A German Wirehair

That Can Do It All

This dog does it all.
    Bonnie V. D. Jagerhutte is a Drahthaar, a German Wirehaired Pointer.  Her owner, Ron Mason of Davenport, Iowa, had heralded this liver-and-white ball of energy as only the third Drahthaar on the continent to pass utility tests conducted by Verein Deutsch Drahthaar -- Group North America.
    This organization, made up of breeders and owners of this versatile hunting dog, uses a battery of trials to measure a dog's abilities in every phase of hunting, retrieving and obedience.
    "Bonnie fulfilled all requirements that a dog would be subjected to in versatile hunting," Ron said.  I had to see for myself, and since at the time Ron lived about 10 minutes from me in Olathe, Kansas, we arranged a couple of hunting trips.
    Bonnie is one of a line that grew out of four mother breeds--the German Shorthair Pointer, the Pudel Pointer, the Stickelhaar and the Wirehaired Pointing Griffin.  Her features resemble those of a Griffin, but her obedience and well-mannered ways are unlike any I had ever seen.
    She will not exit her carrier in the back of Ron's van until called.  The day we met, Ron opened the door to the little box and walked away.  Bonnie never moved.
    We talked at length about our jobs and the approaching end of Kansas' archery deer season.  After almost 15 minutes, Ron turned and said "Bonnie come."  The two-year-old exploded out of the carrier and bounded over to meet me and check out the surroundings.
    "Bonnie heel."  At this command, Bonnie made a beeline for her master's left side and stayed there while he walked around to show me how steady she was.  When Ron stopped, Bonnie went from full stride to sit in a single, graceful motion.
    "It must have taken quite a while to develop Bonnie's obedience, not to mention lots of training," I said.
    "Bonnie pen," he spoke.  The dog obligingly slipped back into her carrier and Mason chuckled as he closed the door.  "Well, I am an amateur breeder, and Bonnie is the first dog I have ever worked with seriously," he said.  "I don't want you to think it was easy, but the nature of the Drahthaar is such that you tend to get excellent results from the time you invest in training."
    The bottom line is, Bonnie retrieves waterfowl, points and retrieves upland birds, hunts small game and even blood tracks wounded animals.  She also is obedient and well mannered, and Ron said she gets along great with his wife and two daughters.
    A couple days after our first meeting, Ron called to say he had accepted a job in Davenport, Iowa, and soon would be leaving Olathe.  We made plans for some quick trips to see how Bonnie would do in a waterfowl marsh and in a hunt for birds and small game.
    Less that 48 hours later, Ron, Bonnie and I were up about three hours before the sun and headed for the Marais Des Cygne Wildlife Area n east central Kansas.  First light would mark the opening of the final segment of the state's 1984-85 waterfowl season, and we hoped to bag a few of the estimated 60,000 mallards that were resting at Marais Des Cygne on their long trek from the north.
    With decoys our, we settled into a makeshift blind as a sky full of stars began fading into the pastels of an approaching sunrise.  Bonnie settled in easily and never moved.  She acted like a seasoned veteran, even thogh she had never even been on a waterfowl trip before.
    Despite the bluebird morning, ducks were everywhere--everywhere except over our decoy set, that is.  the birds came in high over our spot and would work another group of hunters about 200 yards down the marsh.
    Our "perfect place" apparently didn't look to good to the ducks.  Ron took Bonnie for a walk down the marsh to see how the other fellows were doing and to get a look at their set-up.  "Maybe our set isn't big enough," Ron wondered aloud, "or maybe it's too big.  It won't hurt to look."
    With less than three dozen "dekes" in the water, it was hard to imagine having too many out there.  I passed the time watching a massive formation of Canada geese, a species that is protected from hunting pressure on Marais Des Cygne.  They offered a raspy, honking good morning from high above.  The size of the "V" dwarfed a smaller group of mallards that just wouldn't drop in for a visit.
    I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Bonnie bounding toward the blind.  She suddenly go serious in her movements and slowly began stalking a soggy clump of tall grass about 50 yards away.
    A mallard drake flushed, and I was so surprised I barely got the gun up in time.  The bird shuddered at the report of the 12 gauge, and it slowly made its final descent, hitting the water about 150 yards out.  Ron got back to the blind and, using hand signals, guided Bonnie out.  A few minutes later, I had my duck.
    All of Mason's retrieve commands are keyed by the word fetch.  Bonnie also had been trained to use another of the Drahthaar's unique talents -- the blind search.  She works off the command of "back."
    "In Germany during the 19th century, it was a violation of game laws if dead or wounded animals were found on property you hunted," said Ron.  "In breeding a versatile hunting dog, the Germans taught them to hunt an area on command with the goal of finding and retrieving and dead or wounded game.
    "A lot of time, I will send Bonnie on a blind search before I start hunting an area.  I got a limit of prairie chickens like that last season, and I never took my gun out of the case!"
    When we packed up the decoys to head home, Ron decided to take his new Drahthaar pup, Farah, out through the marsh before we left.  On a blind search, Farah brought back a mallard hen that had been wounded and lost.  This was the eight-month-old pup's first time out for waterfowl.  Ron had not done any training work with her at all!
    Two days later, Christmas Eve came to Kansas with a bitter greeting.  Snow and sleet pelted the ground from the force of a north wind that buried the temperature somewhere around 10 below.  Ron's dad, Allen, joined us as we walked the shelter-belts and draws of a 180-acre tract about 15 minutes from home.  We were looking for small game and birds.
    Four vehicles, which Ron later found out belonged to poachers, already were parked at the land.  It soon became apparent that thing already had been stirred up.  Where Ron and Bonnie had found rabbits and quail a few days earlier, all we found were fresh human footprints.
    She finally jumped a cottontail, and I was surprised to see this lady act like the best beagle I'd ever seen.  She pushed the rabbit straight to Allen, but he wasn't able to get a clean shot before the bunny ducked into a tangle of bushes.  Bonnie bayed all the time, just like the good rabbit dogs I remembered from childhood back in western Pennsylvania.
    We soon came to a long cornfield, and Bonnie and Ron hunted up one side while Allen and I checked out the cover on the opposite boundary.  We had gone about 60 yards when a brace of quail exploded at my feet.  One flew to the left, giving Allen a shot, while the other flew straight up the tree line away from me.  The Mossberg popped and the quail dropped, but I couldn't find it when I started looking.
    Bonnie arrived and was sent on a blind retrieve.  We all figured she'd lost the bird when she crossed the treeline and headed back to where the birds were hiding, but she suddenly appeared on our side of the brush, proudly carrying my quail.
    I hit the bird alright, but at about 35 yards, and it had enough strength left to wiggle into the cover and double back on us.  We never would have found it without Bonnie.  I convinced Ron to let our heroine ride on my lap during the trip home.  She deserved the pampering after saving two hunting trips.
    When we picked a bad spot for a duck blind, Bonnie went hunting on her own and found a bird for us.  She ran a rabbit like a beagle and got the best of a quail that was smarter than the guy who shot it!
    We couldn't test her blood tracking abilities with big game, since the use of dogs for this purpose is illegal in Kansas, but Ron related a story with the promise to provide witnesses if necessary.
    "We were hunting deer in South Carolina, and I had Bonnie out with a friend of mine.  This fellow shot a deer and wounded it.  We waited about 15 minutes, and I let Bonnie pick up the trail.  She was off in a flash, and we had a tough time keeping up with her.
    "In about 10 minutes, we heard her start baying; I knew she had the deer cornered.  I got there just in time to see the buck get its head down far enough to pick Bonnie up with its antlers and fling her away.
    "I was scared to death that she had been seriously injured, but she hit the ground on all fours with the most ferocious look I have ever seen.  She literally pounced on that deer, got it by the throat, and the tow of them tumble into a rain-swollen creek.  Bonnie killed that deer in the water.  It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen."
    I told Ron I thought he had a special dog there, but that surely he didn't expect that every Drahthaar would act like that.
    "I honestly feel that, with some training and patience, a dog you get through a member of the VDD - Group North America will be as good as Bonnie," he said.  It is interesting to note that while the American Kennel Club will accept a VDD Drahthaar for registry, the VDD will not accept a dog from outside its own membership.
    Only about 100 pups are available for sale in North America each season.  Ron had Bonnie spayed a while back, and he bought Farah for the primary purpose of starting his own kennel.  "I want to take Farah all the way through the utility tests before I breed her," Ron said.  "Dad thinks she's better than Bonnie already.  I'm not sure about that, but I know she is going to be a good one."