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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

Some Luck

April 27, 2023 | Fiction, Short Stories | Comments
The year was 1953. They were on the prairie in Manitoba at July’s end, camped twenty miles apart. Jim Chambers was there with a string of puppies, derbies and all-ages for his employer Sid Simon, one of America’s wealthiest men. He had come up from Union Springs by train while his hands had hauled the dogs up in a two-ton truck. The horses they used stayed in Canada year-round. They belonged to Simon but were lent by him, when not in use for dog training, to Canadian farmer-ranchers who in exchange for boarding them, used them under saddle or to pull wagons, slays, cultivators, plows, harrows, mowing machines, rakes, whatever. It was a good deal for all. Read more

The Band

April 23, 2023 | Poetry | Comments
They are a band  Of determined souls  With a common goal  To make a bird dog Truly grand Twenty odd trainer-handlers  At any time across the land  Engaged full time in the major circuit all-age game  Read more