FOREST AND STREAM 
1229 
POINTING ATTITUDES OF BIRD DOGS 
NO POSE SURPASSES IN BEAUTY THAT OF THE WELL 
■ TRAINED INTELLIGENT ANIMAL IN FULL FIELD ACTION 
By Ripley. 
The first instalment of this fascinating series of upland game, shooting stories was published in September Forest and Stream. 
T O the bird dog is granted the privilege of 
executing a certain amount of work in the 
same way, without making his owner tire 
from the continuous aspect of the same thing 
over and over again. Even if a dog pointed 
always the same way, and there was always 
game present when the point was made, very few 
owners would complain. Quality of performance 
is what many want, and others are only desirous 
that a dog finds birds and holds them stanchly, 
not caring whether it is an upstanding point or 
low-headed with the body bent around in shape 
of a horseshoe. 
Very few men ever owned a poor bird dog. 
At least among that class who only own one 
or two at a time, and put in their entire shooting 
over them. 
One class of sportsmen alone will admit to 
having owned an inferior dog, a very ordinary 
performer or a rank dub. They are the ones 
that have owned lots of dogs; and, if they did 
not compete in field trials with them, they had 
many hot encounters with their friends’ dogs. 
They confess that they have been proprietors of 
inferior ones, and decide that by what they see 
through contrast with others. The exceptional 
field qualities of the strains of to-day are due to 
the painstaking modes of breeding that sports¬ 
men follow. They look for defects in their 
^oqts, and upon discovering them, insure the 
future progeny by breeding sires and dams en¬ 
tirely or as near deficient as can be in faulty 
traits. 
To the one who will admit of no fault in his 
dogs, when they are glaring to anyone else, it 
can be said truthfully, that he sacrifices good 
judgment to sentiment. There is not a quail 
hunter who can really tell the whole story of 
his favorite dog until that dog competes with 
another in a country unfamiliar to both. 
Pardon these digressions, but they leap into 
a hunter’s mind as he thinks of certain fields 
in the country touched by the first snap of frost. 
And it makes one inevitably claim that a point— 
that is, an actual body-scent point, not a hesi¬ 
tating affair, but the real thing, no matter what 
position the dog assumes—is an artistic pose. 
Some dogs are continually upstanding on birds, 
yet they may be inferior dogs. Others twist 
strangely through the medium of the intoxicating 
scent until they hardly have the pose of a dog; 
still they may be high-class performers. It all 
depends on the way these statuesque positions 
have of impressing the beholder. Were the 
majority of us to purchase an animal, just on 
his appearance on point, we immediately would 
demand the high-headed straight-up dog on 
point. 
Every sportsman loves that kind of a point, 
and, if the dog almost tiptoes to reach higher, 
as it were, for the invisible lure, so much the 
better. But with all this, how soon have we 
yielded to another pose when unexpectedly pre¬ 
sented? Imagine the dog, running at full speed, 
and instantly coming into point, or the quick¬ 
working dog snapping up a single in the cover; 
the point itself may not be upstanding, but the 
performance almost borders on the miraculous. 
Yet you will agree then, that no matter what 
the position, it appeals strongly to you. 
Dogs are not infrequently given credit for 
phenomenal work, but, were the occasion studied 
out, it might turn out otherwise. How many 
times, Mr. Quail Hunter, have you seen a dog 
point singles with a dead bird in its mouth? 
Should the dead bird baffle other scent? In the 
incidents you have noted, has it not more than 
once appeared as if the dog were sight-pointing? 
My old pair of Papes taught me much about 
quick sight-pointing by dogs; and it gave me 
the impression that some of those side snaps 
by wonders, while racing at a high clip, were 
indisputable sight points. 
I was shooting quail in the swamps. Just at 
dark my shooting partner killed a bird in an 
open field. We were unable to find it. A down¬ 
pour of rain rushed us to shelter, and when it 
ceased it was too wet and dark to venture out 
for the bird. Five days later, and after a severe 
freeze, we were hunting over the same ground, 
