Six pointing breeds and four flushers round out our picks. Now let the fur fly…
By
Tom Davis
Grouse hunters are a notoriously opinionated bunch. Put more than two of
them in the same room and sure as sunrise they’ll find something to
disagree about. More likely, they’ll find lots to disagree about. The best shotguns
are a bone of endless contention. But if you really want to see the fur
fly, stand up in a roomful of grouse hunters and say, “When it comes to
grouse hunting dogs, I think breed _____ is the best.” Before you do,
identify the closest exit, because objects will be thrown at you.
Today, that’s all changed. Flushing
dogs now enjoy a large and enthusiastic following, the Continental
breeds are an established force, and the Irishman and the Gordon have
made heroic comebacks as grouse hunting dogs. It isn’t that the lights
of the pointer and the English setter have dimmed; it’s just that they
are no longer the only stars in the sky. William Harnden Foster wouldn’t
know what to make of it.
To be sure that you do know
what to make of it when it comes time to choose your next pup, here, in
no particular order, are snapshots of the top 10 best grouse hunting
dogs, 21st century style.
1. English Setter: The Traditional Grouse Dog
This breed remains the
classic choice for traditional-minded grouse hunters—although the words
“English setter grouse dog” can connote very different animals depending
on who’s listening. There are low-to-the-ground, wispily feathered
35-pound English setters that smoke through the woods like missiles, and
tall, extravagantly coated 70-pounders who go about their business with
the unhurried formality of Downton Abbey butlers. The former are
generally known as the field-trial type, the latter as the Ryman/Old
Hemlock type. The legendary Tom Prawdzik of Clare, Michigan, believed
that an English setter somewhere between those extremes—wide-ranging,
but with an easy, all-day gait—was the most “efficient” dog for ruffed
grouse hunting. He had 50 years of meticulously kept records to back up
that opinion too.
2. Gordon Setter: The Handsomest Grouse Dog
Perhaps the handsomest of all the
sporting breeds, the “black-and-tan” gets its name from the fourth Duke
of Gordon, the Scottish laird who stabilized the breed’s type in the
early 19th century. A steady, level-headed worker who operates at close
range and rarely screws up, the Gordon was a great favorite among market
hunters—about the best recommendation possible if your aim is to put
birds in the bag. But for many years, as bird-dog fashion changed and
the Gordon’s breeding was increasingly co-opted by the show crowd (the
same fate that befell the Irish setter), sportsmen who’d have loved to
hunt grouse with a Gordon had a devil of a time finding one that could
hunt. Thankfully, the hunting Gordon is back, and while you won’t find
one behind every bush, they’re out there if you make the effort to look.
3. Pointer: The Speedster
No breed elicits stronger opinions
than the pointer. As the saying goes, there are really just two kinds of
bird-dog people: those who think pointers are the only dogs worth
feeding, and those who are scared to death of them. The way I look at
it, the pointer is the Formula One racecar of the pointing-dog set:
capable of jaw-dropping performance in the hands of those who know what
they’re doing, and a wreck waiting to happen in the hands of those who
don’t. Both Burton Spiller and William Harnden Foster, two of the most
hallowed figures in the lore and literature of grouse hunting, were
diehard pointer men. The greatest pointer man of all, Robert G. Wehle of
Elhew Kennels fame, was a grouse hunter, and it’s no coincidence that
the overwhelming majority of pointers used to chase ruffs boast a
preponderance of Elhew blood.
