FOREST AND STREAM 
15 
like Fanny Russell, was not perfect, and 
his fault was the same one which she had 
displayed, namely, a lack of care in ap¬ 
proaching birds; in other words, at times 
Dan seemed to be going faster than his 
nose. At the same time, this fault was 
compensated, in the view of the judges, by 
his bird-finding ability. He was staunch 
on point but possessed only a fair amount 
of style. His running gait, while as wide 
as any grouse dog’s should be, was not 
attractive, stylish, nor particularly merry. 
He is a dog of wonderful ambition and 
persistence and seemed to get better the 
longer he was down. 
In view of the establishment of the All- 
Age or Shooting Dog stake the club per¬ 
mitted only one placing behind the cham¬ 
pionship, that of runner-up, and this honor 
was halved between the dog, Grouse B’O, 
a son of Victor B’O out of Lady Countess 
Okaw, and Duke of Claremore, by Robert 
Lee Burns, and as there were 26 starters 
in the race, including the 1915 champion, 
and all of them high-class dogs, it is evi¬ 
dent that both the winner and runner-up 
must have been possessed of a great deal 
of ability. Grouse B’O, to our mind, is an 
ideal shooting dog; strong where Dan was 
weak in the matter of approaching birds 
and nailing them by a perfect point; weak 
where Dan was strong, in that he had not 
sufficient range nor was he sufficiently in¬ 
dependent in his searching. He was also a 
trifle below Dan in natural style and class, 
both in running and on point. Champion 
King came to this trial out of condition 
and perhaps, in proper form, would have 
repeated his victory of the year before. He 
had, if anything, more class in his running 
and more persistence in his searching than 
he showed in his championship year. He 
was down with another class dog, the Duke 
of Claremore, and the race between them in 
the second series was a most interesting 
one as both dogs were almost perfect, ex¬ 
cepting that both were out of condition and 
tired somewhat toward the end. King was 
the more independent in his work, the Duke 
perhaps a bit more thorough in his search¬ 
ing. In handling birds the Duke was fault¬ 
less and King almost so. The bird oppor¬ 
tunities in the course were limited to a 
much greater extent than on the course 
allotted to Dan Rodfield, Jr., and Grouse 
B’O. The judges developed a queer turn 
of mind when they divided the runner-up 
honors between Grouse and the Duke of 
Claremore, as the dogs were of two distinct 
types, as unlike as two grouse dogs could 
be, both in their way of going, their hand¬ 
ling of birds, and in their physical condi¬ 
tion. 
T HE Shooting Dog Stake, which it was 
expected would be judged entirely on 
bird work, was apparently judged on 
the same lines as the championship and was 
won by the champion, Rodfield Dan, Jr. 
Second place was divided between Grouse 
and Sir Roger de Coverly II. The peculiar 
incident in this trial was that Sir Roger II 
was down in his first series with his sire, 
Sir Roger de Coverly, who had the reputa¬ 
tion of being the best grouse dog in East¬ 
ern Pennsylvania, and the young dog out- 
birded his sire. Grouse and Sir Roger de 
Coverly II more fairly divided second in 
this stake than is true in most cases. Sir 
Roger had an edge in style and Grouse an 
SOME CLASSY BIRD WORK. 
Duke of Claremore and Champion Boyd’s King, on Point During the 1915 
Grouse Dog Trials. 
edge in bird-handling, and both of them had 
only the average shooting dog range and 
were staunch and steady. The judges also 
divided third in this stake between three 
dogs—Mohawk Monon, son of Mohawk 
out of Moneche; Lord Dell Danstone, by 
Duke of Norfolk-Otregi Pearl; and the 
pointer Duke E. by Pearl’s Gill-Bess—all 
of which were not only bird-finders and 
good bird handlers but possessed of con¬ 
siderable class and style. 
Some of the dogs placed in the previous 
year were in evidence at this trial, notably 
Kirk’s Billy and Fieldy May Fly, both of 
whom also competed in the championship. 
Neither of them had improved, however, 
to the same extent as Rodfield Dan, Jr., 
although both of them were perfect in 
their bird work and put up honest, intelli¬ 
gent searching races. 
The first Grouse Dog Derby developed 
eight starters and the winner was Commis¬ 
sioner’s Count, son of that noted bird dog, 
Commissioner out of the excellent grouse 
dog, Fieldy May Fly. He displayed his 
sire’s class in running and his dam’s intel¬ 
ligence in handling and searching for birds. 
The second dog was Outra Rodney, a little 
gyp by Prince Rodney’s Count out of Su¬ 
sie S. She distinguished herself mainly 
by her merry way of working and the 
marvelous control under which her handler, 
R. L. Keesler kept her. Ida May White- 
stone, a puppy of Babblebrook Joe out of 
Nancy Whitestone, finished third; and 
Babblebrook Boy, son of Babblebrook Joe 
out of Fleetfoot Flois, finished fourth. 
It is well to note here that two descend¬ 
ants of grouse dog trial contenders made 
their appearance in this first Derby, the 
winrier, Commissioner’s Count being a son 
of Fieldy May Fly; and Regis Mack, who 
won the first merit, being a son of King; 
and it is also notable that both these dogs 
showed physical qualities which should go 
toward the making of a good grouse dog, 
namely, plenty of hunting instinct, keen¬ 
ness of nose and endurance. 
HE Grouse Dog Trials of 1916, which 
were run again at Kane, included be¬ 
sides the Championship, a Derby and 
an All-Age stake, and once more the judges 
proceeded to judge both the championship 
and the all-age stake on the same qualities. 
The winner of both events proved to be 
the orange and white ticked setter, Lam- 
berton’s Mack, a son of Momoney out of 
Susan Howard. In style, both in running 
and on point, Mack had an edge on any 
grouse dog champion to date. He is an 
exceedingly merry worker, of smooth gait, 
persistent and intelligent in his searching, 
and extremely stylish on point. The fact 
that weather conditions were bad and snow 
covered the ground affected the bird oppor¬ 
tunities of all the dogs that competed this 
year, and added to the difficulties of the 
judges. There was not nearly so much 
clean-cut bird work in this year’s champion¬ 
ship or in the other stakes as there was 
in previous years, with the possible ex¬ 
ception of the Derby, the first series of 
which was run on bare ground. A snow 
storm began after the first series of the 
Derby and kept up intermittently all week. 
This made the bird work extremely diffi¬ 
cult for all the contenders. No dog can 
handle a bird as well on snow as on the 
bare ground. Moreover, there was an ap¬ 
parent scarcity of grouse on the course 
this year compared with the number of 
birds found last year. This condition was 
true all over Pennsylvania and most of the 
grouse states, and was due to the ex¬ 
ceedingly wet rearing season. 
The runner-up this year was Count Glad¬ 
stone Glad, a dog of distinctly higher class 
in very many ways than has so far been 
(Continued on page 38.) 
