But ladies, tell me you don’t feel new and improved after your hour at the salon? Well, Ivey, my Brittany spaniel, got her first field-clip of the year this morning courtesy of Yours Truly. And I think somewhere in her pea-brain she knows that she’s the better for it.
All the while, I was trying to remember the man in Clover Hill (just north of Fort Detrick) my parents took our toy poodle, Mitzi, for her periodic clip and groom. This was in the 1980s – my formative years in Frederick, Maryland. “Was his name Dempsey?” I wondered. “Nah, that’s not it.”
But then it came to me just as I put the clippers away: “Damstedge!” Although I might have the spelling of his name wrong. All I need to do if it really matters is call my sister, Lynette, because she’d know. For Lynette surprised me last Wednesday inasmuch as she remembered quite a few disturbingly low grades I got in this and that subject in bygone days at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School (News Flash 04/06/2025: My sister informs me that I have the spelling of the man’s name correct.).
Back to Mitzi, though. She was a runt even for a toy poodle. Nonetheless, in Autumn of 1984, I got the idea to turn her into a hunting dog, reasoning that since the poodle was originally a German waterfowling breed meant to retrieve shot ducks, the instinct might be recovered with a little coaxing.
So one afternoon, I took Mitzi rabbit hunting back in the fields behind my neighborhood – a sortie in the bush that she was visibly enjoying. But then as we were walking along the old trolley causeway that ran parallel an eighth of a mile or so to the west of Rosemont Avenue, the moment came when I spied a rabbit and, of course, took the shot with my Springfield Model 15, chambered in 22lr. And it proved to be an inflection point, too. For Mitzi’s attitude reflexively shifted.
I can’t tell you if I hit the mark because I don’t remember. In contrast, what I can vividly picture to this day is Mitzi bolting away in fright at the sound of gunshot. And that was that: no hunting dog for the teenage me.
Well, Ivey is a hunter – totally diehard – and possesses a real flare for movement. She even gets excited at the sound of gunshot. Behaviorally speaking, she actually hunts like a male German short-haired pointer even if her lineage is French by way of American breeding. Yet, Ivey also tends to freelance if I let her work more than 30-meters out (View the second embedded video in my 11/11/2023 post, Bond. James Bond…and my bird dog, Ivey. You’ll see what I mean.).
The problem described is unfortunately compounded by the fact that she just turned 8-years old. Because it’s true: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks or even proper field etiquette – such as hunting birds as a team whenever I’m not right behind her. I mean I’ve tried and tried. I even sent her twice to a professional bird dog trainer recommended by Orvis, 2-weeks a shot, all before she turned 2-ans. The first time he saw her, he said, “You have yourself a Ferrari.”
Somewhat paradoxically, the visual metaphor that perfectly describes Ivey is (no joke) the scene in Ford versus Ferrari (2019) when Carroll Shelby takes Mr. Ford for a test drive in one of the 1966 GT-40s. Watch it and you’ll know how she is when afield hunting birds: She’s a machine de chasse that not just anyone can easily control.
But I confess, I liked the idea that had a sports car for a bird dog. Yet, even this trainer failed to break Ivey’s freelancing habit. All of which means that while my Ferrari, or 1966 Ford GT-40, is engineered for maximum performance, it also comes with a set of brakes that tend to fail.