I refuse to believe it’s a crapshoot. Each time it’s my turn to choose, I have a plan.  I have science. I have research. I have…well, er, uh... a really hard time sorting a gun dog puppy from a litter of dandies. That’s precisely why I no longer even try.

I recall the old timers looking for a “split nose” or a black roof to the dog’s mouth as signs of superior scenting ability. For years, people have teased pups with a bird wing on a cane pole line, hoping to see early evidence of pointing instinct.  As one jaded old breeder once said to me, “Onliest thing that really proves is that you’ve got a fishing pole with feathers on one end and a fool on the other.”

Other folks throw dummies draped in feathers to check innate retrieving prowess.  New-ager bird doggers come armed with a clipboard full of tests, stimulus-response checks from the laboratories of arcane behavioral theory.

Whether such methods are myth or madness probably depends on individual results.  But after 36 years of trial and error, I avoid most trials and make the fewest errors when I do a great job picking the breeder, then let the breeder pick the puppy for me.

 Back in the day, we shopped for puppies by word of mouth or ads placed in newspapers and sporting magazines.  Today a deft Google searcher can check out more kennel operations in a few hours than we once could in weeks. That’s when the first hardline criteria kicks in – Does the breeder, currently or in the documented past, hunt the kind of dog I like in the way that I most like to hunt?

That neatly eliminates the volume breeder. To prove out dogs in the field takes time, commitment, and passion.   Even if breeding gun dogs is a person's full time job, it’s virtually impossible for individuals keeping a large kennel, even living in prime hunting territory, to provide the exposure needed to fully know what each dog truly is in the place it matters most: the coverts.

I’ll stick my neck out and say no volume breeder today can possibly know enough about the field prowess of his or her bloodstock, no matter how steeped the individual is in bloodlines. Don’t send me pictures of “brood bitches” pointing hissing cats in cages set just out of the photo frame; I want to see evidence of dogs in the field, doing the deed.

For my money, to advertise puppies as solid companion gun dog prospects without both sire and dam logging serious time under the gun borders on the criminal.  I don’t want a breeding mapped on paper. I want dogs carefully selected from top- flight field performers under conditions similar to my own hunts. And I want proof: I want photos – wild birds in wild country. Testimonials from past puppy placements. Excerpts from journals. Stats.  Data.

Harder to weed out, for lack of a better description than can be politely printed here, is “the dog jockey.” By that I mean the person who simply lies about his or her field work, who doesn’t have an established line of dogs, but rather a dog “du jour,”  whose breeding "program" is a grab bag of proximity and convenience.  That’s when we have to check references.  The Dog Jockey leaves tracks of discarded dogs and dissatisfied persons. There won’t be lots of photos on lots of different days in lots of different places.  There won’t be contracts.  Many answers to legit questions about performance won’t pass the sniff test, and often, in the conversation, there seems always to be gossip about other dogs, other breeders.  If the seller is more interested in running down others than he or she is in offering good info on the puppies from his or her own "program," we keep walking.

We must study pedigrees, and not only for ancestry. We look at birthdates. We want to see how old the dog is relative to this litter and others he’s sired or she’s whelped.   If a female has had puppies very early and very often in her life, it’s up to the prospective buyer to ask why.  We also ask about the dates of those litters, not only to get more information on the frequency an animal has been used for breeding, but when a female has had puppies on the ground.  If she’s nursing puppies during the bird season, exactly how much can the owner really tell us about her performance?

We survey Facebook with caution. It’s like everything else online, only more so.  We keep a grain of salt handy at all times. But in the small worlds of Llewellin and Ryman setters, folks figure out pretty quickly who’s done the homework, who’s word can be trusted, who trains and hunts his or her own dogs, who’s breeding to make a buck, who puts the health, comfort, longevity, integrity of his or her dogs above all else. 

But back to the whole stats and data thing for a moment. The breeders I’ve on whom I've come to depend keep detailed, clear-eyed records of their dogs’ performances in the field. A well kept journal is a here and now record of when each dog had its day, how, how often, and under what conditions that dog performed.  Within reason, breeders make that information available to puppy customers who really should care to read that stuff.

Al Gore had yet to invent the internet when I first became acquainted with Llewellin grouse dog breeder Eric Jacobs.  We exchanged letters, mostly;  Eric was a prolific correspondent and neither of us enjoyed phone conversation. How I wish I had saved all of those letters, painstakingly composed on yellow legal pad. The few letters that survive, I cherish.  From the beginning, this opinionated, painfully honest, nearly-every-day-in-season grouse hunter, kept flush-point-shot-retrieve data that allowed him to talk about his dogs' work with real authority.

Eric could walk, Eric could shoot, and his dogs knew their business, so there were bag numbers in there, too. But “whack ‘em and stack ‘em” was never the focus of his recounting a day afield.  It was weather conditions.  Bird numbers and bird behavior.  Cover type. Flushes.  Points, backs, and retrieves. Of special interest was how the dogs worked grouse that ran away from points, how the dogs learned over the course of a season, over multiple seasons, how hard to push a bird until it finally believed discretion was the better part of valor and froze under a final verdict point…one of the defining differences between dogs that hunt grouse and Grouse Dogs.

Eric's dogs back then had what his current generation of Blizzard-strain Llewellins promises to have as well: the will to hit cover, to push a mountainside or grapevine tangle or thick stand of popple or laurel;  the grit and intelligence to stay with scent; the athleticism and flowing gait to manage terrain with endurance, adaptability, and (too often overlooked) longevity.

Then there is the capstone to performance: that white-hot glow on point, high style forged from a skidding, molten stop…all in a square muzzled, saber-tailed, field-feathered package of all that’s beautiful in the heritage strains of Llewellin, Gordon, or Ryman setter. That’s the dog I was after then, the dog I covet all these years later, the traits great breeders select for with every litter.

I thought about Eric when, over a year ago, I began the search for a Ryman-strain English setter with Cliff and Lisa Weisse at October Setters in Idaho.  They had no puppies available at that time, but they put me in touch with Lynn Dee Galey of Firelight Birddogs based in northeastern Kansas.  Lynn Dee had brought her very athletic looking female, Mustang Sally, to put to the Wiesse's Heath, a dog Lynn Dee had hunted over and admired a great deal.  

The correspondence between Lynn Dee and me went back and forth, her replies cordial, professional and precise.  She asked nearly as many questions as did I, and it became obvious that I was being interviewed as a candidate for a puppy placement. To my mind, that only meant that this woman was bent on making the best match possible for one of her puppies.

The more we talked about hunting styles, about our shared tastes in setter performance and disposition and living with gun dogs, the more I looked at photos of Lynn Dee's dogs in the field, the more I pored over the materials provided on her website, the more convinced I became that should I manage to get on a list for a Heath X Sally puppy, I would count myself incredibly fortunate.

Still and all, in the end, I didn't choose Deacon, the puppy that Lynn Dee eventually left with me during her cross-country puppy placement hegira to meet personally with buyers from Ohio, West Virginia, and New Brunswick.  My choice was Lynn Dee Galey, whose experience with hunting grouse over pointing dogs goes back to her Vermont childhood growing up with the old-time Irish setters her father favored, and later, Gordon Setters that retained the hunt and style and tenacity that is too often absent now in that beautiful breed.  In the last couple of decades, she has given her life over to the true-type Ryman English setters, bird dogs developed in the Pennsylvania and West Virginia highlands to hunt ruffed grouse and woodcock for the Gun...but who get the job done on Lynn Dee's Wild West quail, multi-species of grouse, and pheasant forays.  

I had a place in the order of deposits received.  Through our correspondence, Lynn Dee had a strong sense of exactly the kind of dog I wanted for my hunting, my travel, and my life here on the farm.  One huge advantage came with this being Sally's second litter with Heath.  Lynn Dee had kept the handsome Flint and his "Wonder Woman" (in my view) sister Kate from that mating.  Each had a season of hunting under his or her collar, so from Lynn Dee's insightful descriptions and great field photography of those two as well as Mustang Sally, I could crystal ball much of how my dog could be expected to look and perform.

Once a litter of Firelight puppies is born, Lynn Dee takes on the sometimes maddening chore furnishing weekly photos of puppies who simply can’t be posed.  She carefully labels each pup pic so that folks on the list for either males or females can keep a running tab on who’s who.  Firelight is going to raise on average maybe two litters per year - if that.  Fortunately, Lynn Dee works out of her home.  She is at the whelping box virtually at all hours, a labor of love that includes studying, socializing, and managing a wriggling mass of baby birddogs, all while monitoring her customers' takes and questions about specific individuals.  Here's where Lynn Dee's background in counseling psychology gets put to work, as she politely, respectfully steers her puppy people in the direction of the proto-setter she feels might best suit each buyer.

Lynn Dee knew that I had my eye on a strapping big male dubbed “The Masked Marauder.”  Given my place in the deposit queue, I had made my peace with the reality he might not be available when it came time for us to huddle over the remaining candidates.  Regardless, I was going to get a terrific puppy.

But sometimes, just sometimes, a crusty old bird hunter gets a kind roll of the bones.  The Marauder was, indeed, still undrafted when my slot came up. I knew we'd hit it lucky when Lynn Dee Galey seemed every bit as happy as I was.

Firelight’s Encore Deacon, curled on a mat in the kitchen, spent from an early spring swing through our home alder bottom, is all I could have hoped he would be.

Deacon is Exhibit A of why the happiest would-be gun dog owners don’t choose a puppy; they choose the breeder, one they can admire and learn from, one whose standards are more exacting than their own, one who takes enormous pride and meticulous care in the healthy, upbeat puppies he or she produces, puppies firmly tied to reputation, integrity, legacy. 

Developing, then maintaining, that legacy rides in large measure on avoiding the kennel blindness that plagues some would-be breeders. Too many of us have an easier time assessing the limitations of our own children than we do a favored gun dog. There’s science, but perhaps more art, in selective breeding, an uncompromising, sometimes heart-breaking sorting of dogs that, for compelling reasons, should, or should not be added to the family tree, no matter how valued the individual animal.

Successful selective breeding means envisioning complementary traits while always looking for the sire or dam that might bring in additional desirable characteristics to what pointer breeder Robert Wehle called “the totem,” the genetic mix in a thoughtfully directed kennel program. When studying pedigrees from a breeder candidate, buyers should be on the lookout for “nicks,” repeat matings or judicious linebreeding proven to produce bird dogs close to the breeder’s chosen standard. 

For example, Firelight built on the Heath X Sally nick with Kate bred to Good Go ing Classic Mack, a dog carrying lines that in the past, crossed with Lynn Dee’s dogs, have made solid stagers. Firelight brood matrons traditionally have but two litters in their whelping box careers (another respectful, dog-centered consideration ignored by most  volume breeders). However, after much deliberation, Lynn Dee, tied down with Kate’s puppies, sent partner Mike Sheffer to the Cliff and Lisa Weisse on a mission to mate Mustang Sally to October’s Blue Doc, a throwback type of Llewellin/Ryman outcross Lynn Dee enjoyed hunting over during the most recent gathering of Ryman breeders.  Doc represents the kind of “outside” dog that excites every niche breeder, an animal my grandfather would have described as being from “the same church, different pew”:  classic looks, superior hunting ability, tractable disposition, certified-sound conformation…and new blood to add to the Firelight totem.

I have been fortunate to have made friends with, and enjoyed dogs from, five breeders fitting the mold described here. Standing with Lynn Dee Galey and Eric Jacobs are Minnesotans Gary and Nancy Johnson and Steve MacDonald of Wildwinds British Labradors in Firth, Nebraska.  There are, of course, others…but such people are not common.  Neither are their dogs.

All of the five mentioned are insistent that prospective buyers be detailed and honest about their own hunting, living situation, as well as level of experience and expertise in developing a gun dog. For their part, smart buyers read carefully the puppy contract that comprehensively protects all parties. They ask questions about guarantees, veterinary care, shots, worming schedules for the dam and the litter.  They may also look for pertinent certification of bloodstock regarding hips, thyroid, elbows, eyes, etc. 

A gun dog puppy is a choice we have to live and hunt with (hopefully) for a decade or more. We must have an ideal in mind, then try to match it with the breeder and the breeder’s current stock, just as I did in 1986 with the Johnsons and their great Briar dog, with Wildwinds' Emma and Toby, with Eric Jacobs' Parker and Dixie, and with Lynn Dee Galey and her entire crew of hard-hunting Firelight Rymans.

It’s not a crapshoot when we load the dice by betting the breeder.  It’s a stone natural, a “7-come-11” roll that makes a puppy and its new partner winners for life.

Gary and Nancy Johnson are retired from setter breeding.  But you can bet the ranch on a Wildwind British Labrador at http://wildwindbritlabs.com/index.php . To find out more about classic Llewellin grouse dogs, contact Eric Jacobs at http://www.blizzardllewellins.com .  Lynn Dee Galey's Ryman Setters, as well as Mike Sheffer’s beautiful Flint Hills Epagnuel Bretons - "French Brittanys" if you're scoring at home – can be found in the field and on the Firelight Birddogs website at http://firelightbirddogs.com . For a list of reputable Ryman Setter breeders who adhere to the standards ALL breeders should, please go to https://rymansetters.com .