Over six decades my heart has been owned by a series of bird dogs, all but one an English Setter. The one exception was Ben, an English (or American) Pointer. As I remember them all in reverie, Ben appears in my mental DVD again and again. He was talented, and handsome, and lovable, and happily memorable. Just bringing him up in my mind’s eye makes me want to hug him.
How he came to own me begins the story. I had bought his littermate sister Jill as a green derby a year earlier. She was a pretty good bird dog but ugly as sin, with an undershot jaw and a sickle tail but plenty of drive. My farmer friend and frequent hunting host with limitless territory and a six-day-a-week quail hunting addiction (his father had been a family physician in Stony Creek starting in 1901 and delivered every baby, white and black, born nearby over many decades so there were no No Trespassing signs for Joe Prince) had admired her, so I returned to her breeder a year later to acquire a pup from a repeat breeding to give Joe. The breeder was Lee Rhodes of Warsaw, Virginia, retired and a devoted quail hunter and Fun Trial participant. (I gave Jill to Sam Kerr of Appomattox for whom she became a star).
I had called ahead and reserved a male pup for Joe. When I arrived at Lee’s home and walked to his back yard to pick up the pup, I saw in an adjoining kennel run Ben. He was a littermate of my Jill. Lee explained that Ben had been sold like Jill as a green derby but returned after his buyer had rendered him gun shy by taking him to a preserve and repeatedly shooting close over his head at released quail with a twelve gauge. Lee had rehabilitated him by a year of constant wild .quail hunting. He was cured of gun-shy and, according to Lee, a strong covey and singles finder, staunch, a natural backer, and a good dead bird finder and soft-mouth retriever. He was close to being steady to wing and shot, Lee said.
And then Lee said, “Let me show you something,” and took a red bandana from a hip pocket and handed it to me. “Take this to the front of the house and put it under a bush, anywhere,” Lee said, and I did. When I returned Lee opened Ben’s kennel gate and said, “Fetch.”
Ben lit out for the front yard and Lee and I followed. Like a motorized vacuum cleaner, Ben searched for the bandana, not with his nose to the ground but high headed, like a good dog holds his head when relocating. In about one minute he returned to Lee with the bandana in his mouth, tail wagging happily. Lee praised him and took the bandana which Ben released without hassle.
Lee gave me the bandana again and said, “Take it back in the garden and hide it good.” Lee had a two-acre vegetable garden behind his house, and I hid the bandana in bean vines near the back right corner. When I returned, Lee again released Ben and said “fetch” and Ben shot around the house and went straight to the spot where I had hid the bandana and brought it to Lee, all at a run. Ben had obviously used my scent trail to locate the bandana.
I was hooked. I had to have Ben. “What will you take for him,” I asked.
Just then a neighbor walked over. Lee introduced him as his quail hunting partner, then said, “ I plan to keep Ben.” The neighbor began to tell flattering tales of Ben’s prowess in the field. I got the impression he had acted a Lee’s sales assistant before.
Thirty minutes later I wrote Lee a check for Ben’s purchase price plus $100 for the weanling brother to give Joe Prince, and loaded Ben in the trunk of my two-door Dodge Dart. I put the pup on the seat beside me and prayed he would not become car sick during the drive from Warsaw to Joe’s farm at Stony Creek.
“The check will be good Monday,” were my last words to Lee. I would need a loan from my banker to cover it.
After delivering the pup to Joe’s farm (There is a story there too.) I moved Ben to the front seat of my Dart and drove to the office of my vet to get Ben a checkup. Next day I got bad news from Bill Clark DVM. Ben had heart worms. I called Lee and told him I would have him treated and if Ben didn’t survive it I would expect a refund. Lee did not commit to that. Fortunately Ben recovered.
For the next nine seasons Ben lived up to the billing Lee’s neighbor had given him. And often in the off season I used Ben’s bandana trick to entertain friends over for supper.
Besides giving me countless hours of fun after quail and grouse, Ben taught my sons to bird hunt. Scott would put him in the trunk after school and drive to nearby Cumberland County and hunt Continental Can cutover until dark.
Ben was the whole package gun dog, good nose, good manners, good soft-mouth retriever. A pointer with a setter personality. I miss him still.