It was bound to happen

I like bird dogs - all bird dogs.  Fast ones, slow ones, skinny as a stick ones, long hair, long tails, no tails, even the weird ones.  So don't go thinking I have it in for pointers.  I'm saying all of this because earlier today the unthinkable happened: a setter won the National Championship.  For the first time in 43 years a pointer is not wearing the crown.

Runs like this in the sporting world are pretty rare any more.  UCLA's string of seven straight NCAA basketball championships ended shortly after the last setter won in Grand Junction. For one team, or one conference, or one country to dominate any event is just a statistical dead end.  And this is a good thing.  After a couple of decades people start to think it's rigged.

I don't have anything against Duke, Jimmie Johnson or the Patriots, but soon enough the respect for excellence gives way to boredom with supremacy.  It's someone else's turn.

Courtesy Ames Plantation

The collar in this picture says enough for me.  He's a worker, not a poser. Owner Butch Houston, quoted in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, said:

"My dog is a freak of nature in that he can outrun the pointers. He's the most competitive dog I've ever owned. He's like the Secretariat of the bird dog game."

I didn't see him run but I'd be hard pressed to disagree.

Way to go, Bo.