Whether it's the genetics
behind angled haunches and a docked tail, the Spinone Italiano is
seldom seen locked in the fabled 12-o'clock point. But the
12th-floor point is as common as cream cheese in my apartment in
Philadelphia. When it comes to pointing, birds are birds, whether
perched on a parapet or dug deep into a Dakota draw.
For my 16-month-old spinone Pane, the city skyline--replete with William Penn's statue atop city hall bedecked this week by a Flyers' jersey--goes unnoticed. Same for the great gothic buildings of nearby Girard College, built by America's richest citizen in the early 1800s for the city's orphans. But a suet birdfeeder draped from the balcony is the nexus for all of a spinone's instincts.
Sparrows and finches get sight-pointed while mockingbirds have brought on something new and perhaps a troublesome birddog display: sound pointing. Helicopters, high-altitude bumblebees, descending 747s, bats and occasional blimps get a good spinone ogling, too.
I have found, after rearing three gundogs under the circumstances, that city dwelling offers one training opportunity after another. I try to see it as the dog's necessary "backyard work" writ large. Our apartment sits at the end of a long hallway; wayward or reluctant retrieving for the dogs was never an option (angled hallways also make a nifty maze for blind retrieving). And of course it helps to have one breed, a Boykin spaniel, that would retrieve a cabin cruiser up ten flights of stairs for getting the idea across to the two other breeds, a Sussex spaniel and the spinone, that might not be the most natural of retrievers.
The apartment also has five quirky sides; as the birds move from ledge to ledge, relocating--in Pane's case from sofa arm to kitchen chair to daybed--has become an almost innate trait. At ground level, faced with traffic of busy city streets, the heel command becomes so ingrained that a spinone soon learns to turn and stop on a thin lira. And the traffic and other urban distractions magnify the attention a dog gives to a whistle--on the training table, Pane has the precision "whoa!" of a principal ballet dancer.
Pane (Risky Business LaPuccini's Panettone) also early on got the socializing that can bolster the temperament of an often-reticent breed. In the dogpark across the street, she bumped noses with the undreadlocked puli, the sharpei-Rottie mix, the schipperke, the wolf-hybrid and her nemesis, the short-haired collie that tried to herd her whenever she gave chase to a robin or starling (the pigeons she had to herself; other city dogs seem to have no interest in "flying rats").
The dogpark itself is a trampled sprawl of the worst that humanity can offer. (Interceptor day is circled twice on my calendar). But it is also a tight little peninsula just the right size for the quartering of a versatile hunting breed (though don't try asking that of the dozen Viszlas, five Weimeraners or three GSPs in the neighborhood, none of which would know a chukar from chicken plucker. Gundogs may be born, but their abilities aren't always borne out).
What else has contributed to the rearing of a citified gundog? All my dogs swam for the first time in Philadelphia's Azalea Garden fountain. They first put dead game in their mouths when grey squirrel overpopulation brought attrition to the species. They learned to "hunt dead" with key chains dragged up and down stairwells (I figured that might come in handy given my absent-mindedness).
And I'm overjoyed to learn that a new dogpark has just been dedicated alongside the Eastern State Penitentiary, the oldest prison in America and now a national historic landmark. Al Capone was an inmate there, but his fame locally may have been exceeded by Ringer, the Labrador retriever that served a life sentence for killing a cat that belonged to the governor of Pennsylvania. Best of all, the dogpark has a gravel floor beneficial in toughening pads for two weeks of hunting the prairie next fall.
Urban training may not have been instrumental in Pane's rating Prize II recently in the NAVHDA Natural Ability test. But as we aspire to finished gundog status and to a higher score in the Utility Test, I'm sure the city sidewalks and "wildlife" will figure more prominently into her performance in the field. And should she succeed at that higher level, she may detour down the block from her daily walk to run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in triumph--just like another underdog of Italian descent by the name of Rocky Balboa.
Citation:
Globetti, Michael. "A Citified Spinone." Heartbeats, vol. 3,
no. 1, Summer 1997, pp 1-2.
Other articles by Michael:
Globetti, Michael. "Versatile
Dogs: Hogging All the Game." Heartbeats, vol. 5, no. 2,
Fall/Winter 2001/2002, pp 1, 3.