A Biologist's Bird Dog
By Bill McClure
From "American Hunter" October 1999 Issue
I have never seen a game bird as close to a pointing dog's nose as I did last
May. Nor have I ever seen one as tiny. Nine inches from the nostrils of Sadie, a 5year - old English setter, crouched a day - old, mottled, yellow - brown American woodcock chick. Both dog and bird were motionless. What an experience. What a dog!
Sadie is owned by Daniel G. McAuley, of Old Town, Maine, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. One of McAuley's research interests is the American woodcock, and he has authored and co-authored many scientific papers on the bird. Each spring, with the help of a graduate student, he and Sadie do population surveys and brood banding in eastern Maine. Last spring I watched Sadie, student Heather Ziel, and Dan work together. Heather and Dan banded each subject and took a blood sample. Sadie found the birds.
The use of trained dogs in upland game research dates back to the 1930s. One of the early pioneers was Logan J. Bennett of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, who used his own English setters for game population surveys and banding. He was famous not only for his groundbreaking grouse and woodcock studies but for his beautifully trained research and hunting dogs. In 1948 Dr. Bennett published Training Grouse and Woodcock Dogs, a book which has recently been reprinted. On the dust jacket of the 1948 edition the following statement appeared: "The aid of top-notch dogs was required to determine, each fall and spring, the decline or increase of the woodcock during its migration, breeding, and wintering. Improperly trained dogs would have been a hazard to nesting, brooding, and young birds."
I am confident Dr. Bennett would have been proud of Sadie. Here was a dog - devoted to her master - who quartered the woodland nicely, checking back from time to time before probing deeper into the cover. She was totally absorbed in cooperating with Dan. Once Sadie established a point she would correct on her own, relocate, and indicate with pinpoint precision the location of the chick.
A disciplined pointing dog is indispensable for this work. Once a brood has been located, the canine assistant must be dependably steady while the professionals net the hen and locate each of the chicks. Under no circumstance should the dog move, lunge, or mill about. Absolute control is necessary. Interestingly, after Sadie found a brood and the chicks were all collected for study, she lay down and watched the proceedings. McAuley told me he has had dogs that would let a chick run over top of them without flinching. What I saw Sadie do last May was equally remarkable. Her novel relocations were perfectly executed. She didn't bump one bird.
McAuley says he has noted three styles of bird handling used by his dogs. One he calls a "triangulator" (i.e., a dog that indicates the birds' location by moving to three different spots), the other, a "circler, ' and the third a 'trailer,' both of which are selfexplanatory. He considers Sadie a circler, while his first setter was more of a trailer. On one of her finds I watched her stop, point, and then reestablish several more positions. I heard a bird walking on the leaves. Finally, the setter locked up, and Dan went in and flushed a male woodcock.
This was as fine a piece of work on a moving bird that I have seen, but I wondered what effect these unorthodox methods would have on her performance as a gundog. McAuley assured me that Sadie adapted quickly to gunning and performed well on grouse. He praised her intelligence and ability to discern the difference between brood work and hunting. For example, Sadie will never try to catch and retrieve a bird in the spring, but at the crack of a gun she is off to pick up the prize. On one occasion a fellow researcher had a permit to collect (shoot) a few male woodcock in April as part of a study. The setter performed on broods perfectly but when the gun was fired she dashed to retrieve. That's smart.
Achieving such a level of skill with a dog is no mean feat. But according to Dan McAuley, all he has ever done with his setters is the basic yard training - teaching stay, come, and heel. Once the dog has mastered the fundamentals he shows them countless numbers of wild birds and they hone their talents on local woodcock and grouse in their master's rural back yard. Dan has never used pigeons or released quail. When working a young dog on native woodcock and grouse he insists on steadiness, but once the setter has matured he lets the dog correct a stand on its own. "They know what they're doing, and I trust them," he said.
Sadie is a descendant of a strain of English setters developed in Michigan by the Wicksall Brothers of Traverse City. They became the favorite dogs of biologists with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Nancy Thurston, of Whispering Woods Setters in central Michigan, continues to breed the strain. Dan McAuley got Sadie from her, and, as he said, "These people don't have big kennels but keep a few dogs for bird hunting."
Thurston described her dogs as "setters with very strong instincts that are highly trainable. They are old-style in appearance but are neither boot polishers nor field-trial stock. They are simply hard-working, industrious bird dogs."
The example I saw last May was all of those things plus a calm, relaxed companion. Her master can't praise Sadie enough as a house pet and laid-back family dog who doesn't run off into the woods unless he goes with her.
Dan McAuley has agreed to help interested readers locate a pup. He can be reached at R.R. I, Box 360F, Old Town, ME 04468; 207-394-3355. For further info on Nancy Thurston's dogs, contact: Whispering Woods Setters, 78840 Cryderman St., Richmond, MI 48062; 810-392-2111. NRA
AMERICAN HUNTER - October 1999
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