Flushing Out The Greatest Bird Dogs

In a world dominated by specialists, hunters have not lost their longing for the perfect all-around bird dog.

The breed that will point as reliably as pointers and track and retrieve on land and water as enthusiastically as retrievers.

The dog that looks handsome, slathers affection equally among all family members and responds flawlessly to every command.

We are talking, of course, about the mythical dog.

“Every breed has its great dogs, but there’s no way to guarantee they’ll all be good,” said Dan Hoke, professional hunting dog trainer near Medical Lake.

Such logic doesn’t stop the quest, however.

The German longhair pointer, first recognized as a bona fide breed in the 1880s, is the latest among European dogs imported to the United States and billed to be the epitome of versatile breeds.

“They are decathletes,” said Del Peterson of Selah, Wash.

After 37 years as a dog enthusiast and breeder, Peterson’s quest for the ideal hunting dog took him to Europe several years ago to try out the German longhair. He liked what he saw, but German breeders initially refused to let the dogs be imported to the United States.

“They told me this was a hunting dog and they didn’t want to risk having it bred for show or trials,” Peterson said.

But Peterson was persistent. After four trips to Germany, two trips to Holland and two trips to Czechoslovakia, he finally got his first German longhair.

The dogs are about the size of an English setter. Most of them have a long, dark brown coat, although a few may have brown and white coloring.

To date, Peterson has worked to import 27 German longhairs. He is among a small group of hunters who are closely guarding the bloodlines of the 80 German longhairs in the United States.

The dogs are allowed to breed only if they pass a stringent field test to prove their hunting ability, Peterson said.

The main concern is that the breed doesn’t get too popular, too fast, he said.

“We are just hunters who are trying to breed quality gun dogs,” Peterson says. “We all need to be responsible hunters, which means making every effort to recover downed game. The best way to do that is with a good gun dog.”

However, Hoke said there’s no magic in such guarded breed selection.

“The German longhairs have a very small gene pool to select from,” he said. “Good dogs are easier to come by when you have larger numbers. The longhairs might be good, but until there are more of them around, it’s tough to tell whether they’re better than other breeds.

“It’s like pointing Labs,” he said. “Everybody thought they’d be awesome, but once they starting circulating around, people realized they weren’t so great.”

Hoke’s theory is that the greatest hunting dogs come from various breeds, but there’s one characteristic they all have in common.

“They’re all dead,” he said.

“Every dog becomes greater and a little fonder in our memory than he was in the field.”

Hoke said hunters could find good dogs from various breeds if they’d just take the time to look.

“Generally, people get the urge, then they want the dog tomorrow,” he said. “Find the breed you like, then spend a year looking for the strain within the breed that works. Then get out and go hunting with the dog or at least the parent of the dog you’re interested in.

“Feathers in the bag are the best verification you can get.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo