You can hunt birds without a dog, but why would anyone want to? Many years ago I chanced upon two old-timers in southwest Kansas who had been walking the grasslands together for more than 50 years. Neither had ever owned a bird dog. When I asked why, one of them said, “I don’t know. I guess we never got around to it.”
That winter day my yellow Lab and Brittany had much to do with our success on bobwhite quail and lesser prairie chickens (legal at that time), prompting my new friends to admit they’d missed out all those years. Hunting with a bird dog was so foreign to them that they didn’t think about the dangers of walking through an active prairie dog town on our trek back to the vehicles. The coiled rattlesnake one of them shot before it could strike my Lab was a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
Recent changes in my life have me thinking about those men—both gone for a long time now. A few months ago I lost my two bird dogs: a young shorthair from illness and a trusted setter from old age. The choices were clear: I could start over; become a walking, dogless bird hunter; or quit the sport altogether after more than 60 years.
Second Chance Bird Dogs, a rescue-and-rehome operation near Lakeview, Michigan, convinced me to stay in the game. There I met Pepper, a three-year-old German shorthaired pointer that showed potential. Her former owner, an older fellow, had given her up, hoping someone would take her hunting more often than he could.
That someone was me.
In the few months since Pepper has come to her forever home, we’ve hunted preserve chukar and pheasants, ruffed grouse and woodcock in Michigan as well as Deep South quail. I’ve learned that she has a good nose and will hold point as patiently as a long-term investor of blue-chip stocks. A former kennel dog, Pepper now lives in the house with my family. Because she was never obedience-trained, I’ve taken on that responsibility as her teacher. About the time you read this, Pepper will also be under the tutelage of a professional trainer to learn the finer points of retrieving and honoring and to limit her range. A bird dog with such promise deserves the chance to be all that she can be, and I have neither the live birds nor the skills to offer her.
Of course, you can always hunt birds without a dog; but then, why would you? The dog will always be the third rail of the hunting game.
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