Ruffed grouse dogs are bred, not born, and once born they are developed, not made. - George Bird Evans

When you are very young, you tend to accept standards for such momentous judgments as to whether a girl is beautiful; when you reach the age of experience you come to know beauty in the sense that “knowing” is to possess. Beauty does more than reflect light, it is the action of energy on form, glowing as a total function. This is singularly true of a grouse dog in his consecration to his bird.

A gun, no matter how rare, a dog, no matter how brilliant, cannot mean fulfillment without keenness in the man. It takes the sportsman’s edge honed fine, an “eye,” a sense of what is good, the ear for what is right – the heart. There is something about the wilderness, something in the blood that draws nourishment from the game.

Without quality in life, there is only Death waiting at the end for all of us, like the bird. Being one of those fortunate men whose existence burns more brightly because of gunning grouse, I have learned that the place to look for quality is within yourself.