Following her second heat cycle we bred Ginny back to “The Meat Dog” and she whelped and nurtured 10 healthy pups—one of which, a male, we kept. (As always Ginny ruled the roost and seldom allowed the whole bunch to nurse same time).

Patch was born in April so there wasn’t a lot of training time until the grouse and woodcock season opened in October.  He took to “yard training” in typical puppy fashion, one day pretty good,  the next not so honky dory.

The good news, by the time the season opened in mid October, as often as not, Patch was pretty  steady on planted pigeons and on his best days pointed more released quail than flushed. Far from a finished product, but not bad, considering  still not 6-months old.

Comes now Opening Day. I had access to a nearby private property where I was pretty sure we wouldn’t run into other hunters/dogs, where a youngster could do his thing, start to figure things out without competition or worse getting caught up in the chaos sometimes found on public lands.

The first hour or so he rammed around at warp speed (Mama would have been proud), busted and chased a bunch of tweety birds and a couple grouse with enthusiasm—though clueless to the ideas of working bird scent or even so much as faking to slow down at the flush. So I said “enough.” And turned intending to make a big circle back to the truck put and call it good. Within sight of the truck we left the woods and entered an overgrown field where the landowner had planted a nasty, multi-flora rose thicket. 

As Patch hit the edge, he wisely turned and ran its length, spun back and...POINT!

You can imagine the turn around came not only as a big surprise but one I did not want to blow.

About 50 yards away I didn’t waste anytime getting there and just then up jumped a woodcock. It went straight up, towered briefly and headed for the far side the multi-flora. Even before it started to fall Patch was off and vanished in the thorny jungle.  Not my first rodeo dealing with razor-sharp rose bushes I did the end around and...

He stood, wild-eyed and with just a tip of beak sticking out his maw.  “Fetch,” says I.
Gulp! and gone.

Turns out a monumental moment in a long and storied career. With great and lasting difficulty he finally up-chucked at least a large part of the mangled carcass. And...and he not only never ate another bird he became a real-hot shot—a fetchin’ machine—true story.

The bad news: Of the many bird dogs of several breeds I've run, Ol' Patch was by far the most baffling; like just when I thought saw it all well...

Stay Tuned There Is More, Much More