What's the Point?
If you're a bird hunter accustomed to knocking off for a Saturday morning of chasing feathers, the thought of a big-running dog that covers upwards of 25 miles in a three-hour stint might seem out of touch with standard-issue bird hunting (not to mention the idea of spending 10 grand a year to feed, train, and schlep the animal thousands of miles across the continent). But there is relevance in the National Championship for Field Trialing Bird Dogs.

"This is the foundation of breeding great foot-hunting dogs, and that's why traditional bird hunters should care about what we're doing," says Lori Steinshouer. Based in Reno, Nev., Steins¿¿houer is the only woman ever to run a dog at this competition.

"We breed these almost ¿¿out-of-control, mud-slinging bird dogs because every now and then, out of a litter of 10 puppies, we might get one fire-breather that goes on to field trials. But the rest are still great bird dogs that will make some hunter very happy. And their genes are passed around the country."

This is Steinshouer's sixth attempt at the championship, an event, she says, that defines her year-round calendar. A slim figure with dangling silver earrings, Steins¿¿¿¿houer grew up in a family that raised show dogs. She and her sister had to feed the kennel, which sometimes numbered 100 animals.

"By the time I could live on my own," she says, laughing, "I was done with dogs." Then she married and took in a German wirehaired pointer. "The next thing you know, I'd started training that dog. Then my husband and I got more dogs, and here we are, nine years later."

At the moment, Steinshouer's entry, Redrock High Country, is tearing across the Tennessee fields in the 17th brace. The pointer is accustomed to running huge expanses of BLM land in Nevada, where most of the time he's merely a dot against a distant swath of chukar country. There are times, Steinshouer says, when it takes her a half hour to reach the craggy ridge where High Country has gone on point.

But whether they are weaned on wide open spaces or the brambly warrens of the Deep South piney woods, the "fire-breathing" dogs of the Ames Plantation field trials have to contend with elements that have little to do with weather or birds. There's also chance. "Field trial dogs are the pawns of destiny," wrote one early observer of the event. It's a lesson High Country is about to learn.

An hour and a half into the stake, High Country is alone on the course, blistering ahead of the gallery. Suddenly shouts come back from the front-"Point!"-and the observers gallop to the action. High Country is as rigid as hardtack, facing back toward the oncoming gal¿¿lery, muz¿¿zle into the wind. Steinshouer dismounts and wades into a low stand of sedges, confident of raising a covey. What she finds, however, are piles of feathers from a freshly killed quail. Some predator had just feasted here, and High Country, catching the bird's scent, locked up as expected.

It's a confusing scene. Steinshouer walks around the dog, who remains staunch, disbelieving that his nose has been foiled by such bad luck. Then birds flush 25 yards downwind. High Country will be charged with an unproductive. This dog will not have his day.

On the ride back to the kennels, Steinshouer is dispirited. It's a 2,000-mile drive back home to Reno. But ask her about the disappointment of coming so far only to lose, and she brightens at the very notion of such a wrongheaded question.

"Are you kidding?" Steinshouer says, with a wide smile that belies the last 15 minutes of frustration. "This isn't the end of anything. Now I have a year to place in a major field trial. This is just the beginning of the road that will bring us right back to next year's National."

Just another year in the life of a competition bird dog. >