, placed his little .410 on the opposite side and helped me over.

White oak, Spanish oak, tulip poplar and sumac rimmed the pasture’s far corner. There was a clump of heartbreakingly bright crimson-pink-to-orange sassafras scattered around. The setter ran far left, then far right, caught the fenceline and, head raised, began to slow, turned back toward the pasture and then, march...yes...

MARCH to an unseen barrier that defeated her, slammed her to halt in mid step.

She was poised with her off-forefoot bent. Frozen.

I lost my breathing. I believe if I had eaten that afternoon, I might have lost the meal. Racing through my brain here: “What’s the matter? Has she been struck into stone? What IS it?!

Pat had to nearly tackle me to keep me from grabbing and shaking Kate. He did and then bade me sit, and he walked up about nine quail in an exciting disorienting sound that I have never quite gotten “jaded” about.

She stayed while he shot a straggler, which was interesting, and which tasted good on buttered toast points that night...but the dead bird and its flavor faded.

I have been forever after, a Demi-Deity of sorts, reigning over my own paradise and it was all populated by gallant, beautiful dogs with magical gifts of location and locomotion and myriad colors and temperatures and storms and droughts that would never have anything to do with Death, for me.

Already, I was an addicted slave to William F. Brown’s Clarion Call, which I was to hear from his lips 20 years later:

“You can have more fun with a live quail (read “bird”) than with a dead one!!!”

If you’re new to Strideaway and to Bill Allen's wonderful words, check out his “The Unforgettables & Other True Fables” in the Strideaway Store!