By David DiBenedetto

For the better part of a year I held off from feeding anything to Pritchard that wasn’t dog food or a puppy biscuit. (Though on a tip from a trainer I often used Goldfish as a treat when doing early training work. They’re cheap and easy to carry in a pocket. Problem is, I ended up eating a hell of a lot of Goldfish, too.) I remained strong against my wife’s pleas to share our dinner leftovers with Pritchard—often a nugget of steak or strip of chicken. I refused simply because I did not want Pritch to become a table beggar or, worse, a dog that lunges for the tabletop and grabs a quick bite.

By David DiBenedetto

On Pritch’s crate there’s a sticker that reads “My Boykin Spaniel Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student.” I do think she’s too smart for her own good at times (in fact, she aced this dog IQ test), but some recent news in the Daily Mail suggests our domestication of dogs has turned them into pampered, slobbering galoots. Here’s a snippet of what the article had to say:

By David DiBenedetto

Herewith your Friday dose of good humor, courtesy of The New York Times. This video follows a reporter and his bassett hound through a weekend camp designed to stimulate a house dog’s hunting instinct. (You’ll enjoy the scene of the reporter pouring scent straight from the bottle to form a scent trail.)

By David DiBenedetto

I recently came across a terrific gallery of old Field & Stream covers, from 1929 to 1968, and was shocked at how many of the illustrations involved gun dogs. Of the 42 covers, roughly 75 percent of them were dog related. The cover shown here caught my eye, of course, because the dog resembles a Boykin spaniel, but best I can tell it’s a close cousin, the American Water spaniel.