In and around Central Virginia: clockwise from left - the Robert E. Lee monument designated this week to be removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, VA, in the wake of the George Floyd murder protests, handsome bird dogs, pointing and learning to back one another, and an artist’s depiction of the Lee monument devoid of Lee and Traveller, distributed a few years ago to begin to envision a Confederacy-free Monument Avenue, and the pointing dogs trading places in pointing and honoring. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the nationwide protests sparked ..read more

Lincoln on point in our favorite training grounds, Orapax Hunting Preserve, in Goochland, VA Apologies for a little break in posting of late. While I’ve had a post ready to go covering some of the things Lincoln and I learned this past season, I’ve been holding it for possible publication in another venue. Looks like that may be on track, so stay tuned! I’ll post a link to it here when it is published. In the interim, while we’re all a bit limited in what we’re able to do in the evenings and weekends, thought I’d put together a series of virtual walks with Lincoln and me as we review some of ..read more

All hat, all cattle: a momentous introduction for me - at an Obedience for Sporting Dogs seminar at Orapax When upland hunters and bird dog enthusiasts world-wide hear the name “Rick Smith,” they will immediately know we’re talking about one of the most famous bird dog trainers in the world today. They’d no doubt be able to tell you that Rick is a member of the Bird Dog Hall of Fame, is the son of the legendary Delmar Smith (still active at the age of 93), is the grandson of the legendary B.F. “Dutch” Epperson, and that he created the wildly-popular Huntsmith Silent Command System of bird dog ..read more

Lincoln striking a sunset pose at our training grounds The good book tells us that everything wonderful, worthy, and good - all of it - was created in a series of celestial days, comprising together a cosmic week. If that is so, then this is the story of the sunset of a first celestial day of friendship and adventure, of a first season of wild bird hunting and the creation of a new wild bird hunter and a new wild bird dog in the company of two-legged and four-legged friends and mentors. And the sunset of this first day in the creation story of these particular things began like this: earl ..read more

Lincoln seems to have acquired the taste for the timberdoodles … (photo credit: Justin Madron) By way of after-report, Lincoln and I wrapped up our American woodcock season yesterday (the season ends January 14 in Virginia). I couldn’t think of a more ideal end to the first wild bird season to expire this year (grouse and quail remain), and it’s worth briefly chronicling the major episodes in this magical weekend. Justin, Lincoln, and I first scouted the areas we’d identified for further exploration. Justin and I hiked about five or six miles and Lincoln logged about nineteen miles with a lot ..read more

The day’s harvest (photo credit / video still: John Feasel of Arrowhead Outdoors) Late 2018 provided another one for the books: my very first wild bird harvested during a memorable pre-Christmas weekend. As I reflect on this momentous event, an assortment of thoughts emerge, together with some feelings. Lucky for me, this is a blog post and not an essay submitted for publication, so here are just a few of the thoughts that spilled out of that thunderclap in the swampy woods which netted my first wild bird: a female “timberdoodle” or American woodcock … 1) My first thought was, “Hey, look at t ..read more

Bird dog on fire Surely heaven, Elysium, Valhala, or whatever awaits for us on the other side of the here and now, this land of the living, the anxious, the suffering, and the desiring mostly frustrated, surely that place of perfect bliss and easy hearts is as individual as those of us dreaming for its sweet relief. How could it not be so? What brings peace for this one agitates and corrodes that one. What thrills one horrifies and traumatizes another. So if we cart anything, even a single course hair of the camel through the needle’s eye into a life beyond, and with it anything of the sort o ..read more

Grayson Guyer, Lost Highway Kennels’ owner/trainer (photo credit: Jimmy Cobb) One of the very first introductions to all things bird dog controversy a new bird dog owner will get is the great dispute over training bird dogs. I don’t mean which guru or which method. I mean whether you should train a bird dog at all. Some will indeed tell you emphatically that you don’t need to “train” (in the sense of teaching something) your bird dog, but rather that you should just take your dog out and simply let it do what it does naturally: hunt. That confused me a bit at first when I first heard som ..read more

Heather’s brand new Volvo XC40 at the wrecker’s, right side up Circumstances have altered my review plans for the these are a few of my favorite things series. We’ll get back to dog trainers next time. Today’s installment is brought to you by the collective partnership of a stop-sign violator, a spectacularly well-designed Volvo XC40, a Gunner Kennel, and the most badass person I know, my wife. The most badass woman I know, post-hospital check up, in the clothes she was wearing in the accident and after having kicked her way out of an upside down car A few weeks ago, I got an early-evening c ..read more

Let's be honest, there are precious few advantages to getting as late a start doing something I love as much as training Lincoln and entering a world I knew little if anything about before bringing him into our family. I admit to lately and occasionally fantasizing about how I'd rewrite my life narrative if I had to do it all over again. Some things I wouldn't reconfigure even a little. I got ridiculously lucky on the spouse and life partner front. I'd put the quality and depth of my family and friend relationships (and the quality and amazingness of those people) up against anyone's. Bu ..read more