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A Deeper Loyalty

July 10, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
The year was 1947. Jess Combs and Frank Eanes were veterans of the War in Europe, home now to Alabama and Georgia where before the War they had apprenticed under their fathers to become pointing dog field trial trainer-handlers.  Read more

More Field Trial Friends Remembered ~ Marshall Loftin

July 7, 2023 | Remembrances | Comments
Like Ed Mack Farrior, Marshall was a link to a glorious period for field trials and a consummate raconteur. He had also seen his share of hard times. He was not an admirer of The National Bird Dog Champion Association, for a very personal reason—its rigidity had cost him his best customer and field trials its most avid English setter sponsor, Dr. J. U. Morrison.  Read more

The Auction

May 30, 2023 | Short Stories | Comments
The legendary pointing dog field trial scout Abe Moses dropped dead from the saddle of his horse Feather while riding in the gallery of the Manitoba Championship, having just scouted his employer’s last entry. It was during the last brace, for a bye dog that was immediately picked up by its handler to end the stake. A thirty minute all-age, then a thirty minute derby, were to follow. It was three pm and club officials decided to postpone further running until next morning. Read more

The National Finals by Donald McCaig

May 24, 2023 | Donald McCaig, Herding Trials | Comments
June’s qualifying run was third from last in the late afternoon, hottest part of the day. When I went to the post she really wanted to go left (fixing on the road traffic) but she’s a shallower outrunner than Luke and although she’d take a redirect and go toward the sheep, I feared that once she got over that first ridge and out of sight, she’d come to the center Read more

1938

May 11, 2023 | National Championship, Short Stories | Comments
It was a desperate year by every measure. The Great Depression had refused to end; war threatened again in Europe as Germany, now under Hitler’s thumb, smoldered with resentment under the punishing terms of the Treaty of Versailles; and most Americans lived in poverty, those rural who had no debt the best off because they could at least grow and put up their own food for winter and darn their threadbare garments and socks.  Read more

Characters in My Life

May 5, 2023 | Donald McCaig, Remembrances | Comments
I look back on a long, full life and remember the characters in it. By characters I mean folks who were unconventional, unusual, different, distinctive, and giving to me — of friendship or knowledge or both. I want to briefly remember a few of them, one here and others later in other brief essays.  I start with Donald McCaig, the kindest, gentlest most unselfishly giving-to-me-person I ever knew, for no reason but a shared love of working dogs, his for sheep dogs — Border Collies — mine for pointing dogs.  Read more