I’ve been thinking about the future a lot. This blog has helped me reach a sense of closure following the deaths of two beloved dogs. I knew a working type golden retriever intimately well. She could retrieve anything, for she lived for the retrieve. She was one of those dogs who sought kinship with our species to the point where she began to take on some of our traits. The other was a half golden retriever/half boxer that was a truly fell beast. She was the menace of skunks and feral cats, and the coyotes hit the brush when they saw her approach.
Neither of these dogs would have fit into modern American suburban life very well. The intelligent retriever with such a desire to retrieve would probably drive her owners batty in the subdivision. And no insurance company would ever take on a household that included dog that could rather quickly dispatch a feral cat with a simple crushing bite to the skull.
These two dogs taught me a lot about their kind. For their tutelage I will be forever grateful.
But I don’t think it’s fair for me to quest after dogs in hopes that they can replace what once was. It was great when it was, but because it’s based upon the very finite existence of a dog, it cannot be replaced.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I really want in a dog. I suppose that deep down, I want a dog that is pretty unspoiled but also domesticated and useful.
On my trips into the woods, I’ve been coming across a ruffed grouse. I’m sure it’s the same one, but it is hard to tell for sure. I remember eating the ones my grandpa killed, along with the copious dishes of pressure-cooked squirrel. I remember it as the finest poultry I’ve ever tasted.
Grouse have had a rough time in West Virginia outside of the High Alleghenies. When timber industry fell apart in the early part of this century, the woods stopped being logged. The forests started to mature, and the grouse, which prefer younger timber, began to disappear. I’m also sure, though it has never been tested empirically, that decline of the fur industry meant a rise in the number of raccoons and opossums, which love nothing more than to eat grouse eggs, and and a rise in number of red and gray foxes, which love to eat the grouse themselves.
I’ve thought about getting a working golden retriever to hunt grouse, which they certainly can do. They were actually bred to pick up red grouse in the Scottish Highlands. Red grouse are British subspecies of a Holarctic species that we North Americans call a “willow ptarmigan.” Unlike the North American variant, the British red grouse does not turn white in the winter.
Ruffed grouse are more like the forest grouse of Scandinavia. Probably their nearest equivalent in the Old World would be the hazel grouse, which is quite a bit smaller.
These birds can be hunted with retrievers, but it’s more of a flushing dog situation. This sort of raises the question if maybe I’d be better off with a spaniel of some sort.
But the truth is most people who hunt ruffed grouse with dogs don’t use flushing dogs. That’s because ruffed grouse are notoriously good at lying low until the last moment. The one I encounter on a regular basis usually flies off as soon as I walk by where it’s been hiding. Most people use pointing dogs.
The problem is that I don’t like English pointers or Llewellin setters. Nice dogs. But the American version of the English pointer is not the kind of dog I like. It’s more like a pointing white foxhound. To my mind, it’s a dog of the bobwhite plantation of the Deep South.
And it may seem picayune and petty, but I don’t much like the looks of a Llewellin setter. They look unrefined and unkempt, and when they point with their tails sticking up, it reminds me of a joke about all dogs having Ohio license plates. That’s a dog that shows it off!
But then I’m reminded that the pointing dog world doesn’t end with all the plantation stock. On the European continent, there are plenty of different breeds developed. Many of these are multipurpose dogs.
I know the German breeds of these dogs better than the others. The most easy one of these to find is the German short-haired pointer, which is split into several different lines right now. I’ve known one of these dogs from 4-H camp many years ago, and she was a very intelligent and docile animal.
The dogs that are closer to the German version of this breed are also quite capable of retrieving waterfowl, even though it would be unwise to use them during the dead of winter portion of the duck season that West Virginia has.
This breed is a sort of compromise between the Central European big game hound, the pointing gun dog and the retrieving gun dog. It’s not the only breed that Germany has produced that is like this. It just happens to be the most common one in the US.
But again, I’m thinking out loud here. I’m a long way off from being in the place to choose a dog.
But I know I want something unspoiled and something that is useful. I’m not seeking the most obedient dog on the planet. I like a dog with good sense and “sagacity.”
So here is where my mind is moving at the moment.
Idle thoughts about the future.
GSP are great and very tough dogs, at least they were when my father and I bred them when I was young. I was in charge of training and caring for the dogs and my father take them hunting for quail, rabbit, ducks etc., and our stud boy Buddy would last all day, and this was in really rough country. These dogs have huge amounts of energy, really fast and a real joy for hunting, our last dog would be able to pick up the quail alive and return them to my dad without a feather being lost. We had other pointing dogs, but the GSP was far superior. The GSP dogs I see today seem almost too delicate and I am not too sure if the breed has improved or declined since those early days. I still have a real fondness for this breed even though I now raise and train working dogs.
You can get pure German stock over here, but they aren’t incredibly common. http://www.nadkc.org/index.html
I’m glad you are thinking these things over again. No rush. You’ll know when the time is right and the dog is right for you.
I can definitely see you with a german dog or cross.
Would you believe, our best breeding stock were imported from Scotland into Australia. So you don’t have to look only at imported German stock. Our best trick to work out which puppies were the best to keep as future working dogs, was to hold a live quail (for that matter any other game bird) and even when the puppies were just starting to move around, as soon as they picked up the scent of the quail, they would freeze and stay perfectly still. My advice is to test any puppy out with some game bird feathers and see which one has the potential.
I’ve heard there are good ones in Scotland. I saw video of undocked ones in Scotland on a grouse moor. (They look better docked!)
I do have to agree that I’ve seen a few GSPs that seem a tad too soft, always when I see them in AKC shows. Not all, but some.
There are still plenty out there. I think you could find a wonderful one. On at least one FB page someone told me no one gets one in her European country (forget if it was Germany or Holland or what), unless they intend to hunt with them. SHe could not picture one doing anything NOT involved in hunting.
If you get one from someone who actually hunts, who maybe has a bitch they breed occasionally, you’re likely to end up with a great dog. GSPs as a rule are very intelligent, friendly but not really outgoing. I personally have never met or even heard of a GSP with a surly attitude. I HAVE known several that had diabetes, but I don’t know whether that’s common in the breed.
One of my friends, a former KY state policeman, has one a GSP that is black & white roan instead of the usual liver roan. She’s spectacular. She’s a house dog, but also a hunting dog. She’s very graceful but tough. Reminds me a lot of the way Dobes used to be.
GWPs are great dogs too. Maybe a little more robust than GSP.
Black in a GSP means it’s not far removed from Germany or Europe. The AKC standard doesn’t allow anything but liver and liver and white variants. Just like how the AKC doesn’t have long-haired weimaraners…
I’ve only known one aggressive GSP In my life, and it was a black with white. Kept in the Poconos. More defensive than anything. More than just “not outgoing”. But that’s not to detract from German stock. It’s just what the dog happened to be.
I remember a great many amazing GSPs growing up. They were THEE hunting dog to have where my Oma and Opa lived in their retirement years.
My nelhew is a falconer and lives in Colorado. He bred a GSP called Max who was the most reliable dog I have ever seen. If there was a prairie chicken in one of the huge fields he would find and flush it. The hawk or falcon would do the rest. Poetry in motion…
I have no personal experience with the pointing Labrador, but possibly that could be an answer to a hunt-point-retrieve dog that could also work in the cold and wet. Several kennels advertise in magazines such as Gun Dog. Also, I have seen Goldens that naturally point, then flush on command. No doubt a clever breeder could build a HPR strain of such dogs, using the right stock.
And there are also the GWHP (Draathaar) as well, the German Long-haired Pointer, and the Spinone, among the European versatile hunters.
How about Viszla? They are pointers, flushers, and retrievers, in one body. Besides, they attach to their humans too.
That’s what a German short-hair also is. All the Middle European gundogs are versatile to certain extent. Viszlas are good dogs, but 1. I’m of German ancestry. 2. I like the looks of German dog better than the Hungarian. There are two breeds of viszla, a smooth and a wire-hair. My guess is there are fewer differences between those two than there are between the smooth and wire German dogs. The wire-haired dog, the actual Drathaar, is like a big game hound that points and retrieves. That’s what Weimaraners were too.
I met a GSP one time and asked the owner how the dog does off-leash. “Oh, he always comes back. Eventually.” While petting the dog I noticed a hard bump in its fur. Owner said it was probably a shotgun pellet, but had no idea how it came to be in the dog.
Sounds like a good GSP should meet your criteria. Most I have met are super-athletic, prey-driven, and quite friendly once they get to know you.
Just curious – are there any other European versatile breeds that you have considered?
Viszla. I did consider the Drahthaar until I read some horror stories.
What got me interested in them is reading Rick Bass’b book:
http://thebark.com/content/colter-true-story-best-dog-i-ever-had
It’s one of the most honest books about a dog that I’ve read. He admits to being a terrible trainer and shot, which is a lot more refreshing than all the thundering books about dogs. Very much a shame what happened to Colter though. I wish he’d lived longer.
I could see you with a Large Munsterlander, which is basically a longhaired GSP.
Pretty rare over here.
Why? Most hunters here in Austria use Drahthaar…what are the horror stories? BTW I think the Kleine Münsterländer is a better bet. Also very common working allrounder here in Austria.
I’ve heard of these dogs being nice and docile, then get ticked off and bite someone severely. I doubt that the Europeans are selling the best DDs to the US. We also don’t have need for a gun dog to bay a wild boar, because in my state there are wild boar in only a limited area and you cannot use dogs to hunt them.
I also have an aversion to beards. I keep myself clean-shaven. I like a dog that is clean-shaven too.
The most common HPR breeds in the US are the German shorthair, the Weimaraner, and the (smooth) Vizsla. Most Weimaraners aren’t gun dogs. I’d be surprised if that many vizslas are. The German shorthair is the first of these breeds to show up in this country, and we have a lot of different strains, some are bred for the actual German registry, using the same rules. Some are bred to be glorified English pointers. Others are bred to between the two extremes. The same goes with the DDs and GWP. It’s so much a division between the two over here, that breeders of DDs, which are bred to German rules, consider them a different breed from the GWP of the AKC.
There are some Americanized Deutsch Drahthaars about, but I think I’m totally unqualified for them!