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Since that time, she's put 2 1/2 more hunting seasons behind her and acquired her AKC Junior Hunter title, achieving straight 10s (a perfect score) on the final leg. We'll go for the senior title this spring.
By John Johnson
Six inches of snow had fallen overnight – a bit unusual for mid-October, but certainly not unheard of in northeastern Montana at that time of year. The little pointer, within a few weeks (one side or the other) of her first birthday, moved from one kosha bush to the next at the bottom of a broad, dry creek bed on the high plains. She passed one large, tumbleweed-like cluster, then reversed course and went back to it, and froze.
The big rooster that came out when the bush was kicked a few seconds later was the first wild bird that rail-thin, black and white dog had ever pointed. I held up my end of the deal, and it also became the first wild bird she'd ever retrieved. Not a bad piece of work for a dog that just a few months earlier was on the other side of the world and perhaps within hours of the worst fate imaginable.
Thanks to an American soldier, that dog got out of a very sticky situation in South Korea and, after a lengthy layover at the Osan Air Force Base shelter near Seoul, eventually made her way to my home in northern California. Just 4 months later, she was off to Big Sky Country for her indoctrination to wild birds – creatures that her ancestors had been bred to pursue, but which might have been wholly unfamiliar to her most recent forebears.
She encountered pheasants, sharptail grouse and Hungarian partridge on that trip. I can't say she handled every bird like a field champion, but considering her totally unknown pedigree and the events that had taken place in her young life to that point, it was a darn good start to her hunting career.
<b>A Mysterious Past</b>
The dog's given name is Dakota, which was bestowed upon her either by the soldier or somebody at the shelter. I shortened it to Kota because I prefer dog names to be no more than two syllables.
Whether she ever had another name, nobody seems to know. It's also unclear how she ended up in South Korea – a country that's home to very few bird dogs – to begin with. The lady who serves as the volunteer coordinator at the Osan shelter told me that dogs in that country fall into one of two categories – the tiny breeds are fashion accessories and those of even moderate size are looked upon as food. Kota definitely fell into the latter classification.
One morning in early 2008, the aforementioned soldier was driving to or from someplace near Seoul when he spotted the dog chained up behind a restaurant. I don't know any of the details of what happened next, but somehow the serviceman concluded that somebody's idea was for her to end up on the menu at that eatery. He took it upon himself to make sure that didn't happen.
He tried to keep the dog for awhile, but was frequently away from home on maneuvers and she reportedly barked incessantly while he was gone. He eventually surrendered her to the Osan shelter, where she was cared for over a period of several months.
I learned of her availability for adoption via a post from another Californian on a popular bird dog message board. That guy is involved with a couple of rescue organizations, and one of them was the Osan people's first contact simply because the dog could fly to San Francisco the following weekend in the company of one of the shelter volunteers – an elementary school teacher who was returning to the States for the summer.
I sent an e-mail to Osan expressing my interest, and they sent me pictures and all the background info on the dog that they had. Before I went to bed that night, all of the arrangements to bring her here were in place.
<b>A New Land Beckons</b>
I'm fortunate that my wife, Julie, is also a canine lover and allows me to indulge in my passion for gun dogs. Her mother runs a Sharpei rescue and she grew up around a variety of breeds. Kota would join a crew that consisted of a yellow Lab and an English setter, along with two entertaining Chihuahuas.
We got up extremely early on that Sunday morning in June to make the three-hour drive to San Francisco. Kota's 15-hour flight from Seoul was scheduled to arrive at 8 a.m., and it actually touched down 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
Our only goal initially was to provide the dog a home. My late father had been a pointer guy, and the pictures of Kota reminded me of one we'd had when I was a kid. If she was birdy, that would be a bonus and she'd be trained and hunted. If not, that was okay – the Lab and the setter, both close to their prime, were entirely capable of carrying that load for me.
Our first glimpse of Kota was through the ventilation screen of her travel crate, which sat underneath the teacher's luggage on an airport baggage cart. The look in her eyes was not one of fear or trepidation, which we'd halfway anticipated and prepared ourselves for, but rather one of curiosity and excitement. That was a big relief.
She was younger than we'd first been led to believe. The shelter people had estimated her age at approximately 18 months, but she was spayed the day before she left and the vet discovered a very small uterus and no evidence that she'd ever had a heat cycle. He pegged her at nine months, tops.
<b>No Time to Waste</b>
Kota's introduction to game-bird scent came just three hours after she first set foot on U.S. soil. We stopped by the home of Pete Peters, a friend and fellow bird hunter who lives midway between San Francisco and our place, and she got a few whiffs of the wing-on-a-string. Her initial points were tenuous, but the instinct was definitely there.
She also rough-housed a little with Ace, the youngest of Pete's three German shorthairs and just about the burliest bird dog I've ever seen. She was physically overmatched, but gave it her all in a playful attempt to get the best of the bigger animal.
My wildest hopes regarding this formerly wayward dog had come true: she was happy, confident and birdy right from the get-go. My wife and I were both ecstatic as we started the second leg of our drive home.
There was more canine horseplay when we arrived as Kota met her new housemates. She quickly discovered that Zeke, the yellow Lab and senior member of the crew, considers himself superior to all other dogs and pays them little attention, and that Dollie, the younger of the two Chihuahuas, was the most likely to indulge her desire for a game of chase-and-nip.
The next day we were off to visit Pierre Urrutia, a good friend and professional trainer. Pierre works with numerous pointing breeds and the occasional spaniel or retriever, but his own bird dogs are all pointers. He confirmed that Kota was a pure-bred specimen, but a couple of physical characteristics and her relatively flat tail when on point led him to believe she might be from European stock.
He check-corded the dog and led her into a tethered chukar. She pointed it, but not for long. She had the same view of that bird that the people in her former homeland had of her – it was food!
Many more sessions with pen-raised birds ensued leading up to the Montana trip. She proved to be considerably less stubborn than Mazie, my talented but independent-minded setter. And during that time she made a seamless transition into the pack that shares our home.
<b>Stress-Free Field Days</b>
I wouldn't write this if dogs could read, but in many ways Kota is a much more suitable hunting companion for me than Mazie is. I have only one good leg (the other suffered major structural and nerve damage in a freak ball-related incident) and I carry too many pounds around with me. I often hunt alone, even if I travel to the grounds with a partner or two, because my gait is slow and I don't want to throw anyone else off their own pace.
My slowness doesn't seem to bother Kota in the least. She ranges out a bit and hunts, and then comes back to check on me. She never gets out of my line of sight for more than a few seconds at a time and our excursions are pretty much stress-free.
As pointers go, Kota will probably always be pretty unremarkable. She definitely lacks the range to be a field-trial star and she's too long and angular to serve as a model for advertisements in magazines and on websites. She'll go through life as a pretty decent bird dog that's loved by the family she lives with.
Who knows whether she recalls anything about her early life in South Korea. The important thing is it didn't end there. And like so many other things I enjoy, I have a soldier to thank for that.
