Blog

Last Brace – A Memorial Day Tribute

May 25, 2025 | Henry Caruso Jr., Jim Heckert, Remembrances | Comments
Once Upon A Time, at the storied field trial grounds at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, daylight was running out. There were two more braces to run, but only time for one. No one wanted to stay another day. What to do? The four handlers with dogs in the last two braces: Dave Grubb, George Tracy, Henry Caruso, Jim Heckert. By agreement, all four dogs were run together in a last brace. Laughter flowed throughout from handlers, judges, gallery.  Read more

A Brace

May 21, 2025 | Poetry | Comments
Two hoary-headed handlers Ride to the break away Their mounts tired for ‘Twas their third brace of the day Their scouts lead their entries By a rein, the other rein leads their horses At the line the scouts’ left hands grab their dogs’ collars Right hands snap the rein to the ring on a bit shank Read more

A Memory of Bubba

May 14, 2025 | Bubba Moreland, Remembrances | Comments
With the shock of reading Bubba Moreland’s notification of death today on Facebook came a flood of memories of being with him and his mutual best friend Luke Weaver. For those who did not know them, Bubba handled Luke’s bird dogs in open competitions, and they were brothers in all ways but blood.  Read more

Getting There

April 23, 2025 | Short Stories | Comments
Billy Cord was traveling north to train with scarce the money for gas, much less inevitable emergencies. His tires were thin, his muffler loud from rust leaks, his two-ton stock bed truck’s engine burning oil, all sure signs breakdowns threatened. Still, with temperatures in the 90s at home in Georgia, he had no choice, or so he told himself. Read more

A Suggestion for Field Trial Clubs

April 20, 2025 | Announcement, Other Things | Comments
The field trial sport (please do not call it a “pastime”) is under stress like never before. First run in the US in 1874, trials have survived recessions, depressions, world wars, pandemics. But in these prosperous times they show the undeniable signs of stress and decline: shrinking entries, especially in the All-Age category, and retirement of pro trainer-handlers.   Read more

A Gift

April 14, 2025 | Short Stories | Comments
Buddy Cain had achieved a long-held ambition, to his utter surprise. He had qualified Maryland Molly for the National Bird Dog Championship, to be held on the Ames Plantation beginning the second Monday in February, two months away. Molly was a four-year-old pointer female owned by Stan Shelton, a home builder from Baltimore. Like most in his line of business, Stan’s fortunes were boom and bust, dependent largely on interest rates and construction loan availability, over which he had no control.  Read more

Gone Too Long

March 31, 2025 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments
The scene was the National Bird Dog Championship, in February 2025.  The trial dated from 1896. It was known as the World Series of Field Trials. A three-hour stake, the last of these, all-age handler reputations were judged on whether a handler had ever won it. A few had, most had not. It took a special dog to win, one with great endurance, dead broke and responsive to handler’s calls, his horse’s direction, with good eyesight, good hearing in both ears, good style. A dog that understood what its handler wanted of it, would consistently pattern forward, find birds, and handle them impeccably.  Read more

My Nanny

March 25, 2025 | Remembrances | Comments
Nanny was my maternal grandmother, Ethel Blevins Privett, born in 1867, daughter of Dr. John Faulkner Blevins of Selma, Alabama, born 1838, 18th graduate of Tulane Medical School in 1858, Captain and Assistant Surgeon in Law’s 44th Alabama, present at the Sunken Road at the Battle of Antietam and a half dozen major Virginia battles of the Civil War,  and afterward assigned to hospital duty to care for the wounded in Richmond, and after that war, a practicing physician in Selma until his death there in 1901. Read more