Thelma: My First “Pointer”

It was August of 2020. I had this vision of wanting to hunt my hawks over a pointer, but didn’t exactly know where to start. I had been searching for dogs for a few months, and putting in feeler style inquiries when a started or trained dog came up posted for sale. But none ever quite matched what I was looking to do.

Then, a post about a Small Munsterlander came through one of the Falconry dog forums. I'd never heard of a Small Munsterlander, but through the powers of Google, I quickly learned that they were a pointing breed, and also known for being good family dogs. She was female (which was a requirement for me… nothing is quite as irritating for me as watching male dogs have to pee on everything), and was a little over 1 year old, so not a puppy (see the story of Ellie for our vows to never again own a puppy). The add said that she was a started dog, but was gun shy, and would not work for her owner’s intended purposes. Gun shyness had zero detriment to my purposes; I wanted a dog for the hawks, not guns. Heck, I didn’t even know how to shoot a shotgun! So I reached out to the poster. He suggested we hop on the phone for a call, which sounded great to me. Then, I could really pick his brain.

Thelma was everything I was looking for. A great house dog, house broke, kennel broke, crate trained, and a started hunting dog! I was so concerned with the started/training piece, that I even asked twice in our conversation “She knows how to find and point birds, correct? She already knows how to point?”. Both times, the response was “Oh yes. She could use more time and exposure to wild birds, but she is well started.”.

PERFECT! This was exactly what I was looking for. He explained that he didn’t want any cash for her, just to find her a home where she could thrive. So we arranged a transport company to get her from Florida to California. It was too hot to ship dogs as cargo on airplanes at the time, so we had to find a private land based transporter. Most of them were not running east to west at the time due to Covid, but we found one who already had a route scheduled. He was going to charge $600, so we booked her a spot. (That was it’s own whole fiasco. Lesson learned: Never book on private carriers unless you know the company.)

Thelma’s chariot arrived, and I took her for her first walk on the check cord. She was perfect. She was loving, and curious, and her nose worked a million sniffs per minute.

Our first walk together.

We spent the first week just on our own property, with Thelma on the check cord. We didn’t have any agenda. I used our walks to be sure that we had a reasonable amount of recall (she was great at that), and that she knew I was her new person and she wouldn’t take off.

The second week, I took the check cord off, and we worked on recall out in our orchard. This all went very well. She enjoyed being out for walks, and didnt mind coming in when I requested. I was stoked. Time to see what this dog knew! I’d never worked over a pointing dog, so I was so excited to see her style, and how she’d find and point birds.

I took her to a local park where the quail are abundant, but there is not hunting allowed so I knew we wouldn’t encounter any gun shots to scare her. We started our walk, and found the first covey. Well… I found the first covey, so I called Thelma over and walked her into the bush where the birds were. She ran straight past it, flushed the birds, and then proceeded to chase after them leaping into the air barking and snapping and yipping at them. I let her run for a few minutes, and then tried calling her back. No recall. Oh shit.

I chased her down and got her back under control. We continued our walk, and I saw a second covey get up on the other side of a small pond and settle into a bush. Again, I headed that way and Thelma led. She stuck her nose in that bush and I thought “YES! She found them!” and then she ran off another direction to a different bush, and the whole covey flushed. Once again, the chasing and yipping and leaping ensued.

Oh boy… this was not what I had expected from my “started” dog who “knew how to find and point birds”.

So I took her home, and thought “well, he did mention she needed more experience with wild birds. Maybe we just need to go back to planted bird and establish our own routine.”. I had quail and pigeons at home for the hawks, so the next day, I loaded some of them up and took Thelma to a training field where the breeze was perfect, and I could plant some upwind birds and see how she found and pointed them.

I dizzied and planted my first bird, a pigeon, because I figured that was probably what she was most familiar with. I went back to the car to get Thelma out. I had set it about a quarter mile walk away, as I didn’t want her to just immediately find it. So I turned her lose to go find the pigeon, and started walking with her where the scent cone would grab her attention at a 90 degree angle (that is what all the books said to do, right?), and proceeded on. Well, she smelled it, ran right in, grabbed it, and ate it.

Oh my… that was also not what I had expected my started pointing dog to do.

I tried it a second time with a less dizzy bird, this time a quail. I thought “maybe if it flies away, she will point it when it flies”. So I put Thelma away in the car, planted a second bird, and tried it again.

She ran in, caught it on the rise, and ate it.

Oh boy… this was not at all what I signed up for. But now, I had this dog, who I already liked and was a sweet dog, so we went back to the drawing board, and this was when the real adventure began…