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How to Make a Bird Dog

A year of logging roads, journal entries & a young setter learning her way.

How to Make a Bird Dog

If you have a puppy under a year old, or older for that matter, recognize only what applies to you and your dog and forget about what does not. (Photo By: Jeremy Moore)

It’s the end of October and soon it will be the end of fall in our grouse woods. Winds out of the south have blown warm for the third straight day in late consignment of what is an Indian summer. October wears an autumnal vail upon furrowed brow, made of orange and red maples, yellowing birch and quaking popple. When stubborn oaks cling to burnt maroon, the whole show is stolen by tamarack swamp’s smoky gold. It is a wedding of seasons and November ushers in cold, preceding the soon to follow winter tide. Yes, we’re now near the end, but it is just the beginning of what I expect will become a much greater journey.   

It’s been difficult for me to accept and approve of hunting a pup hardly 10 months old and not far beyond her introduction to live birds and the gun. Thoughts so taboo lend me feelings of anxiety. But I did it, and believe it was the best thing for both of us. I’ve worked with retrievers for over 20 years yet realize knowledge doesn’t always travel with experience. It’s silly to me now, realizing how easily my mind has changed. Becoming restless due to progress we either were or weren’t making. One of the greatest things that will come from her, and this experience, is the reminder of just how important patience and understanding is when it comes to timing the development of any dog.

This is a brief look into a few pages of a hunting journal. Hardly a set of cliff notes, maybe more comic book-like for some, anything but gospel and still very much in the process of being written. Do not attempt to replicate this narrative, nor anyone else’s, for it will only leave you disappointed. I’ve yet to come across that message in all my research of “how to guides” so I wanted to make that point clear now.

female english setter dog standing in cornfield
Maquina is our petite, tri-colored female English setter whose name directly translates in Spanish as “the machine.” (Photo By: Jeremy Moore)

Much like our Labradors, Maquina boasts warm eyes, willingness to please, intelligence and more than enough natural ability to teach yours truly what makes up a good bird dog. Hunting over a pointing dog has interested me for some time but owning, even more than that, working with one is what I’ve looked forward to most. With no prior experience, I felt the need to set realistic, achievable goals. So long as she was “prepared” to hunt, the plan would be kept simple. Put her on as many wild birds as possible with the goal of simply shooting one “well pointed” grouse before the season’s end. “Well pointed” is subjective and until then she had yet to even point grouse which made this seem like an objective of significant measure.


Nuptial by Nature

When fall weds winter in Wisconsin, the ceremony moves quickly. November is when we fill our freezers. It holds a fragrance of wood fires, chili, and stew. Oh, how fond I am of venison stew. It’s the damndest thing about this time of year, and the calendar does not lie. Only six weeks or so make up our early season, a window of time that bird hunters and dog trainers alike work and wait for all year long. There is this notion, “for better or worse,” that is important to truly understand when dogs have the knack for testing our sincerity of both faithfulness and commitment.

What I wouldn’t give for a manuscript in marginally legible penmanship authored by my grandpa, recording hunting seasons past. Mine is more than a log documenting just flushes and birds bagged. It’s something I hope is added to many times over before I walk my last trail and then it is passed on to anyone in my clan interested enough or willing to read.

9/17/22 – Opening Day Mac’s first hunt. Jake played varsity football, so we met Saturday morn. A hot hunt from 8-10:30, managed 7 partridge and 4 woodcock. Woodcock isn’t open yet.

My first entry of 2022 started like that. The only, and last time I refer to her as “Mac,” a nickname I was originally fond of, but it never stuck regardless of how much I wanted it to. The best nicknames aren’t given, they are earned. Similarly, when I allow things to develop in training on their own rather than “making” them happen, we yield more permanent results. From that entry forward I refer to her as “the Machine” or “the Queen,” which proved fitting. At the end of that first day, I had also penned the number “2” with a circle around it, representing two ruffed grouse in the bag.


The first hunt over a 10-month-old setter and we had a brace of what gramps called “partridge.” Two trophies in middle September’s junglelike cover can make for a fine Instagram post, but it’s context and authenticity are important to consider. True, I managed to scratch a lengthy itch with the triggers of my double, but keep in mind the devil is always in the details. Both birds were of what I call the “less experienced variety.” Immature opening weekend birds, short tailed, wild flushed, taken off the trail with my Labrador at heel. “The Machine” was out of sight searching and had nothing to do with either. That evening, I thought hard while plucking those young birds around the campfire. Our first season together and it has been preached by many, “You can’t shoot wild flushed birds with a young setter.” A formidable test of one’s pledge to their bird dog. I really don’t think it made a difference to Maquina that I took those birds, except that there were two less in the bush for her to point. The bigger question: Am I completely committed to developing this pup, or not? Subsequent weeks of journal entries read as follows:

9/18 – 14 partridge, 5 woodcock. None bagged.

9/21 – 6 partridge, 1 woodcock. None bagged.

9/24 – 19 partridge, 3 woodcock. None bagged.

9/25 – 11 partridge, 5 woodcock. None bagged.

9/27 – 2 partridge, 2 woodcock. None bagged.

A lot of “none bagged” days. Grouse in the September woods are humbling creatures and wingshooting with a renewed discipline and first season setter led to frustrating, depressing and eventually breath-taking moments.

hunting journal with ruffed grouse tail feather
The journey of building a bird dog, including the ups and downs, can fill many pages of a journal. (Photo By: Jeremy Moore)

Ode to October’s Grandeur  

October’s first entry is where the latter comes in. I had friends up to our camp. Sam, who I met a few years earlier, had his two-year-old Llewellin setter named King. We hunted King that morning. Hot and dry, we moved just three ruffed grouse at a distance, only hearing the flush as proof for the effort. We hunted the Queen that afternoon, bushwhacking our way into an overgrown looped two-track, bound by a thousand-acres of well-managed forest. The kind of trail that’s traveled by game more than man, uncluttered just enough to offer an honest chance at getting a pair of shots off when necessary. My favorite kind. Not long after, she froze in rooted stance in the middle of that not-quite-all the way grown-in trail. She broke her ardent pose and repositioned...twice. Processing the ground with her nose and relaying the story via her tail. Eventually half in, half out of the cover, she got one last lock-up causing whiff. It was likely not more than a few seconds, but I can’t say for sure. I took three steps in the direction of her point and heard the attempted escape, followed by a burst within the flora. Two quick-snap, hasty shots­...then silence.

Sam and I looked at each other after realizing what we thought we had just witnessed. It was one of those that you’re just not sure about. Felt good, but the brief glimpse confirmed the bird was quickly swallowed up by foliage. Was that an offbeat flutter of wings I saw? Send the retriever in for what they have been bred and trained to do, wait, and hope.

“Sam, she’s got it!” I called out. I heard the retrieve made long before ever seeing it. A subtle change in the sound of her breathing followed by the last drumming of that cripple’s wings within a soft-mouthed grasp.

holding a ruffed grouse
I smoothed the brown and white freckled breast feathers, rested it on my red and black flannel patterned forearm, and slowly spread the magnificent fan—noting colors and band, broken or perpetual. (Photo By: Jeremy Moore)

The woods, and everything surrounding paused. I held the bird out, nearly eye level to admire. I laid the feathers back as close to lifelike as possible, turned them on their back and inspected the crownlike crest atop its head, using just my index finger and thumb to gently hold the tip of the beak. I smoothed the brown and white freckled breast feathers, rested it on my red and black flannel patterned forearm, and slowly spread the magnificent fan—noting colors and band, broken or perpetual. A final look at the dots on rump feathers confirmed my initial conjecture whether it was a hen or cock bird.

The Dynamics of Development  

It happened that quickly. Just over two weeks, barely into October, we had reached our goal. I’ve always thought training an English setter shouldn’t be so easy. One should have to suffer more and learn from it. I did…and if you paged through the balance of October’s entries, you’d find more on how and why. I don’t corner folks at parties and share stories of my dog, those too easily become one-sided affairs. I also don’t showcase numbers as if there is a scoreboard of fall, but for context’s sake we had moved 233 grouse and 156 woodcock by end of the month. I considered those to be good numbers and realized “more birds” was somewhat within my control but was not the only answer. Finding wasn’t an issue; it was knowing what to do with them. That part of the equation needed development.

We had hunts where she shined, sometimes two or three days in a row, working and holding birds until we walked up the flush. Then, our next time out, it was as if she had never been before. I pity the hunter that hasn’t another to share memories afield with, but one consistent pattern in a month filled with inconsistency was that Maquina’s struggles almost always came when I would “show friends” how well she ran. Her best hunts came just her and I working smaller covers, much slower. Simplification led us into the kind of flushes you see in artists’ paintings.

ruffed grouse hunter standing beside english setter in grouse woods
The author with his English setter, Maquina, in the grouse woods. (Photo By: Jeremy Moore)

These places I find partridge and write of in my journal, are good places. They have smells about them that are good smells, feels about them that are good feels. They’re made up of cutover aspen, maple, birch, and fir with scattered oak of differing vintage and weave together with hiking, snowmobile, ski, and deer trails, accessed by logging, two-tracks, and tote roads. The pulp wood makes for the pages in my journal, it grows and matures very fast. Large oak slabs go in our woodstove and make for warmth on cold nights. It grows and matures very, very, slow. Both have their purpose, but it’s oak that is stronger, lasts longer and brings me far more value. It’s all those trees that make the birds and too make me think about this dog. I accept that we can’t change the rate in which nature matures. Something I appreciate even greater now, both for her sake and mine.

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