Superstar

This is Belle. I have no papers on her. I think she was the runt of the litter and she's no bigger than a minute. She's what most people would call a meat dog. But in my mind she's a superstar. The reason being, when my other dogs come unglued, or can't find birds
, Belle will come through for me.

The photo is from the day before Thanksgiving last year (2006). By this time of day it had gotten almost hot, and my big male pointer Jake was having a hard time in the heat. I was under some pressure because I was introducing my boss at the time to his first quail hunting experience. My 11-year old-reliable Brittany Maddie had done her part in the cooler early hunt, but she was now done for the day (little did I know that she would be dead by April 1). But Belle looks pretty intense-I think she was winding birds even before we left the truck.

Belle has always been a "winder". I've seen her dance about on her hind legs only, stretching her little black nose high into the air. She's never fiddled around with ground scent. In fact, sometimes she's looked like she wasn't fiddling with any scent at all-she runs through the woods and fields like her tail's on fire. Once while hunting with my vet, straight out of the truck she took off like the proverbial scalded dog. He, being the polite gentleman and dog-man that he is, began to comment "Do you think she's going a little fast..." and BAM! Belle went from 90 miles an hour to a dead stop, whirling around in a text-book point and held the birds until we could flush them. After the shot, I commented to him that I don't mind a dog with a motor as long as she's got a set of brakes.

Belle has all that. Drive and good ground race and a choke-bored nose. She's got the motor and four wheel disc brakes with anti-lock even. She was broke at six months old. On New Year's Eve day of 2001 I shot 7 birds over her and every contact was handled flawlessly. It was at that point Belle, just a little bitty thing, barely on the earth for a blink of an eye, convinced me she was a bird dog.

If I keep writing, I'll jinx myself and the next 2 months she'll make me a fool every time I go.

Not that she is without faults. She is a non-committal retriever, partly because I am a very poor retriever trainer. The way I look at it, either retrieving is in them, or it isn't. I know force fetch works, but I just don't like it. I'd rather have a dog that doesn't retrieve than one that looks like it's being punished when it picks up a bird. She hunts dead very well, will indicate for you a fallen bird, and only really retrieves in a highly competitive situation.

She's also quit me and flipped me off on occasion. For one brief stint, she took to running up birds. This started when I was hunting her without a brace mate with some older gentlemen who were slow to move up on a point (we generally fairly sprint to a point). The birds started moving off on her and she ran them up. One had even run across the little dirt track we were on to join its covey mates and this must have unnerved her. She ran up birds until I put her up that day.

She seemed to have had her fill of running up birds. Then one afternoon with my vet and another good friend who had never killed a wild quail, I had Belle and Maddie down along with one of the vets fine pointers and we were working an area we knew held birds with all 3 dogs. We walked up on a point by Maddie and the vet's dog, just on the edge of a green winter wheat field and some open oak woods. As we were walking in on the point, admiring the aesthetics, a white streak came in ran between both dogs and straight into the covey. It was pure cussedness. Earlier in the day, Belle had acted like she hadn't heard me on a few calls for her to come in, almost flipping her nose at me in rebellion. But this time, I knew she smelled those birds and saw the other dogs point. I ran her down and administered some discipline the old fashioned way, but it nearly killed me. I was beside myself as my 2 friends, at my insistence, went off to pursue the singles from the busted covey. I ended this hunt with Belle tied to my waist on a check cord, and even missed a point and flush of another covey because I couldn't navigate the brush fast enough to get up on the point.

This series of incidents prompted me to investigate the e-collars. I had a dog that was 4 years old, knew all the ropes, and suddenly began acting like a heathen. It was embarrassing and frustrating, but I had always viewed the e-collar as somewhat inhumane. I even actively resisted the suggestions by others. An impasse remained until a bird-hunting friend of mine with similar e-collar views told me he had the same problems with his 11-year old pointer. He broke down and strapped the e-collar on her and in his words it was like "tapping her on the shoulder, reminding her you are there". At this I broke down and got a Tri-Tronics e-collar.

Now, after working with her, and giving some gentle taps on the shoulder, Belle is back to being a superstar. Most of the quail on the tailgate were from her work a couple of weeks ago. She still runs like a deer, but now her manners on birds are flawless. She comes back in when called. All this has saved me sprinting through the woods at break-neck speed to catch a little devilish pointer. It's probably saved me from breaking my leg off at the knee in a stump hole too.