Last Best Dog in the Last Best Place

Pogo will soon be joining our family and pack. She's 9 weeks old and doinking around with her sister near Dallas, Texas. In a day or so, I'll pick her up at the airport in Bozeman, Montana.

The new pup is an Elhew-bred English pointer, a strain and breed touted as the ne plus ultra bird dog for foot hunters like me.

Pogo at 8 weeks "tail training."

We also have a Labrador retriever and a German wire-haired pointer. They're both males, both neutered, and both good hunters. So why add an English pointer to the mix?

Statistically, I have about a decade and change left to hunt the Last Best Place and I want to do it with what might turn out to be my Last Best Dog.

A half-dozen years ago, I switched from flushing dogs to pointing dogs. Beatle, our 5-year-old German wire-haired pointer, was the first step.

Wirehairs are true pointing dogs. But they're bred to hunt all game -- fur and feather. And Beatle does, often when we're bird hunting. I don't. English pointers like Pogo, by comparison, are bred to hunt birds. Period.

The author's English game gun.

Yes, Beatle is still welcome afield. So is Darwin, our 6-year-old Lab, who has his own style. Were either of them writing this blog the content would undoubtedly be very different. But they're not, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it.