In the Field Trial Kingdom, Labs Rule 

In the Field Trial Kingdom, Labs Rule 

The Labrador retriever’s distinctions are many. If there’s one arena in which the Lab is utterly and incontrovertibly dominant, it’s retriever field trials. The most popular purebred dog in America; the most popular gundog, too: the Labrador retriever’s distinctions...

The Bond Between Hunter and Dog

The Bond Between Hunter and Dog

The guy’s name was Charlie, I think. The one time I met him, at the now long-defunct Gustav Pabst Invitational Hungarian Partridge Shoot, he showed up in a Jaguar sedan with his German short-haired pointer riding shotgun. That was pretty cool, but what made an even...

Dog Fight

Dog Fight

What gives with such shabby treatment toward man’s best friend? After a week of sunshine, the field made muddy by heavy spring rains transformed the clover and alfalfa into a thick sea of green. There were lots of wildflowers, and the few I could identify—primrose,...

Fine Guns, Fine Dogs

Fine Guns, Fine Dogs

My introduction to quail hunting came nearly two decades ago on an old family plantation in the piney woods of South Georgia. Since that unforgettable moment in that picturesque woodland, I’ve been hooked on quail hunting.

Finding Socrates

Finding Socrates

The story of how a boy found a stray puppy that went on to be a great pheasant dog for him and his dad. A dog surprised us the spring of my 10th birthday when Aunt Helen banged the screen door behind her. As she shuffled in the dark of dawn toward the Sunday paper, a...

New Year’s Eve was a Dark and Doggy Night

New Year’s Eve was a Dark and Doggy Night

I did not intend to be stuck deep in the woods on a moonless night, one so dark you could feel the blackness wrap around you. But two of my beagles saw to it that New Year's Eve 2018 was a memorable one, although less than celebratory. Anyone who has owned beagles...

The Wonderful Fool

The Wonderful Fool

Harrison walked out of the room, smiling and easy on the razor-thinness that was the surface of himself, closing the door quietly on the still woman in the bed and the nurse with the calm professional air. Doctor Joe was there, an old friend with whom he’d killed a...

The Irish Setter: A Victim of Its Own Beauty

The Irish Setter: A Victim of Its Own Beauty

Askew’s Carolina Lady was, and is, the foundation female—the Eve, if you will—of the field-type Irish setter as we know it today. One day a friend of Ned LeGrande’s stopped by to visit him at his Willow Winds Farm, near Douglassville in southeastern Pennsylvania. At...