ROAD HUNTER
Versatile gun dogs have the build and stamina to shed hunt in rugged terrain for many hours and in tough conditions. This pudelpointer is bringing in an elk shed from a creek bottom.
VERSATILE HUNTING DOGS
If you’re in the market for a do-it-all four-legged companion, these three breeds rate highly. STORY AND PHOTOS BY SCOTT HAUGEN
L
ike many of you, I love to hunt and have all my life. I also appreciate a good dog that’s trainable, obedient, driven, and at the end of the day will curl up by my side and watch a movie, or voluntarily go in the kennel as I work in my office, where both of my pudelpointers are as I write these words. When the time came for me to get a new hunting companion, I searched for two years. In addition to a dog
that could hunt ducks and geese from September into March throughout the West, I wanted one that would run the rugged mountains all day in the spring and early summer in search of deer and elk sheds, pound the ground for an array of upland birds from mountain quail to ptarmigan, sit for doves and band-tailed pigeons, track and flush fall turkeys, tree gray squirrels and retrieve ground squirrels along with cottontails. I wanted a breed of dog that could handle the places I like to hunt – from Alaska to California and into the Rocky Mountain states – and amid an array of terrain. I also wanted a good
family dog, one that was considered hypoallergenic, or close to it. I wanted one dog to do it all. That’s why I chose a pudelpointer, and two years after I got Echo, a brown female, I got a black male, Kona. They’ve changed my life. GETTING STARTED I’ve been fortunate to hunt with a range of versatile dogs in many parts of the world and I could never see myself owning anything but a pudelpointer; OK, maybe a griffon or drahthaar. My intent here is not to change minds, as Labs will always rule the waterfowling world, and other breeds, americanshootingjournal.com 83
