The Fab Five

I know this was a phrase coined by the great Michigan basketball teams in the 90's, however, what I'm writing about today is the best conglomeration of bird dogs I've ever owned.  The Fab Five was a group that was assembled when my father and I purchased four bird dogs from a quail hunting guide out of Punta Gorda.  The man was leaving the state and was getting rid of his dogs and his bird hunting equipment.  My dad and I made the short trip to Punta Gorda and got to look at the dogs, of which there were eight of them, varying in age from two years old to ten years old.  We ended up buying four dogs, Jim four, Patches six, and siblings Buddy and Sandy age two.  We also purchased the man's truck and dog boxes to go along with the dogs.  This was the first time we'd been back into quail hunting in over 10 years, and needless to say I was excited.  The fifth of the Fab Five was an English Pointer my dad currently owned named Lady.  Lady was five when we purchased the other dogs.  All of the dogs were English Pointers, and we were back in the bird hunting business once again.

See, I grew up quail hunting the flatwoods of South Florida.  From the time I could go, I would ride with my dad out to our leases and help put up quail feeders, tend to dogs and help him train them.  I always liked quail hunting, but what I really cherished about the sport was that it was something my dad and I could do together and we really enjoyed.  My dad is a wing shooter, through and through, and dearly loves to duck hunt.  I'm not a duck hunter, though I do go, however my dad also loves quail hunting.  I have come to love the sport as well, much more so the dog handling, as I cannot shoot very well.  Anyhow, so the story begins of the Fab Five.

Lady
Lady was the first dog to pass away out of the Fab Five, and was probably the most poorly trained of the bunch.  She wasn't used very much when she was a puppy, so she had some issues with holding point when she got older.  What Lady was, was relentless in her quest of the covey rise.  She was muscled up, and looked looked like a dog version of a body builder.  She was a tank in the brush, letting nothing stand in her way to get that elusive point.  For a English Pointer she did not range very far, which I preferred, but she hunted hard nonetheless.  Lady came to us in two part deal with her brother.  The brother didn't pan out as far as bird hunting, but my dad could tell Lady had the grit and the want to, to be a great hunter.  I honestly believe with some better training, she would have been the best out of the Fab Five.  She was the outcast, not really being a part of the group that came out of the Punta Gorda crew, however she hunted with those other dogs like they were family.  Lady succumbed to cancer in 2009, after only being a part of the Fab Five for 4 hunting seasons.  Some of the things I remember about her, was that she was unstoppable.  I believe she'd have hunted til' her heart burst if you'd let her.  She used to grunt when going through palmettos, and it sounded like a bulldozer coming through when she would work in a rough.  What I liked is that she dearly loved hunting, and she was a hunter first and foremost.  Lady was all business as soon as her feet hit the ground, she was hunting.  She was a bit selfish in that she hunted a lot for herself, but that was the lack, of training.  As always, Lady, you will be missed.

Jim
Jimdog as I called him, was a flashy dog, that if we were a professional football team, Jim would have been our flashy, high profile wide receiver.  Jim would hunt, don't get me wrong, but if the hunting was slow, he'd pout and just walk behind the truck.  Now don't get me wrong, most hunters are saying, that dog is worthless, let me tell you this, if there was a quail in a square mile section of woods, he'd find it, point it, and hold until you got there.  The first time I saw this was only the second or third time we'd had all the dogs out.  We were hunting on the boundary between a myrtle flat and a large palmetto rough when Jim went missing.  The other dog with him, Sandy had come back to the truck, but no Jim.  We backtracked for at least 10 minutes trying to find Jim, when we did find him, he was pointed near the edge of a clump of palmettos on a covey of wild quail, and had held this point for more than 10 minutes!  Jim was a solid rangy dog, who could turn into a white dot on the horizon in an instant.  Jim could get hardheaded, so much so, that the previous owner had him castrated to settle him down.  Jim was a runner and could cover a lot of ground, but if he did his circle and no birds were found after a while, he'd pout.  Jim was also constantly getting out his pen and our yard at home, which I have always been told that's a sign of a good hunting dog.  Jim would always remind you that while he hunted for you, he was going to try and be the boss.  Several times he and I tangled over him digging through the fence, or breaking out of his pen.  I had a huge amount of respect for Jim, because he didn't fool you, and I never saw him get outsmarted by the birds.  The word always was that if Jim disappeared, there were birds, and he NEVER once let us down on that axiom.  Jim ended up with a case of whip worms, that he simply could not overcome and he died just three short months after Lady did.  I hope wherever dogs end up, there's a large amount of room to run, because Jim will surely need it.

Jim

Patches
Patches was no show dog, by any means.  Patches was the only dog of the Fab Five not to be papered.  She was also the only dog that was a "rip-rap" color (black and white).  Patches was the oldest of the four we'd bought from the guy in Punta Gorda, and I always nicknamed her "Slow and Steady".  Patches wasn't going to set any land-speed records for running, but she made up for that by being the most thorough of all the dogs.  When she was on the ground she worked methodically, almost as if she had a plan she'd been thinking of on the ride from the house to the hunting lease.  Patches would work back and forth, and no clump of grass was left undisturbed.  She was also a sweetheart, never causing any trouble or barking too much.  At home, she never made any attempts to escape, and was always there when it was supper time.  While hunting, Patches was very business like in her approach.  When she clocked in, as the gate of her pen opened, you knew you were getting her best.  Rarely did I ever see her get fooled, and when I did it was up in her older years when she couldn't see or hear very well.  Patches hunted until the very end.  One thing she did, almost every time you turned her out of her pen, was she would run up to the back of the hunting truck and look up at the truck and over to you as if to say "Are we going to work today?".  She did this, even in her last days.  Despite her business-like demeanor in the woods, she loved hunting.  She worked so slow and cautious you could take her off a leash and walk with her while hunting.  We did this one time, only for her to point a flock of turkeys.  That was a very comical day to say the least.  One trip that really sticks out in my mind, was the very last hunt she was on.  We were having trouble with her, she had cancer bad, and there was no hope for her, but my dad and I couldn't just leave her in the pen, so we took her.  She couldn't hear or get around real good so we had trouble when we let her out, as she could not hear the whistle nor see the truck.  The last point of her illustrious career came on flush that separated two birds from the covey.  I downed one, and the second, was crippled by dad.  Patches, who had been somewhat lost when the other dogs pointed was making her way across the pasture back to us, when the crippled bird sailed down and landed not five feet from her.  She froze, wheeled around and locked point right on the spot.  My dad walked up flushed and downed the bird and she made the retrieve.  Less than a month later, she would be dead.  Cancer had stricken the old girl and she had to be put down.

Patches and I

Buddy
Buddy was probably the most lovable and vibrant of the Fab Five.  He was a large dog for a bird dog, yet very rangy and had somewhat of a goofy personality.  He always seemed to smile.  He really didn't start hunting good until his later years.  As a youngster he would hunt more for himself than for you, and he never really lost that, he only learned how to control it.  Buddy must have had a cat in his family tree at some point because I swear he had nine lives.  We had only had the Fab Five for a year, and we took them out hunting, only to lose Buddy.  We could not find him and searched for hours with no success.  Two days passed and my dad found him in a pasture that was being seeded.  When my dad got to him his chest was all red and burnt up, as if he'd been washed in something.  Near where we lost him, some workers were washing out a fertilizer tank, we think he got into the fertilizer and it burnt him up, and he ran off.  He survived that incident with flying colors only to be shot at and poisoned two months later.  We never found out who did this to Buddy, nor why they would do this as Buddy was a very friendly dog.  Some good Buddy memories hunting were his relentless pursuits of birds on our new lease.  Now we have to buy most of our birds since we do not have much in the way of natural coveys on our property.  Sometimes these pen-raised birds do not fly all that well, and simply run away.  Well, they can get into some pretty rough areas and Buddy has been known to follow.  There was one time, that he and his sister Sandy cornered a single in a rough patch of horsin' palmettos.  Me and two other hunters chased that single around that palmetto clump for close to an hour and a half!  We finally ended up getting the bird to flush where we could get a shot at it and got the bird.  Buddy nor Sandy let up on that bird, they were going to get him come hell or high water.  Buddy was funny in that when you called him to get in his pen, he would just lay down.  You would then have to go grab him by the collar and lead him into his pen.  For the five years Buddy stayed at my house, he did this EVERY night.  Buddy was also another one of the Fab Five that would always go check out the hunting truck, as if to say, "Are we going today Dad?".  We lost Buddy to a very strange incident as he came down sick and the vet. could only diagnose it was some kind of poison.  Buddy went to the vet's office on a Friday and he never came back home, passing that Sunday afternoon.  It was hard to be angry at Buddy, even when he messed up, as he always had that goofy smile on his face.  It would be nice to see him and Jim as little white dots on the horizon, even if only for one more time.

Buddy and Sandy

Sandy
We lost Sandy today, which is why I'm writing this.  Writing helps me cope and it also helps me remember.  If Patches wasn't a show dog, then Sandy was definitely the ugly duckling.  Lips that never quite came down over her teeth right and an odd-shaped head were what defined Sandy physically.  Sandy had a wonderful personality, a bit timid at times, but a great dog nonetheless.  Sandy was similar to her brother Buddy in that when you called them, they would lay down, but I was able to break her of doing it soon after she moved in with us.  Sandy wasn't stellar, but she was a consistent performer.  She would always find birds, and her only flaw was being a bit rough with dead birds.  She was not the greatest retriever, but man could she find birds, and holy cow could she hold.  On numerous occasions, I have sat and watched her point birds and have some of the birds actually walk UNDER her while she was pointed!  Sandy had amazing control over her emotions, and I never once saw her flush a covey.  For not being much to look at, Sandy had a great personality and got along very well with the other dogs.  Sandy was nine the day she died, and was about a month shy of her tenth birthday.  In recent months she had been developing tumors and she had began to slow down some.  In the past few weeks, I really noticed her not running and playing as much, and then this morning when I walked out to the pens, there she lay on her stoop.  She was in the exact position she sleeps in, and looked perfectly comfortable.  I buried her at our camp under a nice oak tree, next to a palmetto head.  Sandy was the last of the Fab Five.

They are no more, but what a legacy they leave behind.  The last seven years have been very fun, getting to hunt behind these dogs with my dad, my brother and my wife.  These dogs had no idea what they were apart of, they had absolutely no clue, they just were doing what they were trained to do and what they loved to do.  I know the Bible says that dogs don't go to Heaven, but surely after owning dogs as loving and dedicated as these, I know they are God's creatures.  The Fab Five will be hard to replace, and Muse Pointers is in a down time right now, with only two dogs that can hunt, and both of them are rookies.  I'm sure we will build the herd back up again, but right now it is dark times in Muse.  So long Fab Five, may you be running free and pointing covey rises in some other world, you truly are missed here, and are now the stuff that legends are made of.  Go easy now...

Hal