The setters always jumped in the trunk when I carried my shotgun to the car. It was a 15 minute ride to some hot wild quail hunting where my hunting jeep was parked. Babe (2nd from right and the mother of Belle) is dead now–she was an outstanding bird finder. In the late 1990s, on a hunt with my 44 years-long friend Wayne Todd, Jr., the finest gun/fisher in North Florida, she pointed 20 coveys of wild quail by herself in one 6 hour hunt. She pointed 16 or more wild coveys on 4 other occasions that year. The fabulous dog man Lee Stuckey stated she was the best setter he had ever seen in the field. She always outhunted my 3 AKC Field Trial Champions, but she had shorter legs and would not have been as good in field trials where “big-running” dogs are the first to the quail and get the “find.” However, in the world of wild birds, Babe was the queen. In the 1998-99 season, she pointed 392 coveys of wild quail. I miss her. She lived to be almost 17 years, extremely long among setters.