Why would a man come to disavow the story of how his gundog saved his life? The man had grown up in a family of hunters, in a place where the sport is woven deeply into the cultural fabric. It’s celebrated, embraced. Blaze-orange “Welcome Hunters” banners are such a...
The cocker: a breed that deploys quickly and steers precisely. I damn near didn’t stop. I was driving a road that I rarely traveled, en route to another piece of cover. It was a crisp, clear day toward the end of October, the kind of day you see in your mind’s eye...
A woman of breathtaking beauty was absolutely the last thing he expected to see in such a desolate place. I’d been on a Jim Harrison binge in the wake of his death—easy to do given his prodigious output. In particular, I’d been enjoying the stuff set in Michigan’s...
The relevant and meaningful question isn’t “Which breed is best for pheasants?” It’s “Which breed is right for me?” No upland gamebird engenders so much disagreement, disputation and plain, unvarnished discord as the ring-necked pheasant. Other gamebirds are rarely...
Gundog handler and trainer, Jordan Horak, is known as the “dog whisperer” of cocker spaniels, beginning as a young up-and-comer to becoming a national pro. A few years ago— late-October 2015, to be precise—I had the pleasure of hunting woodcock in central...
When it comes to gundogs and snakes, know your enemy and be prepared. For many of us, September means the first hunting of the season: doves, teal, prairie grouse. September also means warm if not downright hot weather—and the need to be aware of the health risks...
He owned an American water spaniel—the state dog of Wisconsin and one of just a handful of AKC-recognized sporting breeds of North American origin. It’s never a good sign when you begin a day of hunting pacing a veterinary clinic parking lot waiting for the place to...
Two days after winning an 82-dog open all-age stake in the summer of 2016, Labrador retriever Stinger was barely able to walk… We’re all suckers for a comeback story, and one is, of course, Tiger Woods. Crippled by multiple injuries, his career in limbo and his...
No dog, to anybody’s knowledge, has done what Heidi did and racked up all the upland birds and all the migratory birds. In the late 1990s, on a beach in Vancouver, British Columbia, George Calef’s eye was caught by a smallish chocolate Lab. The dog was...
Legendary dog trainer, Al Brenneman, promoted a simple, straightforward, common-sense approach to starting a puppy in the field. The best part of doing what I do is the cast of characters it’s allowed me to rub elbows with along the way. In other words, it’s the...
