From the Introduction
It
seems appropriate to be writing this book on the eve of another
gunning season. Dreams of prairie grouse, Appalachian ruffs, wood- cock,
pheasants and mid-winter Alabama quail lie before us; the long (and wet) spring
and summer’s wait behind us now. Both dogs and I are ready to go, impatient for
the work to be done, the time to be right, the creation of “time enough to go”
to begin. Autumn is our time of year, our season.
Evan,
the 2002 product of DeCoverly’s Blue Major and DeCoverly’s Over Easy, lies,
paws twitching, to my right, dreaming. I’d like to believe he dreams of birds
past, perhaps last autumn’s Minnesota grouse, his first; or of his first
Alabama quail covey. Yet being a teenager, he’s probably thinking of girls, perhaps
that neatly-coiffed French poodle he saw at the Vintage Cup in Sandanona this
year.
Shana,
the 1999 daughter of DeCoverly’s Red Brother and Steve’s Deputy Melissa, eyes
the apple core that she insists is hers. I ate the apple quietly in
mid-afternoon, trying to avoid alerting her; but she is a master of selective
hearing—ignoring vulgar entreaties to move from the sofa, so there is a spot
for Nancy or me; yet hearing the very thought of a bone from the same couch,
she rises to investigate this, despite a blaring television, dinner’s pots and
pans clanging. Shana whines for the core, sitting on my left, drool spooling at
the base of her flews.
As a
result of their sprawling locations, I am stuck between my brace of English
setters. It’s not a bad place to be, although they impede the desk chair’s
fluid movement, create an obstacle to completing the mission, the thing that
will finally free us to begin making our “time enough to go.”
While
some gunning men might rouse their dogs, git them out of the way; I’ve
been wading through setters for the last 17 years, since 1987, when Nash, the
son of DeCoverly’s Miss Bliss and DeCoverly’s October Joy, came home on an
ill-omened Friday in March. It has become second nature.
It’s
hard to believe that 17 years—6,205 sunrises and sunsets—have passed since Nash
came home. Thinking about this, I remember good moments: a Dry Spell grouse we
took with just a couple of hours to gun, the photo from this becoming how I
choose to remember him; middle-aged Nash pointing grouse under the apple tree
in the aspen-covered Potter County, Pennsylvania covert that still bears his
name; him lying on the floor before the sofa in Felton, paws crossed, brown
eyes cast up to me in an adoration that went both ways. Some dark days come
back as well: the long weekend where I thought I’d lose him, his last days in
the York house, when his pride covered for his failing body; that crisp
November morning, perfect for gunning, under the York house maple tree, waiting
for Dr. Schimdt to come and ease Nash’s burden. That was 1998, seven years ago,
and so much has happened since.
Shana’s
history is clearer. A bundle of white puppy stalking robins and butterflies on
the Penn State University, York campus, grounds; her “flying buttress” rebounds
off an overstuffed chair and ottoman in the long York house; a well-chewed
stair tread; my mistakes in knowing how to deal with her “terrible twos,” South
Dakota coulee sharptails and her
coming of age in Minnesota’s grouse woods; that horrid little gum tumor that
appeared in the winter of 2003; the sleep-late bum of her middle age tempered
by the absolute professionalism of her ability to handle anything I throw at
her, from Oregon blue grouse to Alabama
bobwhites.
Evan’s
is the world of the now, the existence of sharp, new memories in those 6,205
days. The gangly puppy coaxing Shana into tug of wars with a knotted old dish
towel; the careful stalk of a grouse wing spurred to action by a fly rod; that
first pigeon, a Birmingham roller, a companion to the new (to me) English
shotgun I’d bought to accompany a new dog; the image of Evan’s taut Osthaus
stance on the first Minnesota grouse rising up beside the spruce, falling at
the crack of the gun; composure despite the dozen odd little quail that roar
into a buzz of confusions in an Alabama morning.
During
one of the many three-hour trips north to Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania to visit
with DeCoverly Kennels owner Ken Alexander during the process of Evan’s
homecoming, I expressed to him my gratitude for some small thing he did, which
he shrugged off as all part of the program. This lead to a larger thought about
how I might truly express my thankfulness for 17 years of joy associated with
dogs I called my own, but which were really ours, Ken’s, Nash’s, Shana’s and
Evan’s and mine, and a statement, “How do I thank you for 17 years of joy….”
Ken, being Ken, more or less shrugged this one off too, all part of the
program.
All
of those days—I hope I used most well, I hope I honored the dogs in my life
with most of them. And I hope this book will convey some small form of return
for the absolute joy these three very fine DeCoverly kennels English setters
have brought into my life during the last 6,205 days. In many respects, one
literal, I owe life to them; they were my steadfast raison d être in
times of great turmoil, the emotion behind many of my actions, “The dogs need
it more than I do, honest…” gunning adventure justification, the source of what
makes my heart sing loudest.
So
this book is for you, Nash, Shana, Evan, and especially Ken. As well as George
Ryman, Ellen and Carl Calkins, Bill Sordoni, George and Kay Evans…for all of
the lights that have circled the sphere of DeCoverly Kennels English setters.
z z
z
So now that you know the why behind
this book,
what’s it all about?
This
book is really a look at two parallel evolutionary paths: That of man, the
hunter; and that of dogs, focusing specifically on a line of English setters.
The
dog story was the easy part. Yet the making and the maintaining of the oldest
line of English setters in North America—perhaps the world—was no easy task.
Intertwined through this story line are the people, places and most certainly
the love connected to these dogs, between the dogs and their people. At the
root of what sets DeCoverly, before it Ryman, apart from other gun dog lines is
how much love is associated with these dogs, how much they give, how much they
receive, all of it quite willingly going both ways. This mutual love of dog and
man is, in essence, the DeCoverly experience.
This
is also the story of the odd combination of circumstances that brought dogs,
people and the means to accomplish dreams together in northeastern Pennsylvania
nearly a century ago now; how it all took root and has grown into the icon that
DeCoverly has become in the English setter world.
While
we’re telling this story in words, in photographs, in bloodlines, it’s really
best seen in the four-legged creatures that dominate this tale.
The
thing that makes it unique—what a skeptic could say makes it worth
considering—is the length and breadth of the story, the influence of these dogs
over all but a century’s time. Although DeCoverly Kennels officially began in
1977, when Ellen Ryman Calkins suggested that Ken Alexander start using the
name DeCoverly to indicate a transition from the original Ryman Kennels—just as
Sir Roger DeCoverly II, the fountainhead of the Ryman line, was transferred
from Dr. Beck and M. I. Mangan, to George Ryman in 1916—this line of English
setters really begins in 1907, with the first Sir Roger. As far as I have been
able to discover, the Ryman line is the oldest continuing line of English
setters in existence, perhaps even the oldest continuing gun dog line in existence.
Robert Wehle’s Elhew English pointers, for example began in 1937, three decades
after Ryman. And among larger English setter breeders, only Pete and Katie
Flannigan’s Grouse Ridge Setters, at 50 years old, or Dan Catalana’s Bayview
English setters, at nearly 40 years, come close.
Timelessness
is a rare quality in a world bent on constant change, computer programs
outdated by the time they hit store shelves, the eight-track versus the CD,
cars that remember seat settings….Yet you can find it if you look—the fedora,
Bean boots, side-by-sides, all created in the same time frame as George Ryman’s
setters. You’ll experience a sense of timelessness walking into a DeCoverly
setter point, get a sense that despite a state-of-the-art kennel,
computer-aided genetic breeding programs, the most advanced hip and hearing
tests, that George Ryman would recognize his dogs, be very proud of the
stewardship that has taken them in a circular path from Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, to the tiny Pocono Mountains town of Shohola Falls, Pennsylvania,
and back again to the Endless Mountains just north of Wilkes-Barre.
The
story of man, the hunter, was the more difficult part of this story. The basic
history of man’s hunting techniques and tools evolving from herding hairy
critters into a waiting tribe of sharp sticks—mastodon magnums—to falcons, the
flintlock, and an array of previous century armaments was easy enough to
discover, to gather; yet coming to an understanding of how man, the hunter
perceives him- or herself—no longer a hungry gatherer, bent on survival, but a
sportsman, more specifically a gentleman (or lady, the Fair Shot most certainly
included in this), required a far deeper look within and without. Have we
really evolved? What is it we seek when hunting? Why do we hunt? Define a
gentleman (or gentle-lady)…. Searching for these answers kept me up at night. I
found some, perhaps not yours; but maybe my answers will cause your own
definition of sportsman and gentleperson to sharpen. Enlightenment….
It is
these paths that we will be following across the coming pages—as well as
looking ahead, seeing where DeCoverly Kennels English setters are headed during
their next century; where the state of hunting and “gentlepersonship” might be
bound.
Enjoy
the ride. Our guides loop out ahead of us, in the sweet, fluid, figure-eight
flow of English setters quartering, a blue belton, an orange girl, a tri-color
boy, all shades of Sir Roger, the scion of the DeCoverly line.
Trade
Edition Dustjacket
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I: Fountainheads
Chapter 1
A Natural History of Dogs
Chapter 2
A Natural History of Man The Hunter
Part II: Type
Chapter 3
Roots of the English Setter
Chapter 4
The Nature of the Gentleman
Part III: Strain
Chapter 5
Across the
Pond
Chapter 6
Modern Gentlemanship
Part IV: Line
Chapter 7
George Ryman’s Setters: The Early Years: 1907-1920s
Chapter 8
George Ryman’s Setters: Heyday: 1930s-1950s
Chapter 9
George Ryman’s Setters: The Calkins Era: 1963-1992
Chapter 10
DeCoverly Kennels: The Early Years, 1975-1992
Chapter 11
DeCoverly Kennels: Into the Future
Chapter 12
A Quest for Modern Gentlemanship
Epilogue
The Road Ahead
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
Poem: Over
Dog
