A Setter Or A Sitter? - By Bob Fringer

Story By Bob Fringer

Our pioneer forefathers would be simply flabbergasted by all the gadgets and toys we use every day and just take for granted. To my way of thinking, television is the most wonderful invention mankind has ever developed. I can’t for the life of me understand how tiny impulses floating through the air can end up on my TV screen in living, moving color. With this wonderful device you can receive innumerable shows and advertisements which can provide you with all sorts of knowledge from how to create a scrumptious Martha Stewart cream puff to the way to use ointments to rid yourself of some nasty personal ailments. The availability of knowledge is mind boggling!

Ever since cable TV has been installed in our home I have been able to watch some hilarious animal shows. Just the other day I watched some domestic animals perform some crazy stunts while their owners have acted even more foolishly. In fact, the other night I watched an elderly lady try to teach her dog to say,”I love you.” Her shrill voice made that poor old dog howl like crazy. You needed a pretty good imagination to discern “I love you” out of that dog’s howls.

I must admit some dogs can perform some unusual tricks. Take for example, my English Setter, Duffy. I don’t know how it happened but that darned dog learned to read ...... but not well. Somehow or other he read, or found out, that he was an English Setter. Don’t ask me how he did that; but the only trouble is that he can’t read that well. I believe he thinks he is an English Sitter(not Setter), and he tries to live up to his pedigree. Let me explain this a bit farther and give you a couple of examples.

About four or five years ago, Warner Perry and I went quail hunting with our two English Setters, Duffy and Sally. We hunted a large cutover which was bordered by a dirt road. We had hunted the cutover several times earlier in the year and knew the approximate locations of four to five coveys of quail. It had been a tough week for us so we used a lazy man’s way to hunt for some birds. We put the dogs into the cutover and just slowly drove along the road keeping track of the dogs by listening to the bell attached to Duffy’s collar.

Sally would hunt close to the road while Duffy would range farther out-sometimes very far out! We would simply ride down the road until we couldn’t hear the bell and then get out of the truck and start looking for Duffy. Usually both dogs would be close together and pointing a covey of birds. The cutover was pretty thick so sometimes it took a while before we found the dogs. That’s what happened on the day I’m talking about. After about a 20-minute search for Duffy, Warner finally found him on the side of a small hillside, which sloped down to a small creek. Old Duffy had located a covey of birds and was pointing them as solidly as possible, only he was sitting down. The sitting Setter was patiently waiting for us and enjoying the wonderful aroma of the covey as the birds huddled upwind. It was some sight seeing a Setter sitting while pointing. Unfortunately, we missed every shot as the covey flushed from the top of an old fallen tree. We searched for some single birds out of that covey but never found the first one. It’s a wonder that Duffy didn’t just go back to the truck after he saw how poorly we shot at that covey of birds he had worked so hard to find.

On another occasion Warner and I took a trip down to Lake Mattamuskeet and hunted around a small, overgrown waterfowl impoundment. In years when there was sufficient rainfall the impoundment would be full of water during the winter months. That year the water level was down and the impoundment was dry and overgrown with weeds. There was a ditch about five yards wide, which surrounded the impoundment on three sides. The impoundment bordered a National Wildlife Refuge and hunting on that side was strictly forbidden. That day, Warner and I put the dogs down and let them do their thing while we leisurely walked on the road, which bordered the impoundment. We left the truck at the end where there was no ditch. We had walked almost half way down the edge of the impoundment when Duffy began to act as though he had smelled some birds. Shortly after that, he froze in a classic point. Warner’s dog, Holly, immediately honored his point.

Now, we had a problem-that five yard wide ditch separated us from the dogs. After a brief moment, Warner decided to walk back toward the truck and enter the impoundment where there was no ditch. I stayed on the road to watch the dogs and keep track of the birds if they flushed. Warner had a 10-minute walk back to the truck and then another 10 minutes walk back to the dogs. It seemed as though it took forever for Warner to return to the dogs. I noticed that Duffy had slightly shifted positions but I kept my focus on the large patch of high reeds where I thought the birds were hiding.

As Warner approached the area, Holly moved forward to stand next to Duffy who was now sitting. Apparently, he had gotten tired of standing and decided to sit for a spell-perhaps he thought he was a sitter rather than a Setter. Anyway, the birds flushed in one large ball of feathered flying missiles. Warner was in a spot where he wasn’t able to see the birds and, unfortunately, could not shoot. By some astounding fortune, I was able to knock down a couple of birds to save the day. The remainder of the covey flew over the ditch and into the Refuge. So, we rounded up our dogs, Holly, the Setter, and Duffy, the sitter, and returned to the truck for the ride home.

Now this tale is not quite over. Duffy continued his tricks into last year’s season. On this hunt Warner and I were in a fairly thick cutover. I had replaced Duffy’s bell with an electronic collar, which helped us keep track of him in thick cover. The frequency of the beeper would change when he stopped to point. A covey had flushed wild and the birds were spread out in the cutover. We had some nice dog work and Warner shot a couple of birds. As we started to return to the truck Duff had ranged out far enough that we could barely hear the beeper. Soon the beeper changed its frequency and we proceeded to search for him. He was pointing but we had a difficult time finding him. Soon, Warner found him. There he was, lying flat out on the ground.

He was intently peering straight ahead. Warner walked up in front of Duffy and neatly dropped the quail as it flushed. Neither he nor I had ever witnessed such a sight. I wondered if Duff was a setter, a sitter or a “lyer”. He is certainly a complex dog. Who knows what this next season will bring!

Bob Fringer - October 10, 2003