The Vizsla Newzsletter (Feb/Mar 98)
"The Starting Point"
As the Grizzled One sees it!
- Chapter 3 -
By Roy Greffin

Photo: Roy and one of his dogs, Penny

"Well Ed," said the Grizzled One, "the old saying that looks can be deceiving apply here. You won' find a harder working dog than this little girl. Its the heart and attitude of the dog that is important. Tanner will go wherever birds are likely to be. She is a good example of what I was saying before about acquiring a pup from a breeder that has the reputation of breeding for breed improvement. Both of Tanner's grandparents were Dual Champions, Amateur field champions, and Master Hunters. Her grandfather was also a Vizsla Club of America National Derby Champion and was the first Vizsla to win the title of National Shoot to Retrieve Champion. Her daddy, Rowdy, well you know all about him. The thing is, she is a bundle of potential."

"How in the world do you get her to be so muscular. She bulges all over. Yet she is so small?" asked Ed.

"Its really a combination of things" replied the Grizzled One. "Its partly genetics, partly a feeding program, and partly physical conditioning. You put all of those together and you have a dog that is in what is called field condition. The thing is, because of her physical condition, Tanner can compensate for her small body size. Fact is, my wife and I rather enjoy having a petite pointer around the house after having these larger dogs. Its kind of nice to sit and watch TV with a belly warmer like Tanner in the lap."

"You mean you let Tanner sit in your lap? Won't coddling like that ruin a hunting dog?" asked Ed.

"Its all a matter of personal philosophy Ed. There is the school of thought that a hunting dog should not be exposed to those kinds of attentions that will possibly soften the hard edges of will, drive and endurance that help to make a good hunting dog . For myself I want, probably if the truth be known, need to have my dogs as companions. Penny over there is as tough a bitch as you will find. At home she has a favorite couch that she sprawls on. Some might say she belongs on the floor or in a kennel. But, she is going on 13 and has no signs of arthritis or rheumatism. She is able to go hunting seven days a week. Its all a matter of perspective."

With the ritual of the putting on of the beeper collar and flash collar over, the trio left the motorhome.

When they reached the same grass field Rowdy had worked, the Grizzled One put Tanner on stay and unclipped the lead from her collar.

"I notice that all your dogs have those wide collars on instead of those slip-chain type. Is there something about the wider collar that you prefer?" asked Ed.

"Well Ed, those choke collars that you are talking about are all right for obedience work on a lead. But in the field, a dog can get hung up in brush with them. There have actually been dogs killed by them in the field. Also, there are times when a handler wants to what we call "collar" his dog. Make the dog leave one area for another by grabbing the dog's collar and physically making the dog move. If you try doing that with a choke collar, you are putting all kinds of stress on the dog's throat. You're choking him. Why punish a dog for being moved from one spot to another?. A dog that is collared is usually being moved to prevent a problem. So why hurt the dog?"

With that the Grizzled One said "get" to Tanner and she became a rusty red blur.

Tanner decided to work along the edge of a woods that bordered the grass field the trio were hunting in. She was working the woods edge about 150 yards in front of the hunters when she suddenly veered into the woods and disappeared. The Grizzled One showed no concern and kept walking .

When a couple of minutes passed Ed asked, "Aren't you worried about Tanner? Shouldn't you be calling her or whistling or something?"

"You know Ed, I have never known a field trained Vizsla to get lost. Oh, they may go rambling now and then but they never get lost. When I was campaigning Penny for field trials, there were many times when during the course of training she would disappear. I would just sit down where I last saw her and wait . In fact, I always carried a paperback book when I trained her or her son King Conan. When they decided they wanted to run they were gone upwards to an hour or more. They always come back to where I am waiting. I never train my dogs to come to whistle. From the time their field training begins, one toot on the whistle means "get" and two toots means turn and head to another objective. If one of my dogs is working out a good distance, yelling is not going to accomplish anything. Except to make me and my dog look stupid because the dog can't hear me yelling. I wait until they swing their head towards me, then I swing my hat in circles in the air and they come right to me. Unless they are working game of course. The whole thing is, Tanner is a polished performer. She will come back when she has satisfied herself about game in the woods. If she comes across game she will lock up on point and wait for us to find her. That is one reason I like to use the beeper collars on my dogs. We'll just keep walking and see what happens. This is called 'trusting your dog'."

The two walked a ways and Ed suddenly exclaimed "Oh my gosh there she is" and pointed at a tiny red dot, which was Tanner's collar, coming towards them. As she came closer Ed said "She has something in her mouth!"

As the small pointer neared them it become apparent that she had a pheasant in her mouth. A very big pheasant. Tanner presented the bird to the Grizzled One, who gave her the coveted "good girl" and the reward pat on the head. "This can be your second bird Ed but I rather Tanner be shot over. I'll slip it in my gamebag and we will see if Tanner produces a shooting bird"

They continued walking in the grass field adjacent to the woods with Tanner making very large quartering loops looking for game. As the woods came to an end, the grass field became continuous on all sides.

A couple of hunters who had been working the edge of the woods on the far side from the Grizzled One and Ed appeared and walked towards them. They were accompanied by a brace of very hefty Black Labs. "Is that your dog?" asked one of them as Tanner swung by.

"Sure is," replied the Grizzled One.

"Well I'll tell you what mister, that little red dog did one of the damndest things I ever saw. My buddy and I were hunting back there a ways in weed cover near the woods and that dog came flying out of the woods and suddenly slammed on point. She stood for maybe half a minute and suddenly the bird flushed but flew only a few feet. It was a cripple. The dog left her point and grabbed the bird and disappeared back in the woods."

"I have the bird right here" said the Grizzled One as he slid the huge cock pheasant out of his gamebag.

"My Gosh!" said one of the hunters. "Does she do this often?"

With a twinkle in his eye the Grizzled One looked over at Ed and said "Well lets see, this is the fourth week of hunting season. Ed, would you say that we have used about 6 shells so far today. You see we are out hunting 2 or 3 days a week and we limit out every time. I guess you could say that Tanner does bring game back to us quite often."

The two hunters looked at each other and just shook their heads and one said "wow!" The whole scenario was implausible but they had witnessed the actualities and had to accept that.

When the two were beyond earshot the Grizzled One guffawed and stated "and that is how legends begin."

Ed giggled and said "If I hadn't of seen this whole thing I would never have believed it."

Tanner's beeper began to send out the drawn out locator signal that meant she had stopped moving. In Tanner's case, this usually meant she was standing on game. Remembering the Grizzled One's admonition about taking it easy when Rowdy was standing on a bird earlier, Ed followed the other hunter's unhurried gait toward the beeper sound. The cover was prairie grass and was not much more than a couple of feet high. The beeper sounds came from the downwind side of a dense thicket and there is where they found Tanner standing on point.

"Now that Ed is what we call intensity in a bird dog" said the Grizzled One as he surveyed the situation. The little pointer was standing, absolutely rigid, virtually every surface muscle on her body standing out in relief as her nose drank in huge waifs of the rich odor of pheasant.

"All right Ed we are going to have to work for this one" said the Grizzled One as he motioned for Ed to take up a position that would give him a field of fire in all directions. The Grizzled One did a quick 360 degree check to make sure no hunters would be in line of fire. Then proceeded to explain to Ed how they would handle the situation.

"The pheasant is dug in deep in this thicket. As the breeze is blowing straight into Tanner's face, I am assuming the bird is positioned directly to her front. I am going to enter the thicket from Tanner's left front and push my way through the brush angling towards her right front. That will hopefully flush the bird in that direction and prevent the bird from flushing into her face. A young dog does not need that kind of stress."

Cautioning Tanner with a "stay" command, the Grizzled One entered the thicket and quickly pushed his way in the direction he had described. The density of the thicket prevented him from keeping eye contact with Tanner. So as he bulldozed his way he crooned his "easy-east-easy" sing-song to Tanner that let her know where he was. As he neared the edge of the thicket he saw a movement of color in the vegetation in front of him and he alerted Ed that the bird was probably going to flush. Just then it did. With the "wrump" from Ed's shotgun the cock pheasant folded and dropped. The Grizzled One worked his way out of the thicket and strode to where Tanner was standing, tapped her on the head and told her to fetch. The little pointer moved quickly towards where the pheasant had dropped when all of a sudden a huge cock pheasant flushed off to her side. Whereupon she slammed to a halt and froze. The Grizzled One's 410 side by side barked and the rooster dropped.

Ed asked him, "What happens now?"

"What happens now Ed is Tanner is going to retrieve the bird I just dropped and then will retrieve your bird. I hope."

The Grizzled One walked to Tanner, tapped her on the head and gave the "fetch" command. Tanner quickly found the second downed bird and brought it to the Grizzled One's hand. He "heeled" Tanner to the approximate place she was standing when the first bird was dropped and put her on stay.

"This is where it gets a bit sticky. The question is, has the excitement of this last bird erased her memory of the first bird?"

The Grizzled One raised his little side by side and fired a round in the air. Then immediately tapped Tanner on the head and told her to "fetch". The little pointer ran a ways and then swung her head to look at the Grizzled One, who ordered her to fetch again.

"The trick here is to get her to swing far enough so that she will be downwind of where the bird came down. She should find the bird then."

The pointer moved in a quartering pattern generally in the right direction. All of a sudden she whirled around and froze. With another "fetch" command she picked up the bird and brought it to the Grizzled One's hand.

"Now if this was Penny or Rowdy, they would have completed the retrieve on the first bird after the second bird was downed. But they have some years of experience and maturity on Tanner. I think she handled the situation very well. Anyhow, we have four birds in our possession and that means our hunting is over for the day."

As the hunters walked back to the parking lot where the Grizzled One's motorhome was parked, Ed asked the Grizzled One "What about your other dog, King I think you called him? Doesn't he get out to hunt today?"

Unfortunately we have the legal limit of birds in our possession. The rules are very clear on this point. When everyone in the party has two birds each in possession, their hunt is then over. They must leave the field. I normally would not have downed that last bird so that the last dog could go out. But Tanner was doing such a good job holding on her birds that I felt it was to her benefit that I drop that bird and have her go through all the retrieves. There is also the matter of time. I do not run King on these grounds until around 1:30 in the afternoon. By that time, 70% or more of the people hunting here have left for the day. You see when King goes hunting, he hunts the entire area. He covers the kind of ground he would in a field trial. If there was a full compliment of hunters on the grounds, he would be bumping into them all over the place. A lot of them would be upset because they would assume that he was a rogue hunting for himself. You never know what some disgruntled hunter might do. As a result, King goes hunting later in the afternoon when he can pretty much roam to his hearts content. You must understand that he is a broke gun dog and will stand his birds all day if need be, until I come up. I will not place any constraints on his ranging. King is a competition dog and when he is told to "get" he is to cover lots of ground and produce game. Right now its just going on noon and that would be too early to turn him loose. No, today King does no hunting. Don't feel sorry for him because I am going to take him up to the Bong Recreation Area in Wisconsin. Which is also a permit pheasant hunting area, and turn him loose in a 500 acre corner that I know of that is not hunted much. He will be able to run and hunt to his heart's content"

The hunters reached the motorhome and the Grizzled One went through the after the hunt ritual with Tanner. Eye flush and warm fructose water. As he was putting Tanner into her crate the Grizzled One asked Ed, "Ed have you introduced your pup to birds?"

Ed replied "You know, I guess I was just expecting the puppy to naturally hunt and find birds. I never really thought about any kind of preparation. After seeing your dogs in action I guess that there is a whole lot about preparing hunting dogs for the hunt that I really don't know anything about."

"Why don't we see what he is able to do right now, at this moment?" Asked the Grizzled One.

"But how can we do that, we have our limit of pheasants and we can't hunt anymore," replied Ed.

"Let me ask you this Ed, have you seen your pup point a bird yet?"

"Not really" replied Ed.

"Well I have a little game here that we can play with your pup that will not violate the rules of hunting this permit area. It should give us a little indication of where your dog is in terms of pointing birds. Take him outside for a little walk and I'll meet you outside in a moment while I rig something up."

A few moments later the Grizzled One emerged from the motorhome with a old fiberglass fishing rod in his hand.

"Lets take Benji over to that little patch of weed grass. Don't take the lead off of him, walk him over to it under your control."

When they reached the weed patch, which was off to the side out of the parking lot, the Grizzled One told Ed to drop the lead. The puppy stood looking quizzically at the two men when suddenly the Grizzled One flicked the fishing rod. Something feathering went flying through the air to land on the ground. It was piece of a pheasant wing attached to a cord attached to the pole. The puppy stood for a second and the Grizzled One flicked the pole making the feather piece do a little jiggle on the ground. The pup could not contain itself and launched itself toward the feathered object. Before the puppy could grab the wing the Grizzled One yanked it into the air and back on the ground away from the puppy. Again the pup charged the wing piece and again the Grizzled One yanked it up and let it drop away from the puppy.

"What's the purpose of this ?" asked Ed. "Seems like your encouraging him to chase birds."

"Kind of seems that way doesn't it. Just wait a bit, your pup might surprise you."

Several more flick and charges took place. Then like magic, as the puppy began to gather for another launch instead took a cautious step forward. All the time intensely watching the wing on the ground. It took another cautious step forward, then another, each one demonstrably slower than the last and then there it was. A perfect point. The young Shorthair stood frozen in time and space, eyes riveted on the feathered object lying in front of it.

"Well Ed, there's your pup. Doing a fine job as bird dog pups go."

"I'll be. How did you know about doing that with piece of pheasant wing?"

"Its actually a training technique called wing and string. It is a way that you can gently tickle genetic behavior that needs just a bit of stimuli to get it moving. Your pup did fine."

The Grizzled One handed the pole to Ed and said "Here you try it. Just remember that you are trying to present your pup with a facsimile of a bird and you are going to entice his instinctive behavior to point it. If the puppy decides he wants to chase it after a few tries, that is the end of the session for that day. You must never forget that a puppy is still a baby. This whole bird business has to be kept fun for him. If the handler makes the sessions irksome or even threatening, the puppy could very easily lose interest in the whole business which then opens up a whole can of training problems".

Copying the movements that the Grizzled One had made with the pole, Ed had his puppy point the piece of pheasant wing several more times.

"You don't want to overdo it with the wing and a string Ed. Your puppy is pointing nicely and the wing and string has done exactly what it is supposed to do, awaken the pointing instinct. The wing and a string cannot be used as a substitute for birds. Which I believe your puppy is ready for. Too often novice bird dog owners keep repeating the wing and string exercise way beyond the point of diminishing returns. The exercise becomes negative in its effect. If you want, we can talk about getting together and getting your dog on some live birds."

"Do you mean that you would be willing to help me with my pup?" asked Ed.

"If our spare times mesh, I would be happy to help you get that little rascal going" replied the Grizzled One.

In the course of the discussion that followed the two men discovered that they lived only a matter of minutes apart and it was decided that Ed would bring Benji to the Grizzled One's home after work the next day.

"Is there anything I should do to prepare him for tomorrow?" asked Ed.

"Lots of love and affection along with a good night's sleep plus a full tummy should just about do it I'd say" rejoined the Grizzled One. "Lets go check in at the check-in station."

The two hunters walked into the Chain 0' Lakes State Park Pheasant Check-in station and had their birds tagged and were given back their hunting licenses. After passing the time of day with the park personnel in charge, the two hunters walked back to the parking lot with their tagged birds.

"Ed, I want you to take all the birds home with you. Between hunting, fishing, and dog training my freezer is running over. You would do me a big favor if you would do that," requested the Grizzled One.

"Are you sure that you want to give me your birds? I have never gone home limited out plus extra birds," asked Ed.

"Positive Ed, and to make sure that you are 100% legal I am going to give you a slip of paper with some information on it."

"I don't understand," said Ed.

"You are going to be transporting four pheasants, which is technically over the legal limit. However, you saw that the park officer affixed tags to each of the birds that we checked in. That shows that you harvested the birds at a state managed shooting area which has slightly different rules than wild bird hunting does. Plus I am going to give you a note with my name, address, and license number and a statement that I harvested two birds at the Chain O'Lakes State Park which I gave to you. In this manner you are legally covered if for any reason you are stopped by authorities. Just a bit of insurance. You would be surprised at the number of embarrassments that arise out of noncompliance with game laws. You take those birds home and enjoy them. See you and Benji tomorrow."

Editors Note: We are printing this story for your enjoyment. While there is much good advice in it, PLEASE REMEMBER that it is written for the USA reader and much of the advice may not be relevant to NZ conditions. As examples, we do not have many of the hunting titles mentioned and asking our conservation about hunting dog breeders is probably a waste of your time.