Cover Dog Setters

Description

Wire Wire, 142276, was whelped June 17, 1980. He died in the summer of 1995. Wire was the first dog that I bought to compete in grouse trials and he launched our nearly 25-year partnership. After 15 years of horseback trialing with red setters, I decided that having moved to the woods of northcentral Pennsylvania, I ought to go with the nature of the territory I lived in and switch to cover dogs. The horseback dogs I had in the kennel were genetically programmed to line run field edges so rather than fight their nature, I switched to English setters. This was a gradual switch as I first tried a litter of registered Crossbred pups sired by Pennsylvania Grouse Champion Sam L's Meteor. A female from this litter won the first cover dog stake I entered with young Dave Hughes judging. A male from this litter won the Michigan Open Derby of the Year and later was in the top ten Norden shooting dogs of the year listing. However, I yielded and decided to go all the way to pure English setters. Fifteen years of progressive and innovative breeding of red setters (a number of years spent under the tutelage of Ned LeGrande) made me realize that I needed to research the breed and buy the best pup that I could find--a pup from winners and from a winning line that had the traits I like to see in a bird dog. Speed, class, hard drive, intensity and style on game. As an avid reader of the American Field, I realized that 3X Ch. Ghost's Star was a top performer. Interviews with several objective cover dog enthusiasts confirmed that she was quick, fast, snappy with good drive and deadly on grouse. When I learned she was bred to Mike Seminatore's School Boy Jim, I checked him out. Mike told me that Jim was one of the three best dogs he ever had. The other two are in the Bird Dog Hall of Fame. I consulted Dick Brenneman, who I knew from when I was in grad school at Penn State University. Dick worked at the University and we had trained dogs together a few times when we both belonged to the new-formed Nittany Valley Bird Dog Club. Dick had seen School Boy Jim on game in New Brunswick at a woodcock trial and he reported that Jim was a bull on his birds. That clinched it for me. I arranged to get a pup from the mating and I can still recall the trip 25 years ago. On the way home with my then 8-year old son, he softly whispered "Dad, look at the pup". There was the pup sound asleep on the front seat between us. He was stretched out with his tail perfectly straight and perpendicular to his back--the boy knew what a top dog was supposed to look like and right from the start the pup, Wire, played the part. With two young children at home, I had cut back on horseback trialing but I still had time to hunt. Wire was born in June and by October he had been worked a good bit and knew what hunting was all about. Still he was only a little over four months old when the season started and on opening day on the Gamelands there are lots of hunters. One fellow came over to our truck just before the 9am opening and asked me if I knew what I was doing with such a young dog out here on opening day. This was a valid concern but Wire did know what he was doing and in about 20 minutes he came around the back of an old broken down barn and started to make game. My hunting companion was from South Carolina. He had never hunted pheasants before and I told him to get ready. Moments later Wire pointed and as we moved closer the rooster got up with my friend knocking it down and grinning like he had shot a trophy. A good start for the pup. That season Wire became quite the skilled young bird dog. We hunted with some of the guys who had veteran dogs and Wire more than held his own. He actually developed a bit of a reputation in the area for being such a precocious bird dog. The following spring I ran Wire at the Nittany Valley trial and won the puppy stake. I now lived a couple of hours east of Penn State but my friend from the grad school era and the Nittany Valley Bird Dog Club, Dick Brenneman, saw Wire and said that he was going to Michigan and would run Wire for me in the Grouse Futurity Puppy Classic if I wanted him to. That sounded good to me as I was not only tied down with the responsibilities of two kids but I had also started to get pretty deep into the Christmas tree and evergreen nursery business. This was all in addition to working for tenure at Bloomsburg University where I was a marketing professor. Dick had been into grouse dogs for a number of years. His Dad had a dog with Gerald Tracey and a weeklong grouse hunt out of the family hunting camp was a standard part of Dick's upbringing. Dick had been working closely with veteran trainer Art Haight where he learned about preparing and competing grouse dogs. Dick's own small kennel was virtually empty following the unexpected death of his two good competitors. Dick took Wire to Michigan and came back with a placement in the Grand National Grouse Puppy Classic. That was it. I was busy and Dick needed a dog. Dick always had the competitive desire to win and we both believed Wire would win good cover dog stakes--and he did. I offered to put Wire's registration in both of our names (there was no problem with accepting purses back then). Dick said "no need to do that" and he just kept on running him like he was his own. Thus began our 25-year partnership. We never wrote up an agreement or even shook hands on the arrangement but through tens of thousands of miles of walking behind hundreds of dogs our cover dog kennel is stronger than it has ever been. And it all started with Wire. Wire went on to win regularly on the grouse trial circuit. We didn't travel as much then but he was always in the thick of it when we did put him down. His record shows that for several years in the mid-1980s he was usually the dog to beat. His strongest traits were his hard classy running and his naturally forward pattern. There were remarkably few grouse on the PA grouse trial grounds back in those days. It was typical to settle the all-age in a second-series on woodcock. Whatever it took, Wire could be counted on to do the job and with distinction. In 1983 and 1984 he won consistently and was first in each of the grouse trials held in Pennsylvania. He was named the 1984 Pennsylvania Grouse Dog of the Year. An all amateur raised and trained dog. In 1985 Wire was coincidentally braced with two different aggressive male dogs and more than once. When the other dogs put up a challenge, Wire did not back down. That surprised us as Wire had been a typical, never-give-fight-a-thought English setter during five years of competition. But now Wire decided not to back down. After these unfortunate incidents, Wire became territorial and while he didn't start any fights, he would loose his concentration on hunting whenever other male dogs came around his handler. He could still deliver a winning performance with a female bracemate but hoping for female bracemates wasn't something we wanted to do and losing concentration when braced with a male was not going to win cover dog trials. We retired Wire at age 5. Wire lived almost another decade. He lived in our home and hunted all over the country.

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