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When it comes to selecting a bird dog breed, there’s a common piece of advice handed out: “Choose a dog that hunts the way you hunt.” This is all well and good if you are a seasoned hunter—or if, in fact, you’ve ever hunted at all—but if you are coming into hunting completely green, it’s tough to imagine what your hunting style will be. And before you dive into the minutiae of the various breeds, you have to answer a fundamental question: flushing or pointing dog?

I arrived at this important decision with no practical experience, armed only with preconceived notions and some cursory internet research. Common wisdom said that pointing dogs gave plenty of advance warning before the bird appeared, giving the hunter time to compose herself, establish footing, shoulder the gun, and click off the safety. I imagined that hunting behind a buzzing little spaniel was nothing but chaos, with birds launching out of bushes like popcorn, dog hot on their tails, and taking the hunter completely by surprise. Feeling a little overwhelmed about the whole process already, a pointing dog seemed to be the less chaotic way to go.

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Many countries are home to iconic and world-renowned firearms manufacturers. Inventors and engineers like Bartolomeo Beretta of Italy, Samuel Colt of the US, and William Anson and John Deeley of Great Britain are just a few examples. These are names that are synonymous with innovation, craftsmanship, and quality. Despite Canada’s notoriety as a country with restrictive firearm laws, Canada is not without its own iconic firearm manufacturer.

H.W. Cooey Machine & Arms was founded in 1903 as Cooey Machine & Gear by inventor Hebert William Cooey. Cooey Firearms may not be known for high-quality finishings, elaborate engravings, or prestige like Purdy, Holland & Holland, or Beretta, but they are simple, reliable, and affordable. This reputation made them a household name in Canada. Cooey produced over 12,000,000 firearms during the 20th century. An advertisement for the Cooey Canuck, which appeared in an early edition of Rod & Gun Canada, perhaps best described a Cooey rifle as “The ideal Christmas present for the red-blooded boy, whether he lives in the city, the town or the country.” If you were a kid growing up in Canada between the 1930s and 1980s, chances are you grew up shooting a Cooey rifle.

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For those of us whose hearts have been enthralled by bird dogs and bird dog training, it’s easy to imagine as beginners that everything we do is tied by a silver cord to an ancient past and that there’s one tried-and-true process for training a bird dog, passed down in an unbroken generational succession from master to disciple. 

There’s some truth to all that, but just a little. Our dogs’ genes and breeding may reach back a few centuries, and a working and companionate relationship between Canis familiaris and Homo sapiens stretches back many millennia. And while the ways dogs learn and communicate with each other and with us is somewhat constant, our training methods have almost always been in a state of flux—the bends in the river of progress prompted by technological developments, changing cultural attitudes, continually emerging needs, techniques and tools, and careful observation.

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Once the spring turkey season ends, many of us pivot to our local rivers and lakes to cast flies at fish. However, the thrill of your hunt does not have to end once the fly rod is strung. Many of the fly patterns attached to our leaders are tied with turkey feathers, and what could be a more rewarding full-circle experience than catching fish with flies made from the turkey you harvested? 

Turkey feathers, just like many upland birds, are quite versatile in the world of fly tying. Plucking a couple of handfuls of select feathers from your bird is enough to tie several seasons’ worth of flies. With a little insight into which feathers to save and use, you can create an array of fly patterns that will be cherished every time you open your fly box. 

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As a new owner of a versatile hunting dog, you’ve probably been asked about running in a natural ability or puppy hunt test. Some breeders may request or require that puppy buyers run in a test, while other owners may stumble into the puppy test through local club chapters such as NAVHDA or AKC. For owners of the German-registered breeds—such as the Deutsch Drahthaar, Deutsch Kurzhaar, Deutsch Langhaar, Kleine Munsterlander, and others—the puppy test takes the form of the Verbands-Jugend-Prüfung, or the VJP.

Raspy trumpets descending from the heavens broke the crisp silence and broke me out of my ice fishing trance. It’s easy to lose yourself while staring into the flashing circles and lines of a Vexilar screen, but the first sandhill crane calls of the year would snap anyone back into reality. I looked up through my copper-tinted glasses and counted nearly 200 cranes flying west over Blue Mesa Reservoir towards Montrose’s agricultural fields and milder temperatures. That’s more cranes than were left in Wisconsin in the 1930s.

Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) are one of North America’s great conservation successes. This enormous bird species was extirpated from many states within its home range almost a century ago. Today, they can be found across the entire North American continent and into Siberia. Amazingly, in 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated their population to be 945,996 cranes. They’re the most abundant crane species in the world. Between 1966 and 2019, their populations have been increasing about four percent annually, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Additionally, Partners in Flight estimates there are 560,000 breeding birds.

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Frost fell from the prairie grass as it moved around our legs. The sun had come up halfway through our walk, and water droplets began crawling up the denim of my jeans. Jack and Gunner, young labs and littermates, worked the cover intensely. Their backs, covered in white ice particles, began to steam off from the heat and excitement of the opening weekend. 

We had bagged a few birds and were almost back to the pickup. With our attention on recounting the morning’s shots, the dogs roamed a little more freely. I was laughing at a joke being told when I caught one of the dogs crossing the property line out of the corner of my eye. I suddenly heard a hair-raising yelp. Everyone ran over to the sound and breathed a sigh of relief. It was Gunner, with his front paw in a foothold trap, as Jack pranced around him confused. What sounded like a sure emergency was just a brief interruption to the hike back. While I released his foot and sent him along unscathed, I thought to myself how this would have been a successful coyote set before we messed it up for the trapper.

Upland hunting and fur-harvesting have always had one major thing in common: habitat. It only makes sense that a trapper in search of these predators would have traps in areas of great bird cover.

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The question pops up on bird dog forums and breed-specific forums on social media platforms all the time, “Can we handle the energy of a bird dog?” 

The posters want to get a bird dog pup but they’ve heard they can be a handful; they wonder if they’ll be able to manage the infamous exercise needs of a working dog. Or questions come from new bird dog puppy owners at their wits’ end, frustrated that their dog seems out of control and they’re on the brink of considering rehoming it. Advice rolls in and some of it is good, some bad, and some terrible. I usually try to weigh in, having been in their shoes years ago when we were first researching Brittanys and then later when we were desperately trying to give our bottle-rocket of a bird dog pup enough energy outlets so he wouldn’t find trouble on his own. 

For the welfare of any pup, a prospective bird dog owner needs to know exactly what they are getting into, and understand the decade- or two-long commitment they’ll need to meet the dog’s energy needs. Some pets are an accessory to life and make few demands of their people. Yet, particularly where their energy needs are concerned, bird dogs are not an accessory but rather a lifestyle. 

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“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is a common phrase most folks are familiar with. From a sustainability standpoint, it’s easy to understand that leaving more birds on the landscape than you take is something worth valuing. However, when we are lucky enough to have a bird in the hand, how do we begin to identify what that bird is?

Hopefully, if you’re an upland hunter, you already know how to identify a game bird to species. Given that hunting regulations are almost always species-specific, it’s our responsibility to know what’s flushing in front of us before pulling the trigger, especially when multiple species can look incredibly similar. Wilson’s snipe come to mind as an example because they share their favorite habitats with federally protected shorebird species. Luckily, when hunting American woodcock, you probably won’t run into any lookalikes; I can’t imagine anyone’s ever mistaken a ruffed grouse for a woodcock.

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Sweat beaded on the handler’s forehead as I gave my instructions on the water. A cloud of nervous energy consumed him in anticipation of the day’s last event. After all, a prize one score was on the line. His young Brittany gave a stellar performance in both the field work and tracking portions of its test. Now, the pup excitedly pulled at the end of the lead, giving the handler a glimmer of hope that it would swim.

The NAVHDA Natural Ability test requires a young puppy to swim twice to show its affinity for water. It quickly became apparent this would be a challenge for this pair. The water’s edge was thick with black mud and decaying leaves, and it gradually got deeper. 

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