A Man and His Bird Dog

Musings on bird-dogs, training, upland birds, upland hunting, and life in the middle years

Learning to Back: white uplanders, bird dog training, and race in America

June 07, 2020 by Robb Moore

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the nationwide protests sparked by that killing and the hot embers of other highly-publicized accounts of police brutality that have fallen on the dry-as-bones kindling that is our nation’s unfinished business with race, Project Upland shared their Instagram platform with collaborator and contributor Durrell Smith, of the Gun Dog Notebook, for a discussion of race. Immediately, they were hit with some double barrel loaded questions from white people …

Pandemic Bird Dog Training: a review of basic skills

April 12, 2020 by Robb Moore

While we’re all a bit limited in what we’re able to do in the evenings and weekends, thought I’d put together a series of virtual walks with Lincoln and me as we review some of the things we’ve learned together over the past three years and some of the things we’re about to tackle for our 2020 spring training goals. I’m hoping this series might give first-timers coming after me a realistic gauge for their own goals in bird dog training, introduce curious family and friends to what Lincoln and I have been doing …

Rick Smith: Bird Dog Royalty in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia

November 19, 2019 by Robb Moore

When upland hunters and bird dog enthusiasts world-wide hear the name “Rick Smith,” they will immediately know we’re talking about one of the most famous bird dog trainers in the world today. They’d no doubt be able to tell you that Rick is a member of the Bird Dog Hall of Fame, is the son of the legendary Delmar Smith (still active at the age of 93), is grandson of the legendary B.F. “Dutch” Epperson, and that he created the wildly-popular Huntsmith Silent Command System of bird dog training along with his cousin Ronnie Smith …

All that is wonderful, worthy, and good: the sun sets on our first season of wild bird hunting

March 08, 2019 by Robb Moore

The good book tells us that everything wonderful, worthy, and good - all of it - was created in a series of celestial days, comprising together a cosmic week. If that is so, then this is the story of the sunset of a first celestial day of friendship and adventure, of a first season of wild bird hunting and the creation of a new wild bird hunter and a new wild bird dog in the company of two-legged and four-legged friends and mentors …

A 2018-2019 season in the books (American woodcock)

January 13, 2019 by Robb Moore

By way of after-report, Lincoln and I wrapped up our American woodcock season yesterday as the season ends January 14 in Virginia. I couldn’t think of a more ideal end to the first wild bird season to expire this year (grouse and quail remain) and it’s worth briefly chronicling the major episodes in this magical weekend. Justin, Lincoln, and I first scouted the areas we’d identified for further exploration. Justin and I hiked about five or six miles and Lincoln logged about nineteen miles …

Needle in a haystack found - a successful wild bird harvest!

January 09, 2019 by Robb Moore

Late 2018 provided another one for the books: my very first wild bird harvested during a memorable pre-Christmas weekend. As I reflect on this momentous event, an assortment of thoughts emerge, together with some feelings ...

Where seeds of gratitude are sown, Elysium fields soon will bloom

November 21, 2018 by Robb Moore

Surely heaven, Elysium, Valhala, or whatever awaits for us on the other side of the here and now, this land of the living, the anxious, the suffering, and the desiring mostly frustrated, surely that place of perfect bliss and easy hearts is as individual as those of us dreaming for its sweet relief. How could it not be so? What brings peace for this one agitates and corrodes that one. What thrills one horrifies and traumatizes another. So if we cart anything, even a single course hair of the camel through the needle’s eye into the life beyond …

Lost Highway Kennels: training dogs and dog handlers (these are a few of my favorite things / people review series)

October 15, 2018 by Robb Moore in Review, Training

One of the very first introductions to all things bird dog controversy a new bird dog owner will get is the great dispute over training bird dogs. I don’t mean which guru or which method. I mean whether you should train a bird dog at all. Some will indeed tell you emphatically that you don’t need to “train” (in the sense of teaching something) your bird dog, but rather that you should just take your dog out and simply let it do what it does naturally: hunt. That confused me …

Life savers tested - the Volvo XC40 and the Gunner Kennel (these are a few of my favorite things review series)

September 26, 2018 by Robb Moore

Circumstances have altered my review plans for the these are a few of my favorite things series. We’ll get back to dog trainers next time. Today’s installment is brought to you by the collective partnership of a stop-sign violator, a spectacularly well-designed Volvo XC40, a Gunner Kennel, and the most badass person I know, my wife ...

These are a few of my favorite things - intro: reviewing equipment, expertise, and services for the upland beginner

July 19, 2018 by Robb Moore

Let's be honest, there are precious few advantages to getting as late a start doing something I love as much as training Lincoln and entering a world I knew little if anything about before bringing him into our family. I admit to lately and occasionally fantasizing about how I'd rewrite my life narrative if I had to do it all over again. Some things I wouldn't reconfigure even a little. I got ridiculously lucky on the spouse and life partner front. I'd put the quality and depth of my family and friend relationships (and the quality and …

Training with Mo

April 23, 2018 by Robb Moore

For as long as I've been learning about bird dog training philosophies, I've heard about Maurice (affectionately known as "Mo") Lindley, a South Carolina kennel owner and dog trainer. Mo is one of the leading disciples/masters of what's referred to as the West/Gibbons training methodology. As a result of Ménière's disease, Mo is now almost completely deaf. Interestingly, though, the affliction seems only to have further developed his gift for understanding and communicating …

Words become flesh

April 04, 2018 by Robb Moore

In this Easter season, the holiest of seasons in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, I find myself wondering a lot about what it is about upland bird hunting that has captured my imagination. The word that keeps coming to me and seems to fit the tone and vibration of what these pursuits inspire in me: incarnation …

Is the 'e' for 'euphemism'?

February 23, 2018 by Robb Moore

This much I know: one should tread very carefully, and all the more so as a beginner, when talking about most things having to do with the care and training of dogs - these topics are every bit as loaded as politics or religion for their ability to explode in your face, hurt feelings or get your own feelings hurt, or ...

No grouse were harmed in the production of our grouse hunting trip

February 06, 2018 by Robb Moore

"Sometimes, wild bird hunting is just a walk in the woods with dogs and friends." - Chip Hidinger

This past weekend, my friend and colleague, Justin, invited me, Lincoln's and my training mentor, Chip, and Chip's awesome French Britts to go exploring in his native land in West Virginia for some late season grouse hunting ...

The day we first met

January 05, 2018 by Robb Moore

Exactly one year ago today, we met our badass goofball of a bird dog for the first time. We were very nervous. Some of our best friends met us at O’Hare after our connecting flight to Peoria got delayed and drove us there in single digit temps and light snow swirling and drifting over the dark and largely vacant country highway ...

Prey drive

December 12, 2017 by Robb Moore

Picking up from the last post, I'll turn now to Lincoln's introduction to the act of hunting through one of the questions that was unresolved for us for much of this past year. Of all the hunting questions that have loomed large for me and Lincoln this first year, this one has been perhaps the largest: prey drive. Namely: 1) does the human dude have what it takes to move past the seductive romance of upland hunting that was acquired secondarily through the love of a dog and face the reality of actually hunting a bird, killing it and ...

First harvest

November 23, 2017 by Robb Moore

Today seems an appropriate time to offer thanks for both my and Lincoln's initiation into hunting over the past few weeks. We each crossed the threshold separately, each becoming acquainted with the act of taking prey in the company of friends. I’ll take these chronologically and detail first my own introduction, the first weekend of this month and will save the detail of Lincoln's for a subsequent post ...

It turned out to be the howling of a dog

November 17, 2017 by Robb Moore

In these bright blue November days, a few things are turning my mind to the swift passage of time and my own frustrated desire to turn it back or hold it at bay. First, our sweet boy turned one year old this week. I simply cannot believe Lincoln is a full-year-old. I know it's cliche, but I'll ask it anyway, where has the time gone? I've probably got some company in saying that this past year has seemed so surreal. A year ago plus a few days, our social fabric was torn asunder by the unexpected result of ...

"You started with a Brittany?!?"

November 05, 2017 by Robb Moore

This is a topic I'll likely address more than once: what makes Brittanys so special as a breed. Our boy has many peculiarities and quirks that specifically endear him to us that aren't necessarily generalizable to the breed. But, we've often been astonished that many of these lovable, clownish behaviors and wonderfully diverse facial expressions seem to be traits that other Brittanys we've met share. At the same time, these wonderful dogs manage to be at turns regal, goofy, serious ...

Small victories, big feels

October 27, 2017 by Robb Moore

Other than the joy of chronicling this new pursuit for myself, one of my hopes for this blog would be to leave a breadcrumb trail for others starting out with a bird dog for the first time. And so training seems an important thing to discuss early and probably revisit from a hundred different angles, a hundred different times. I hope to describe more about what methods we’re putting into our bricolage of training philosophies and will say more later about Lincoln’s incredible month ...