My father bred hunting dogs and this picture was taken, forty years ago, on a day when Dad took the dogs out to train. All five dogs are pointing on the same bird, hidden in the grass, foreground left.
From left to right:
Max - English Pointer: A very quiet dog that rarely ever made a sound. Max was the dog that liked to eat bees. He would stalk them in his kennel and catch them in his mouth. He would shake his head and spit them out. By the end of the day, there would be a pile of about a dozen dead bees on the ground, next to his water bucket. We never figured out why he did it but it never seemed to hurt him any.
Rex - English Pointer: Rex was a big, strong dog that liked to run! I remember, as a young kid, going out in Dad's pickup, late at night to look for Rex who had just decided to go for a midnight jog. I sat in the truck with a plug-in spotlight while Dad went out in the woods, calling for Max. Yes, we found Rex and brought him home, safely, but, after that, Dad decided that it was best to let Rex out to run for about a half hour so that he would get tired out before it was time to go hunting.
Dutch - English Setter: Dutch was the "crazy dog" that loved to chase the Frisbee. Any time he so much as laid eyes on a Frisbee, he would go nuts, wanting you to throw it for him. Not just a short throw, either. He wanted you to throw it far and high! You could give it your best throw and Dutch would almost always catch it. If you've ever seen those "Frisbee Dog" competitions on TV, or YouTube, Dutch would have put them all to shame. This was a good twenty years before Frisbee dogs became a fad!
Penny - Brittany Spaniel: Penny was the "mother dog." She was one that my father bred to sell the puppies. She was a good mom and she loved to go hunting, too. She wanted to go hunting so much that, if she saw somebody coming out of the house wearing hunting clothes, she would go nuts, barking and jumping and even biting at the wire mesh door of her kennel because she wanted to go out and "get the birds!"
Toby - Brittany Spaniel: He was the "father" to Penny's pups. He loved to "go get birds" too, although he didn't get excited like Penny did. Toby was a pro! If you took Toby out to the woods to hunt and he went on point, he waited for you to flush the bird and shoot. You had better not miss because Toby wouldn't be happy with you. On more than one occasion, I saw my father or one of his buddies, hunting over Toby, miss the shot and Toby would turn around and look at him as if to say, "You big dummy! You MISSED! What am I supposed to do now?"
(These dogs all crossed the bridge, long ago, before I graduated high school. I won't tell you what year that was but it was more than thirty years ago.)
