Everything you have read; Everything you have heard; Everything inside you knows that you can not find a good hunting dog at the local dog shelter. Well, at least that is what I thought until I met ginger.


Last year one of my kids dogs, Megan, passed away. This of course was hard on the family because we have had her for a very long time. However, I think that the most member of our family that was affected was Katie, my Labrador hunting partner.


Katie came to join our family when she was very young. Since she grew up with Megan all her life she grew to know her as her best pal. When Megan passed on we knew that we needed to get another dog, not only for us, but mainly for Katie.


At the time I had no intention on getting another hunting partner. Katie was one of the best retrievers and flushing dogs I have ever had. Even though she herself is getting older she still is my best hunting partner. So, I decide to just get another family dog and headed out to the local shelter.


Instead of going the larger one in Tulsa which gets a lot of traffic, I decided to go to one of the smaller near by towns and see what they had for adoption out there.While I was looking around I saw the saddest looking pup in the place. She wasn’t the cutest thing, and she really looked like she needed some serious attention. Maybe that’s why I was compelled to take her home with me.


Now, although she was listed at the shelter as a pointer, she was not like any pointer I have seen and was probably mixed with several other breeds as well. I of course knew that there was no way this poor thing would ever amount to anything near what a pointer is capable of doing.


After bringing her home, Katie wasn’t really pleased about it. I guess she was wondering why this other dog was invading what should be Megan’s territory. So I spent a lot of time trying to get them to socialize by playing with the new pup and trying to get Katie to join in.


While I was playing with Ginger I kept noticing strange things she would do. It almost reminded me of a cat. She was fascinated by moving objects, but refused to fetch. So I got curious and attached a rag to a stick to see what she would do. Now some of you may know that this is one method that breeder/trainers use to determine if a dog will make a good pointer or not while still a puppy. When I dragged this she would lock up. Not quite like a pointer, but it was interesting so I decided to test her a little more.


I then got some leftover duck that was in the fridge. I gave her a little of it and then had my son hold her back while I dragged some of it on the ground and around the corner of the house. I then let her go find it. It turned out she had a pretty good nose. So it was time to take her to the field.


I worked with Ginger through the summer using quail scent that I picked up at the local outdoors store. I trained her to halt when she got to the source of the scent, but she just won’t point. That’s ok with me though.


I then took her to a local WMA for the real test. What do you know, she turned out to be a hunter after all. She is able to find quail and will let me know it’s there without jumping it.


Ginger will never win any trophies for pointing. She’ll never be the prettiest dog in the field. But, she turned out to be one heck of a hunting dog.


Now if you are looking for a good hunting dog, I don’t recommend that you go running out to the local shelter. However, it just goes to show that you can find a hunting partner in the most unlikely places.


Ginger….The most unlikely hunting dog.

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