It all started in the early 1950s. Back then, English pointers were the preferred bird dogs south of the Mason-Dixon Line, English setters were the grouse dogs of the North Country, and both breeds were well established and the hunters’ choice for upland gamebirds in North America. Never having owned a pointing breed, it seemed to me at the time that the English setter would best fit my needs for hunting upland gamebirds in middle America. But that didn’t happen.

Before I could locate an English setter pup, an unfamiliar breed came into my life—the Brittany spaniel. Some hunting folks said these dogs were mutts and had no noble _field bloodlines. Little did they (or I) know what a great companion and bird-fi_nding machine this French import would be. Call the dogs what you like (as associations have juggled the breed’s name a bit over the decades), but they got in the way of my selection of a “classic” pointing dog.