happy new year + a few highlights

I hope my family reads this blog. I hope they realise that a) the reason I didn't write half as many blog posts this year is b) the same reason Meg and I haven't sent out our New Year's cards yet. I work in retail... it would appear that the economy is in some state of recovery.

In any case, between the heavy weather that nailed the East Coast and a couple of seven-day weeks, it's been difficult to keep up with the training routine that I had almost established with the boys. And so what happens when you take our two boys out for the first time in two weeks? Lots of imperfect, a few shades of ugly, falling in love all over again, and some nice omens for the future.

With Momo, it drives me nuts that he does the 'difficult' things (like the honor and the retrieve) well, but still insists on catwalking now and again. With Jozsi, however, I realise that all his extra-stepping isn't cockiness but uncertainty. I don't know where this comes from, but I know that if I walk up on him and his tail is rock-solid, he can see the bird as well as smell it. He just needs more birds and more reassurance.

While both boys popped a bird or two (and a bird that flushes because they took an extra step is an even better teaching tool than me nicking either one with the e-collar), they both showed why we love them dearly. Momo has a great nose, a great retrieve, and needs little to no work on his honor and he loves to hunt with you. Jozsi, on the other hand, only knows how to hunt really, really hard -- he was running hedgerow covers like a crazy man, handling at complete ease at 300 yds -- and today also showed some inkling that he knows what an honor is. And so, here's to our boys...

*******

This is also the time to acknowledge a few great musical highlights of 2009.

Khaled: Liberté: I was so relieved to hear this album. I can carry grudges for a long period of time, and somehow his US agent convinced him to release a 'friends' album five years ago that was, to my mind, an abomination against God. I don't care how great Carlos Santana is, but I can never hear him play guitar without hearing Rob Thomas. And I loath Rob Thomas. In contrast to several of his previous albums which were hampered by too many synthesized sounds and over-production, this is stripped down -- and leaves with you with a much greater appreciation for Khaled's talent and for Algerian music, both modern and traditional.

Buika, El Ultimo Trago: last year's album Niña de Fuego was great. With the addition of Cuban

piano player, Chucho Valdes, the arrangements are a little richer -- but nothing eclipses Buika's smokey voice.

Rosalia de Souza, D'Improviso: I know only a little bit about Brazilian music and it seems like a fair amount of it is produced for export -- a little too sweet, a little too cheesey. This is a great mixture of upbeat and downbeat, crisp, clean, and I'm still listening to it every day. And here's one of my favorite tracks:

There are also some interesting Top-10 lists at NPR's All Songs Considered -- and Scampwalker at Eight More Miles has a bunch of picks I have never heard of either.

trials and tribulations

This past weekend was the CVVC's December walking trial. We had so (too) many dogs last year that we petitioned to expand it to a two-day trial -- and managed to enroll 103 starters for 8 stakes. Zoiks! I know we turned away some folks and wonder if the level of interest was because we are both the last trial of the northeast season and because it was a walking trial only. In any case, it was great as a member of the trial committee to see both familiar faces and a fair number of new ones, too. It was also great to work with a committed team of fellow volunteers to make everything go smoothly and with as much fun as possible!

With training still in full session for both my boys and Meg able to keep them at home, I was able to give a full two-day commitment to helping keep the trial moving along. It would have been lovely to have them there for them to meet friends, but I couldn't have relaxed quite as much or focussed on the tasks at hand... namely organizing the raffle and bird-planting.

And bird-plant I did, all from horseback and, with just a couple of braces' exception, all off a wrangler's horse named Travis. I've ridden some scary-ass wranglers' horses in the past -- but Travis was great. 'Great' is a relative term... he isn't Cypress, Larry, or PC... but for a wrangler's horse forced to put up with a multitude of mixed-ability riders for long hours and low pay, he did great as a bird-planter's horse. For the less-familiar, horses have to fulfill a variety of functions at field-trials: gallery horses, judges' horses, scouting horses, bird-planting horses, and handler's horses. Arguably, a gallery horse just needs to be able to stop, start, and follow the rest of its pack (although one should never entirely presume that a gallery horse has been desensitized to gunfire); in most cases, a judge's horse needs to be comfortable at the front and willing to go off on its own with its rider (ie. not be 'herd-bound'); the same is true for a bird-planter's horse, although the horse also needs to be desensitized to the flapping, cheeping quail in the birdbag on its back; scouting and handling horses cannot be herd-bound and must also park out, ie. when the rider has dismounted and dropped reins, the horse needs to stand still and not wander off. In short, a field trial horse needs to be pretty skilled, if not merely familiar with the game itself.

I did encourage at least one newcomer to come check out the whole field-trial game... and why not with a Puppy? After coming to the VCCNE's Versatility Day back in August, John came down from Portland with his Luna for the Open Puppy stake on Sunday. Luna is a recent pup from an Octane and Seeker pairing and I can see both dogs in her. While she was heavily outnumbered by older, bigger, GSPs, she did well for her first outing -- and I hope John will stick with it at least till our Spring trial!


And if I am not going to be running dogs at a trial, I am pretty content to ride a horse instead. And so I spent 12hrs over the next two days atop Travis (mostly), trotting along with the judges in each stake, and fast-balling quail into the cover. One of the highpoints was a compliment on my horsemanship from someone who has since become a friend. In any case, Tom was one of the first folk to encourage me to handle Mr. Enthusiasm from a horse but for whatever reason, hasn't really seen me ride in 5-6mos. It was a nice bonus on a cold, blustery morning.

I did have my first unscheduled equine dismount, however. Travis and I had taken a cast off to a likely spot to drop a bird (after some 5hrs in the saddle, I might add) and, once done, he decided he wanted to canter back to the rest of the group. No problem. However, he caught a front hoof, dropped a shoulder, and in that moment of clarity I realized I was going to forward roll off to the side into the marshy turf. Which I did, back to my feet. I would have done a full gymnastic arm-raise, but the horse was now loose and didn't need to be spooked further by the Russian judge raising the '10' scorecard. Someone in the group gathered Travis up; he and I reassured each other we were both fine and still loved each other; and off we went again for another hour or so.

Gin at High Mountain Horse encouraged me to share the following: at Nationals I was riding horses I knew and who knew me and got in the (bad) habit of riding in a ballcap. I realized my horsemanship had significantly improved during Nationals as I survived my horse being spooked by another that had broken free and was running wild -- but spooked so hard it broke its curb chain (and thereby rendered the 'brakes' largely inoperable); a horse that slipped in the mud and went to both front knees before getting up; and another that reared as I was trying to mount. After that week of incidents but no mishaps, Audra and I vowed to start wearing our helmets again. As Gin said in e-mail to me:

"I don't ride in a helmet, but rarely run around like you do. Head injuries are all too real with horses... Horses do trip! And when we fall, our head does tend to be the first to touch down. I really, really want to keep my brain. If I start endurance running, I'm investing in a helmet. My brain is worth it."

And that's all I have to say about that.

*******

Mercifully before the truly crapulent weather beset us today, I did manage to get a nice training day in with the boys at our friend Andrew's property upstate to keep them honest. And both boys did well. I am grateful to have found a quail breeder who, however he does it, raises spooky, well-flying quail. And I am pretty much planting the birds with little or no dizzying. I know my boys can find birds, but the fine-tuning I'm looking for is how they deal with running birds, wild flushes, and bumps.

Andrew was able to come out for most of it and serve as a gunner for The Mominator during his two big runs. It's nice to have a second set of hands, especially when they're deft with a shotgun. Here's Momo with Andrew in the background ready to drop the quail. What's interesting about the two boys' personalities is that Momo might get too close to a bird and pop it unexpectedly, but will immediately re-calibrate and rarely pop another. Jozsi seems to stand off his birds pretty well for the first round, then gets a little cocky, and then always manages to bring it back around.

This picture is from Mr. 200mph's first run of the day, and as much as I love The Mominator, watching The Beast eat up ground and then stick a point at a skid is just a thrill-ride. On his first run of close to 45mins, he found and handled a half-dozen birds including this lovely high pose roughly 10yds from the birds. He is now getting to a point where, if I lose sight and then sound of him, I know to sing his praises and just start looking for him standing someplace.

His tail hasn't quite settled yet, but we've begun to hit a nice groove where he knows what will make me happy. While this is arguably a mixed blessing, but his stop-to-flush is much more reliable than not -- and in the two instances where he thought he would take a step to be absolutely sure, my spooky quail got up, flushed and ruined his party without me having to do anything. On a couple of instances, he did establish a point in dense hedgerow cover and I couldn't produce a bird for him - presumably because the bird had run on hearing me approach -- and I was able to send him on to relocate. And while he didn't subsequently find one of those two birds, as importantly he didn't let his fiery personality get the better of him and try to tackle a bird on the ground. This is also progress and a sign that his young brain is beginning to mature and settle.

Hopefully the weather won't close out our training season too soon. Things seem to be coming together for both of them!

more training

Since getting back from Nationals, we've been in something of a hiatus. The weather has been bad on my days-off and I don't hunt in public hunting areas on the weekends -- at least none near here. And so, I've been a little slow in getting back on the training wagon with the two monsters.

I've been working on a couple of things: on Momo's tendency to creep a little when you walk in to flush a bird, and Jozsi crashing birds by getting too close, either because he's uncertain about a bird's location or because he wants to see it fly. And of course, he's two years old. Which is to say that I've been trying to figure out if its uncertainty or cockiness on his part. Here's Momo showing an unprecedented piece of self-discipline as the brace of quail ran from in front to directly behind him.

And so we've done some launcher work with both boys -- and been lucky to find a quail breeder fairly close by whose last two batches of birds have been energetic and spooky -- and as importantly fairly close to a friend's property that we can train on. The best part about our friend's property is that it used to be sown for arable crops and so while there are some really nice hedgerows and lines of cover, it is largely flat and open. So I can see Mr. Enthusiasm even when he's 300 yards away. No matter how carefully I handle them, Jozsi, though, is also smart enough that you can only do so much launcher work in a day before he'll just blink the launchers, knowing that they will rarely result in much fun for him.

I decided to put out quail in pairs without launchers this time -- and he made four awesome finds, standing off his birds a respectable distance with a nice high style. For every solid point, he gets lots of love and praise. I'm hoping this will just gently reinforce that a solid point, a flush, and a gunshot will come to equate 'good times' for him. On his second run after one good find, he then ripped out one bird in a hedgerow and then failed to stop-to-flush; after no praise, I sent him off in a different direction and watched him rip out a second bird 300yds away with no stop-to-flush. I called him to me and then made him stand in the middle of the field while I walked the 400yards back to the truck before calling him to me. In my frustration, it was the mildest thing I could think of that would be the least-fun for him. Wanting to end on a postive note, I put out another pair of birds for him. I think he inadvertently spooked the first bird, but stopped to flush, and I then worked the second bird for him without incident.

This is him waiting to be broken away for another cast. You can never fault his energy or application -- and heaven knows, he's kicked enough mud up in my face that I break him away from in front. But here are a few reflections:

• I realize that no matter how gifted he was as a young dog, Jozsi has still not had the volume of birds that Momo did by this point in his career. He needs birds to teach him his lessons.
• He is a great example of a dog almost spoiled by his Derby career. While he had at least one genuinely great broke-dog run as a Derby, he also got to pop a few birds here and there and that had to confuse him as to what the end-goals are.
• He therefore needs clear positive and negative signals -- and while I will use the e-collar to signal to him that he should have stopped-to-flush on a bumped bird, it will not be used as a punishment for a flushed bird. (I'm using the word 'signal' to mean that the e-collar sends a cue that is an extension of the snap of the buckle on the no-pinch collar.)
  

I think I will go back another step with him next time -- checkcord and no-pinch collar overlaid with e-collar -- go through one solid rep and then go to just the e-collar. And in addition to praise, I will also pick him up immediately and put him in the truck when he commits and infraction (as he should expect in a trial). My thinking is that he needs a reminder that being 300 yards away does not mean he is now too far from accountability, and that an infraction will result in his fun being ended. And that good performance equals praise and more fun.

And while he is most definitely a work-in-progress, and as much as he can frustrate me, there is nothing like watching your dog sprint a field, break through a cover line and disappear, and then as you clear the same cover line, see him standing a bird in the next coverstrip. He breaks my heart, for better and for worse.

400yds on the left...

I got back last night from the VCA National Field Trial at Cloverdale Farm in Danville, VA. The farm was also the site for this year's AKC Gun Dog Championship -- and a number of dogs that had competed there were back to try for the National Field and/or National Amateur Field Championship titles. The first picture shows the breakaway from up at the clubhouse at Cloverdale -- and for five of the six days we were there, this was a typical morning. Light early morning frost would give way to sunshine and afternoon temperatures in the low 60s with winds ranging from light to strong; the first day of the NFC, though, started late in the hope that the steady rain would diminish. It didn't until lunchtime. Thank heavens I had decided to pack my riding coat.

From what I gather, though, a number of handlers were surprised at the difference in conditions from spring to late fall. There seemed to be a lot of high cover that made keeping track of hard-running dogs difficult and an energetic scout a requirement. Interestingly, even when conditions seemed ideal, no dogs seemed to be racking up high numbers of finds -- which made several of us wonder if all the broken cornstalks, dust, or pollen were really masking the bird-scent. The exception, I gather, was Ruger's seven finds during the second series of the NAFC, a run which earned him the title. This awesome picture is courtesy of Kim at Forestking who actually got to see his second run in the NAFC; she has just added a post of her own, too.

Being at a National event, especially without having to worry about my two crazy red-boys, was a great opportunity to put names to faces -- both human and canine -- and to see what national level competition looks like both in terms of the quality of performance and the techniques and tactics of professional and amateurs alike. But all of this took place against the backdrop of Cloverdale Farm and the generosity of the Leggett Family. They have dedicated the farm to hosting national level competition and were able to provide corrals, electrical hook-ups, and a beautiful clubhouse to support the competitors. I had heard this story (in the first paragraph) from the 2006 AKC Gun Dog Championships, but was amazed to see Mr. Leggett on the grounds every day checking in with folks, riding braces, and taking photographs. He lived up to his reputation of generosity and kindness by loaning Mike + Kim his truck while they took theirs to a garage in Danville to have some work done. A classy gentleman and host, indeed.

There was a social hour on Saturday night hosted by Lisa's best friend, Joyce, in Lisa's memory and I had taken a couple of pictures of Jozsi with me to show her the dog Lisa and I had enjoyed several happy conversations about. The bonus was being able to show them to Jozsi's father's owner, Betty Rozanek. She was so pleased to hear that one of Smokey's sons was bringing us so much pleasure.

If there can be any doubt as to where the fun of field trialing comes from, I hope this video conveys it. The clip is from the second series of the NFC -- the first qualifying series of both the NFC and NAFC was 30mins, the second series for those dogs called back after laying down a championship caliber performance was 45 mins with the first bird shot on course for a retrieve -- and featured Wayne & Trish James's Tzeitel and Jim Gingrich's Jack. I forget exactly why, but the gallery had gone on with Jim and was crossing the back loop of the course. It was still relatively early in the morning and the frost was melting and steaming off the grass -- and all of a sudden Jim gets a glimpse of his dog. And so the normal flat walk pace of the trial picked up as we all tried to get in on the action.

If riding a smooth-gaited horse in the crisp early morning to watch a bionic dog or two doesn't sound like fun, then trialing is not for you.

It was interesting to see how some dogs did or didn't make the transition to actual cover, meaning that it seemed like some of the hardest running dogs were so committed to running edges that they ran themselves out of contention; others got so caught up in hunting every edge that they either appeared to potter or were lost in one of the many cover-strips. Howard Shultz's Stormy was one example of a dog right on the edge of too-much speed -- it paid off for Howard in the NFC, earning him a 3rd place, but Stormy was out of touch for too long in the NAFC and was picked up for time. If I remember correctly, the same might have happened for Lotto, last year's and this year's repeat NFC.

Besides getting lots of horse time (and yes, that's me in my all-blaze all-the-time jacket -- the picture is courtesy of Grace Ann), the first real highlight of the week was watching Rogue run in the Derby. She ran like a dog possessed, covering ground like she knew exactly what she was supposed to. Carrie and Mike Syczylo have done a great job with her in the last six weeks -- and loved her enough to arrange with Mike & Kim to repeat the breeding that produced her. Uncharacteristically, during her run, she had two unproductive points to go with her two productive points that effectively put her out of the ribbons -- but as we discovered the next day, this might have been because she was about to go into season!

I did also get pressed into service to serve as a scout for Marcia and her nice dog, Topper, in the NAFC -- although sadly his run ended prematurely after bumping a bird. However, the real highlight was serving as my friend, Joan's 'horse tender.' Joan has been blessed with several good dogs, and one arguably great dog, Octane; between skiing and horse-riding, Joan has also survived a number of good accidents. She has a medical exemption from the AKC that allows her to have a 'horse tender' in addition to her scout -- and clearly the gallery for Ocky's run had never seen a tender in action before. And so, while she was working a pointed bird, her scout would gather up the horses, then grab the dog, and the tender would whip out a mounting stool and give Joan a boost to get back in the saddle. I earned the nickname 'Chair-man' for that.

But being out with Joan, all so very pleased that Octane had made it round the course clean and with birdwork, really reminded me that no matter how big the ribbon, all of this silliness has to be about having fun with your dog. Thank you, Joan!

a blind judge and a kind judge

I took the boys up to the PANE Hunt Test at Flaherty this past Sunday, and was able to run Momo in the Master Hunter stake before I started judging the Junior Hunter stake. As the title suggests, it wasn't pretty and I was genuinely a little surprised, but Momo successfully earned his second MH leg. I don't know if he just performed the skills that the other dog didn't much better (like the honor and the retrieve) and so the judges either overlooked or were feeling kind towards Mr. Creepy-feet-- but as soon as the test was over we started on launcher work with both boys. Two down, three to go.

Essentially, with both boys, I want them to a) stand off their birds further and b) have the birds teach them that once they have established point, any movement will trigger a flush. And a moving dog and a flushing bird means no shot, no retrieve, and no praise from Pop. And launcher work can also teach the dogs that movement after the flush is unacceptable. As the folks over at Steady with Style have pointed out, there can be several contexts a dog should understand that require him to stand still even in the absence, perhaps especially in the absence, of a verbal command. A bird that gets up in clear sight ahead of a dog, whether on point or not, is one of them.

My previous challenges with launchers were that I hadn't figured out a) the better ways to use them, b) the better ways to store them, and c) the better ways to lay them out in the training field. And so, in the past, the dogs would get too close because they couldn't easily scent what was in there and so any forward movement on their part would bring them too close to the launchers which might in turn be dangerous or frightening for them. However, if you have a good breeze, wide open cover, multiple birds, and a clear training plan... surprisingly, things can work quite well! My solutions were to a) keep all my launchers, bird bags, and some random wings in one big decoy bag together and to only handle them with my bird handling gloves on, b) to either stash a birdbag with some birds in a little further upwind from the trap, or c) set up multiple birds in one launcher, d) or set up duplicate launchers in one location, or e) use a combination of regular launchers and one of Brad Higgins's Remote Releasers.

Even with all this planning, you still need good flying birds. On the downside, Brad's remote releaser will not eject a bird into the stratosphere, but they are both wicked quiet and a great, safe way to ensure that your actual launcher has additional birds around it to create a nice pong for the dog. And, as we discovered, if the bird is pressured, it will get up and away like no slept or dizzied bird. Launchers, to my mind, still have a use -- but I am glad I invested in one of these, too. So, long and short, I think we're already starting to see the wheels turn in both of their brains as they recalibrate their behavior based on the bird... and not on me hooting and hollering.

*******

Momo is officially a woodcock dog. Last Thursday we hunted in both New York at Stewart and at Flaherty. We had hoped for pheasants in both places but only saw one rooster that Momo and I tracked and chased and flushed twice in waist-high weeds. I'm not sure if the lack of birds in NY is a side-effect from our governor's ill-informed, initial decision to close the Reynolds Gamebird Farm -- but I was a little surprised to only encounter a single bird. As for Flaherty, we were able to meet up with our friend, Rick from Marricks Vizslas, and his older dog, Baci. I've been fortunate to judge another of Rick's nice dogs, Latte, a couple of times. Sadly, there were several guys with howitzers out in the likely spots when we got there so we chose to train and chase whatever quail might still be left out in the woods.

In any case, while I actually foot flushed this bird accidentally, and somehow managed to hit it, Momo found it and retrieved it for me. I have been fascinated by this evolutionarily lost bird, a shore bird that somehow found itself marooned and now lives in transit from woody marsh to woody marsh. And as Hank, our favorite epicure at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, also discovered with its relative, the snipe, these things are small and beautiful with their peculiar shaped heads and long, graceful beaks. Unlike Hank, I don't have the patience or skill to prepare them with quite the same diligence. My criterion for hunting is that I will eat what I kill. But if a) it takes longer to prepare it than hunt it, and b) there's not enough of it to eat without some kind of elaborate recipe that defies the space-time continuum, I may not shoot at a woodcock again.

Now the grouse we took in Maine, however... I may try a variation on something I had at a nice Mexican restaurant the other night, although instead of huitlacoche I may stuff the breasts with shiitake mushrooms, then bread and fry them.

endurance exemplified

Our dogs' fitness is rarely in question... because my wife, Meg, runs them twice a day for a minimum of 8miles each day. As much as it benefits them, Meg needs to run. On the other hand, I haven't had that compulsion in a long, long time. But Meg enjoys it and, to her credit, has completed a handful of marathons. So, feeling the need for a specific goal and having read such tomes as Dean Karnazes' Ultramarathon Man, she decided she'd like to try an 'ultra' -- and doing a trail run had to be easier on the joints than a regular road race, right?

Here's a short clip of the start beside lovely Shepherd Lake. Everyone happy, cheering, excited, and clearly in blatant denial. I don't know if this fellow finished, but he seemed to think it was going to be fun, too. (Sadly, as of Sunday evening, we have discovered that this fellow didn't.)

So she entered the inaugural Mountain Madness 50k. Bearing in mind that race promoters like to amp things up to sell their event, and New Jersey doesn't really have mountains, how hard could it be? 'Sick-o-saurus Rex' is the answer to that question. Here's Meg running down a typical trail on the way to Aid Station #4 at mile 17 or so. We were chatting with another runner who was accompanying his wife on her first 50km who said that he, after now having finished 6, was convinced this was the hardest one he'd ever done.

And so, approximately 9hrs 20mins after she started, my crazed wife crossed the finish line back at Shepherd Lake. And yes, as you can tell from the flash photograph, darkness was absolutely closing in. When I wrote this first, we believed she was the last person to finish. But now (Sunday evening), we have discovered that she was 66th of 70 folks who completed the course; 30 starters did not finish. Congratulations and thanks to Tim + Branwen Ellis and friends for sticking around the extra 20mins or so to cheer Meg's arrival.

In conclusion, Meg rocks.

********

On Tuesday, I opted to go up to the Northeastern Open Shooting Dog Championship up at Flaherty. Deb had decided to enter Yogurt in the competition because, as an hour-long championship stake, it would be a great training run for her in preparation for Nationals. Being an American Field-sanctioned event, Yogurt was the only non-Setter or Pointer in the race. This is to say that American Field events place an even higher premium on speed, stamina, and range and, with certain exceptions, don't require the dog to demonstrate a retrieve. And frankly, Pointers and Setters will generally on average display those characteristics to an even greater degree than the average 'other' pointing breed. So I was keen to see how a great vizsla would do against a field of long-tailed white dogs.

And the answer is... pretty darn good. Unlike the AKC, there is often prize money given out both to overall champions and to the best dogs on each day. Yogurt finished 3rd on Tuesday, just missing the money, and according to the judges 11th overall for the championship. Yogurt was probably helped by having Sherry Ray Ebert as one of the judges, simply because Sherry has handled and judged other continental breeds and understands that a vizsla's style is no less intent than the ramrod tail of a Pointer or Setter.

I have to admit, though, that while I thought Yogurt had run well, I hadn't seen any of the white dogs put up a performance that was light years beyond hers. Until the final brace of the day. I feel genuinely blessed to not only have seen Mike Tracy and Luke Eisenhart handle those dogs, but to have seen the race that Lawless Lady and Erin's Backstreet Affair laid down. And contrary to the stereotype that perhaps AKC-folks perpetuate these were dogs that ranged hard and far and still had a handle on them. And just stood their birds like it was perhaps the only other thing they knew how to do. Which it might be, but holy mackerel! watching those dogs go through that routine 10 times each during the hour and still finish with gas in the tank was wicked impressive. The final picture is of Lady with her owner, Jane Donze, and handler, Mike Tracy and scout, Alex Smith. This picture, though, is from her win at the Spruce Brook Bird Dog Trial this spring.

chasing pah'tridges

First of all, congratulations to Jane at The Literary Horse for being the 20,000th visitor to The Regal Vizsla. Jane's blog constantly reminds me not to take all this horse business too seriously.

It's been a busy couple of weeks or so at work and, after waffling like Brett Favre for several weeks, decided I needed to get out of Dodge and go chase grouse sooner rather than later. And so while I apologize for not convening the Momo + Jozsi's Second Annual Invitational Grousehunt, my general psychic state couldn't deal with hanging around in New York City any longer.

Over the weekend, I did head up to Flaherty to run Momo in his next MH attempt at the Connecticut Valley Vizsla Club's Fall hunt test on the Saturday, judge JH on the Sunday, and in between hopefully scout for Yogurt at the PANE Field Trial which was being held on a different part of the grounds. The weather was horrible and Momo fell foul of a wet, running chukar and moved too much to mark it as it literally ran circles around him. The judges asked to see a second honor out of the other dog and so Momo found another bird and then made a 40yd+ blind retrieve. Didn't get him back in the game, but it was a nice bonus. Judging JH the next day was enjoyable, although scenting conditions were tough for the dogs and a number of dogs weren't able to find a qualifying bird until the final minute or so. I will probably write a subsequent post on JH handling because it was very interesting to see how folks dealt with their dogs seemingly not performing at their usual level.

We then jetted up to Oquossoc to visit with old friends from when we used to live up in downeast Maine. The two previous times I have hunted grouse up here, I've come in the first week of November -- and it was amazing to see all the fall colors ringing the hills and lake. We had heard various tales of the demise of the ruffed grouse in western Maine -- but happily found plenty of evidence to the contrary. My friend Dudley and I hunted separate spots in the same general location and the final box score for two days came out at 34 flushes (including one woodcock) with three grouse taken. And for the first time, too, we saw not one but three large ungulates like this young fellow out for a morning wander on the main road.

I had really wanted to bring the boys up here to let the wild birds teach them a lesson or two. The last two years I learned quickly that the November birds were skittish and took the bells off the boys to allow them to at least get feasibly close to their birds. My update on this hypothesis is that Maine grouse are skittish, period. Of those 34 flushes, perhaps a quarter were genuinely pointed by either dog; a fair number of flushes were merely heard as they blew off into the far-away in response to a dog cracking a branch or moving brush too quickly.

The challenge of course now became how to keep track of a moving dog in heavy undergrowth, especially if the dog has decided to point. I try to be really quiet in the woods -- and use a very gentle mouth whistle to alert the dog where I am. At one point, Momo had cut in to some evergreens and I could no longer see him, so I whistled him on... once, twice, and then a third time. He then barked and a grouse flushed with the noise. I felt terrible. We both learned our lesson the next day -- I whistled quietly, heard nothing, and decided to step gently toward where I'd last seen him. I stepped over a downed tree into what looked like moss, but cracked a good sized twig in the process. I was a good 10yds away from the pair of grouse that flushed in front of poor Momo, banking up and away through the mixed maple and pine trees.

The video clip below is what happens when you try to video a crazed two-year old trial dog minutes after he's had his first grouse shot for him. I had wanted to bring him up to Maine so that he would hopefully get a wild bird education and learn that he was the not the master predator he imagined he was. While I can't say that he ever fully established a point, he learned very quickly what he was looking for and got very adept at his stop-to-flush. And a dog standing still does get his first bird shot out of a tree if need be. Not glamorous. Not particularly sporting. But a huge stimulus for a young dog.

I would speculate that tales of the minimal number of grouse are being perpetuated by 'heater hunters,' the old-timers who like driving up forest roads and shooting birds from the window of their jeep. Nevertheless, as you can see, there's not a whole lot that's easy about hunting grouse in Maine -- and early season means more leaf cover for birds to fly behind. And while Tuesday was a beautiful day, Monday was a classic Maine fall day... if you don't like the weather, wait 15mins. As you can see, Momo and I had to hide under a tall fir for 15mins of hard, hard rain but soon after, he got on point just over the shoulder of a slope. I saw him point, but as soon as I walked in to him, a bird flushed and flew up and across me. And miraculously, I made a competent crossing shot. Incidentally, upon dissection, all three birds we took were primarily eating maple seeds -- both regular and the larger striped maple -- unlike the clover and ferns that they seem to prefer come November.

Momo's second bird can only be described as beautiful. I kept the fan -- and now that we are home, I can tell you that the feathers are a solid inch longer than those on from the grouse we took two years ago. And whether male or female, this bird also had a full complement of black collar feathers. Sadly for this bird, it flushed ahead of Momo's point as I hollered to Jozsi, flew into a tree, but then lifted off again as I was walking in and Jozsi was barrelling back. And Momo got to make another perfect retrieve. Here's a picture of two happy vizslas on a cool Maine afternoon... you can see that, in my optimism, I had put a Tracker collar on Jozsi so I could locate him in the unlikelihood that he could stand a point out of sight.

The birds had the final laugh, though. As we got within 50yds of the truck, walking down an overgrown timber path, Momo scooted right and peered over a berm to get scent. A bird flushed up over him and flew down the path directly in front of me. I fired both barrels and probably missed underneath both times. However good you feel about yourself, a grouse slaps you for even approaching hubris.

Here's to good friends, good dogs, and beautiful, wild birds.