Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/433799
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 2 2 dodge the temptation of one last pup at 83. It makes a good story. Then, maybe again, there wouldn't be a Clyde Wood around to so conscientiously pick up the pieces, and that, my faithful readers, concerns me profoundly. Then, there's the notion of the birds. Wild birds . . . or to be more explicit about it . . . the paucity and accessibility of same. I live in Carolina and I guess I'm a little too old to move to Montana—could I get Loretta to go—and even there, things aren't altogether as they used to be. With each new generation over the years I've found it progressively more difficult to be able to give what makes a good pup great. Only wild birds and a goodly number of them will do that. So once again looms the writing on the wall. If I am to get these pups into birds within a happy frequency, not be snow- bound half the year, our venue Or maybe from this sudden hill, I've been able to see beyond the valley. If there's any magic in the mix, it's the creative use of the remote release trap. Launching a youngster, I'll take it over a check cord, a pinch collar, or God-forbid, an e-collar any day of the week. Twixt all this, Loretta and I have spent many happy and completing hours of lap time, nurturing the esoteric bonds of companionship and rapport that mend it all together. Without which it can never be whole. To say I'm savoring these two pups would be the ranking understatement of our times. All- in-all, I'd say that so far—and pray Lord down the road— the Kennelmaster Upstairs has tendered uncommon mercy on me, in plotting the last chapter of the book. They say "Never say never." Maybe I'll be like Ben in my book Jenny Willow, unable to will have to include released birds. More than anytime before. Released birds are fine as facsimile, and arguably better than not going. In that sense, thank God for them. But moving puppies onto them from a pristine training regimen is the next thing to unregimented Hell. Right now, these pups stop first scent, are standing way off their birds, high and proud. Move them onto wild birds where it's wiggle-and-they're- gone, and they stay that way. Put them on even the best of released birds, and there are still enough squatters, skulkers, hoppers, and sputterers to make Lucy Goosey. Keep the Super Glue handy. Life's a trade-off, any way you come at it, and I guess there never was an altogether good trade. But be-damned if the marketplace hasn't narrowed in the 21st century. So there're the birds. But most of all, there's me. If fortune grants the compassion