"Training" means very different things to different people. My Grandfather was a renowned bird dog trainer and maintained some of the best kennels of highly capable bird dogs in our area, which spanned several counties. This was back when there were enough Bob White Quail in Florida that we felt a day with less than 20 coveys pointed was a bust. My grandfathers regiment of training consisted of some very rudimentary obedience training and then breaking the young dog to wing, (I never liked that term, breaking), shot, and retrieve to hand.
After this was accomplished, which usually took about 4-6 weeks he then put the young dog with an experienced dog to teach them how to handle a quail properly. Some dogs learned really quickly, some more slowly, but they didn't last to long if they failed to show promise. He always had multiple prodigies, so wasting time on one that was dubious was not tolerated.
My Grandfather liked big running dogs that were finding the coveys out there several hundred or even a thousand yards in front of us. He had a Quail Buggy with a high seat so we could see the dogs work across the big palmetto flats as we slowly drove the edges or trails. I, on the other hand, liked close working dogs that we would put down after the initial covey was flushed to hunt down the singles.
After my grandfather died, I realized how much I had failed to learn from him, and how much I had relied on his guidance in training my dogs. I wasn't that successful for a dozen years or so. But then I became determined to find a way to succeed and doubled down on my efforts. I also began field trialing my dogs and found one with some real promise, Renegade Jack.
Jack was an English Setter from some of the best blood lines in the shoot to retrieve competitions. He was fast, very fast and would kill himself rather than let his brace mate beat him to the first quail. He was intelligent, muscular, had a good nose and just a drive that put him above other dogs, he also had style.
I campaigned Jack for two years, sent him to Montana each summer to work the young birds there and then road harnessed him every day when he was in Florida. That means hooking him up to a four wheeler and letting him pull part of the weight of the vehicle as he ran in front of it for 5 or 10 miles a day. I also shot several thousand quail that Jack had pointed and then retrieved. Jack had heart, but he lacked personality, I was only there to take him hunting, training, or competitions. He could care less about me, or anyone else, he simply saw people as a means to take him to what he loved to do, find quail, point them, retrieve them. Jack did well in the NSTRA field trials and finally made it to a national champion in 2002.
Registered Nbr: 1511887
Owner: BOB STOKES
Registered Name: RENEGADE JACK
Callname: JACK
Breed: English Setter
Region: FL
Sex: M
Date Whelped: Wednesday, April 07, 1999
Sire: RIVER RIDGE JOHNIEJACK
Dam: TOMOKA'S STOKELY NIKKI
Number of Times Open Champion: 1
Date of Championship: Sunday, May 05, 2002
Total Open Points: 23
This is one of my favorite pictures of Jack, he is pointing a covey of quail on the Susina Plantation in Georgia while another national champion Rhett, a Llewellyn setter is honoring his find. That made me smile.
The second picture is of poor quality but it is with Jack and Rhett after a day of quail hunting on the Florida, Georgia line, with a limit of twelve birds taken in Georgian and 12 in Florida the same day. He was killed the following day by a diamond back that was 7' 9" long and weighed 19 pounds minus his head.
