Counterpoint: Further Thoughts On Pointing By A Cynic

It was not long ago from the time that this essay is being penned, that Seinfeld was the most popular sit-com in the land. It alleged to be a show about ‘nothing.’ Right about the end of the Seinfeld run, a well reviewed book by Robert Kaplan called The Nothing That Is made its rounds in 1999. The book detailed the history of the number zero, explaining how long it took the world to recognize ‘zero’ and how the understanding of it led to mathematical and scientific revolution that created much of the world we know today. Understanding that ‘nothing’ is ‘everything’ was the theme of both the book and the show. But astute pointing dog fans have known this for centuries

There are thousands and thousands of fans who admire the dog with the ability to point. These points have been described in the most glowing terms and poetic language. As the previous essay described, many people are stunned and amazed when they see a dog point for the first time. We “oooo” and we “ahhhh” when we see it. Yet I cannot help but to think, upon closer and more objective examination, that a fraud has been perpetrated upon us by these dogs.

The fact is that the point results when a dog stops and remains motionless. The dog may be a bundle of energy and industry as he searches, but his glory is when he freezes and goes no further. He stands there and essentially does nothing at all. Even the slightest movement is frowned upon meaning that the better the dog does nothing, the more we like it. We like the dog to snap into points immediately and hold them for long periods of time which means that we like it to lapse into doing nothing quickly and remain doing nothing for a long intervals of time. Looked at in this manner the term “good for nothing” can actually be quite a compliment for a pointing dog.

Laverack called the setter, “A spaniel improved.” Pointing Labradors, similarly, are hailed as a great innovation. No one, by contrast, is trying to develop close working pointing breeds and teaching them to flush instead of point. That a flushing pointer is a step backwards, is indicative of the ‘higher calling’ for the pointing dog. I am sure that such language annoys the fans of the noble flushing breeds particularly when the ‘advancement’ touted for the pointing dogs, is really just the proclivity to do nothing.

It is true that pointing is a variation of stalking and is the “pause before the pounce” or “a pause for the purpose of devising a strategem.” He is trying to figure out how to catch the bird. In other words the dog is trying to make up his mind and when he cannot, he stands there. The more he can’t make up his mind, the longer he points. The longer he points the more we like it. So his motive for doing nothing is because he cannot figure out what to do. That the pointing dog has thus made ‘indecisiveness’ and ‘doing nothing’ into an admired, sought after quality will forever earn him my respect.

More than half of a century ago, William F. Brown took fellow writers to task for thinking that a point was a mesmeric or cataleptic condition. These old writers seemed to think that describing a dog as being in a cataleptic condition was somehow a compliment. But “cataleptic condition” at least hints at what a point looked like in that era. I have known various people who display this same cataleptic look and invariably they tend to stand around a lot and do nothing too.

It is an accepted fact that the old time trainers allowed pups to chase to their hearts’ content, knowing that they would some day be convinced that they could not catch and then would hold their points. You could put it the way Charley Babcock put it: “… giving the puppy a good time with plenty of opportunities on game with no cares or worries for the dog or for me, yet asking him that question daily, and some fine morning when the weather’s cool, the dew upon the grass, the dog bending every energy to find his game, he will answer and I’ll know he’s telling the truth. As plainly as human speech could tell it, I’ll know that he has sowed his wild oats, shed his puppy ways and is ready for his mission in life.” Or you could cut through that poetic , foo-foo crap and describe it as it really is: That in the pup’s mind, his mission in life is to chase and catch birds and that, some fine morning, when the dew is on the grass, he will finally realize that he is a complete failure at it, will lapse into indecisiveness and self doubt as a result, and will thus stop, and do nothing, which will thereafter be his mission in life.

The dog’s realization that he is not usually succesful at catching game on his own means that he needs help. An element of the point, then, becomes a dog waiting motionlessly for help from the rest of the pack (the rest of the pack being the handler with the shotgun) and to not risk flushing the game by any further movement. That these dogs choose people like me to help them is further proof that their ability to make decisions is of a low order. And we can also add an element of ‘helplessness’ to the fine traits of a pointing dog.

In a recent book called The Truth About Dogs, Stephen Budiansky claims that the major evolutionary success of the dog is their ability to make humans believe that they are something more than what they are. “Dogs, in short,” Budiansky notes, “are a brilliant evolutionary success almost without parallel in the animal world, and they owe that success to their incanny ability to worm themselves into our homes, and to our relentlessly anthropomorphic psyches that let them do it.” Hunting dog people know it too. We have all seen the hunting dog with that perfect combination of butt-ugly looks and laughable field ability, but who has managed to convince its owner, as a only a dog can do, that he is the greatest hunting dog that ever lived. “Dogs,” Budiansky continues, “belong to an elite group of con artists at the very pinnacle of their profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it.” But even as astute and clearminded of a student of dogs as Stephen Budiansky did not mention the many breeds with a born tendency to stand around do nothing, and who have convinced throngs of people how wonderful they are for doing it; or, I mean, not doing it.

Perhaps that is why we like the pointing dog so. Maybe something deep in our uncounscious minds admires that the dog can combine ‘helplesness’ with ‘a distinct tendency to do absolutely nothing because of indecisiveness,’ and can elevate those qualities into an act, not only useful in the field, but also worthy of poetry and art. A great many of us humans have practiced with some of these same qualities, and some of us are quite good at them, but we are are not looked upon quite so fondly. These dogs , however, have pulled it off brilliantly. Long live both the pointing dog and those who have been so fortunate as to have had their pockets picked by them!