A Perfect Union – Dogs Doing What They Were Bred to Do

by Chris Robinson

Does anyone truly know what “perfect” is? Oh, everyone has a broad idea of what it means–something with no flaws, an ideal type–but is it possible to point at something and say with absolute confidence, “That’s perfect” and have virtually everyone agree with that assessment?

Probably not as notions of perfection are too personal for sweeping certainty. Indeed, it is an unusual individual who doesn’t have opinions that are often strongly held about what constitutes perfection on a variety of subjects and dog people are no different. However, most of us know our own definition of perfection when we see it.

That said, there always seem to be certain birds for gun dogs, certain critters for breeds like hounds and terriers, and certain jobs for working and herding dogs that combine dog and bird/critter/task into a unity that is about as close as you can come to perfection. And, while that unity is often what you’d expect with that breed of dog and that bird, critter or job, sometimes it isn’t.

For an example of “isn’t” take my Chesapeake Bay Retriever, “Bo.” It is generally conceded that Chesapeakes are the premier waterfowl dogs and while he is a good waterfowl hunter and loves fetching ducks and geese, he comes much closer to hunting perfection when it is Bo versus a pheasant rooster. For, unlike waterfowl hunting when only his retrieving capabilities are generally what’s needed, pheasants, particularly the gaudy, flashy roosters, demand that he use all of his many hunting skills–finding birds, tracking them, forcing them to go airborne, retrieving and sometimes running them down. On one pheasant hunt last year on a cold, windy winter day, snow was crackling underfoot as Bo locked onto a twisting trail through some heavy switchgrass. All of a sudden he charged forward with his nose down and his tail a high speed wagging blur. The rooster held in the switchgrass until the last possible second before jumping into the air, cackling his disapproval at being rousted from his cozy patch of grass. In my mind’s eye, bird and dog remain frozen with a leaping Bo’s jaws inches away from the rooster’s tail. The pursuit, the flush and the retrieve as he pranced back with his “trophy” were a harmonious blend of bird and dog. When everything works right, including his human hunt- ing partners being able to hit the bird he has found and flushed as happened this time, it produces a glorious tableau that, while not what the breed is renowned for doing, is, at least in my view, about as close to a perfect union as dog, bird and
hunter can achieve.

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Posted by Alex on Sep 18 2018. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.