AN UNCROWNED CANINE KING 
D URING my long shoot¬ 
ing career of over 
fifty years, I have seen 
many bird dogs of royal 
pedigree burst from obscur¬ 
ity, and rising, pass the 
zenith of publicity like some 
brilliant star to set behind 
the horizon of history in a 
blaze of glory. Their por¬ 
traits painted by celebrated 
artists hang in the salons of 
Art and the copies are to 
be seen on covers of mag¬ 
azine and periodical, while 
their acts live in poetry and 
story. On the other hand I 
have known many more, of 
far more humble origin, 
who by their works have 
proved themselves to be the 
peers of any bird dogs on 
earth, these have gone on the even tenor 
of their way, faithful and reliable, through 
summer’s heat and winter’s cold, on broad 
prairie, and weedy stubble, on marsh, and 
in briery thicket, day after day, ever staunch 
and true, through their life’s brief span to 
pass into oblivion, “unhonored and un¬ 
sung.” So in return for many happy hours 
spent in his company afield, I shall en¬ 
deavor to commemorate some of the work 
and acts of Old Dash, an uncrowned ca¬ 
nine king. 
Some thirty-five years ago the late T. 
Dorman Taylor, of Colts Neck, New Jer¬ 
sey, was the owner of a noted pointer. An 
imported English bitch (pedigree un¬ 
known), belonging to my old friend and 
shooting companion, William Curtis, was 
bred to this celebrated dog, and of the lit¬ 
ter whelped, a white and liver colored 
By WIDGEON 
Drawings and Cover Painting by Edmund Osthaus 
puppy was reserved for Curtis’s own use. 
He named him Dash. He grew to be a 
large, handsome dog, without spot or blem¬ 
ish. He had vim and courage in full meas¬ 
ure and his sinews of steel would carry 
him day after day over hill and dale, tak¬ 
ing fences at a bound, for he never seemed 
to tire, and very early in life developed 
that priceless gift in a bird dog, the sense 
of locating game. He was equally goo'd on 
quail, woodcock, grouse, or snipe, and I 
have known him to point all four varieties 
in a single day’s work. As he grew older 
he became very wise and crafty, and his 
precision in marking down birds was posi¬ 
tively uncanny. I remember on one occa¬ 
sion I was shooting with another friend in 
a large peach orchard; our dog pointed a 
covey of quail, and on the rise I dropped 
one with my first barrel, and hit one hard 
with my second. This bird 
flew to a growth of chest¬ 
nut sprouts, and I saw it 
fall. Curtis and a com¬ 
panion with two dogs, one 
of which was Dash, were 
in the same orchard about 
two hundred yards away, 
and Old Dash had marked 
my bird down, retrieved it, 
and was on his way to his 
master, before I had 
reached the spot. He 
would work in any kind of 
cover; no brier bunch was 
too thick for him, and he 
was one of the very few 
dogs who would work well 
in “cat tails” or “blue bent.” 
On the borders of our salt 
marshes where many of our 
educated quail made their 
homes, his nose could be absolutely de¬ 
pended upon, he never false pointed, and 
his staunchness was remarkable. I have 
known his master to walk up behind him 
when on point and endeavor to push him 
ahead with his knee, but the wise old dog 
refused to “budge.” Then he would take 
him by the tail, and lift his body from side 
to side, but that staunch old nose w'as ever 
pointed toward the crouching birds. “Bill” 
Curtis, as his friends familiarly call him, 
has bred and trained many good dogs in 
his fifty years of bird shooting, but of them 
all Old Dash holds the premier place in 
his affections. For thirteen long years 
Dash loyally served his master, and many 
a fine bag of game have I shot over him, 
and on his last day’s work, when at the 
close he was so feeble that he staggered as 
he walked, he was as sure, and while slow, 
