Article on the National in the New York Times

In Field Trialing, Bird Dogs Call Shots and Humans Follow

By JAMES CARD

Published: February 23, 2010

GRAND JUNCTION, Tenn. — The competitors arrived at the historic Ames Plantation in pickup trucks with built-in dog kennels, pulling gooseneck trailers hauling saddle horses. After a year of crisscrossing the country, the holy grail of their sport was at last in reach for the owners of 39 of the best bird-hunting dogs in North America.

The National Championship for Field Trialing Bird Dogs, first held here in western Tennessee in 1896, determines the continent’s most elite canine athlete. On Tuesday, In the Shadow, an English pointer owned by Carl Bowman of Louisville, Ky., and handled by Robin Gates, was named the 111th champion after an event lasting two weeks in which he competed on the third day.

Field trialing is an expensive and obsessive sport, and a unique American subculture. Dog owners spend thousands on food, lodging, veterinarian bills and gasoline, all in pursuit of a $20,000 prize and the glory that goes with it.

To make it to Ames, the dogs must win at least two of the approximately 75 qualifying field trials held in the United States and Canada. Four of this year’s competitors were returning champions. The dogs are mostly pointers, with three English setters, a breed that has not won since 1970.

The dogs run in pairs, or braces — one brace in the morning and one in the afternoon. The event lasts as many days as it takes each dog to complete one three-hour hunt for quail.

The only way to view the event is on horseback or by leapfrogging ahead in trucks on dirt roads and waiting for a glimpse of the dogs as they run by at a trail crossing. Mounted spectators can number as many 500, all following the judges, dog owners and handlers, who themselves trail the dogs through the damp winter farm country.

The competition this year was hammered by storms, with snow crusting into paw-slashing ice that made the 6,000-acre course unsafe, setting the schedule back more than three days. After the weather cleared, dogs ran through melting snow and mud.

One day last week, Sheldon Twer, a trainer from Oakdale, Calif., waited for the dogs to come through at a crossing point. He competes in about 25 field trials a year and, for him, Ames is the only place to be in February. "The dogs that make it to this level are exceptional,” Twer said. “It’s really an honor to be here. You can sell a dog for $50,000 that’s made it to this level. It costs about $6,000 to $7,000 a year to develop one. You get four or five years in them.”

One purpose of field trialing is to identify the top bloodlines and to pass along the DNA of the dogs with an indomitable drive to hunt. Through breeding, the characteristics of a champion will eventually transfer into the general population of bird dogs that are companions to the average upland bird hunter.

Two dogs emerged through the bramble: Elhew Sinbad, a white-coated pointer, and Highground Jax Jabba, a spotted setter. Their flanks were slathered with mud and they loped by, tongues agape.

The mounted spectators, approximately 200, passed the people parked at the crossing point. Everyone seemed to know one another. Some hollered out to Twer and he waved back.

“We work together,” Twer said. “Like any sport there are some guys that don’t like each other — some animosity — but for the most part, it’s a pretty close-knit group. It’s worse than a cult. It’s an addiction.”

Two days earlier, In the Shadow set the high mark by finding 10 quail. When a dog smells quail, it freezes, steady and statuelike, and remains locked on three legs with one forepaw tucked under its chest. With the dog on point, the handler wades into the brush, flushes the covey of quail and fires a starter pistol. The birds are not killed, but counted as a “find.” The dog must not flinch as the birds take flight and must stand staunch until released by the handler.

Penalties are given for “unproductives,” referring to when a dog points to a quail that does not exist, or points to another creature. This year, cottontail rabbits and armadillos were pointed.


If two dogs are hunting in close proximity and one goes on point, the other dog must freeze behind the pointing dog (the dog receives credit for doing so).


“There’s an old saying — you’ll never win a field trial with a back, but if your dog fails to back, you could lose one,” said Ken Blackman, a field trialer who helps videotape the event.

In most field trials, dogs run only for an hour, but at Ames they run for three and are expected to finish with surplus vigor. Judges look for big-running dogs that quarter forward through the brush hungering for quail. At the end of the competition, In the Shadow was declared judged the champion. For the other dogs, there is always next year, but they still have to qualify in other field trials to make it back to Ames.

“I told the old gentleman who started me in this sport 40 years ago that it probably would have been better to give me a gram of cocaine because then I could have done my time in prison,” said Larry Garner, an amateur bird dog field trialer from Dallas. “I could have gone through rehab and become a productive citizen again instead of being addicted to bird dogs and chasing them all over the United States and Canada.”