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FeedBird Dogs Forever on DVD and on the Web
At a time when even wingshooting television shows tend to favor speed-metal soundtracks, the fast-cut editing style of rock music videos, and a "greatest hits" onslaught that packs a hundred tumbling birds or more into each half-hour, it's no surprise that Dr. Christian Hageseth's Bird Dogs Forever is both more our style and no longer showing on the major outdoors-programming networks.
Hageseth has the casual pace and folksy charm one might expect of a Midwestern medical doctor so passionate about wingshooting that he left his career to hit the road with his wife, Laurel, and their black Lab, Jessie, to make the TV show that's as much about dogs and hunters as it is about knocking down birds. The resulting Bird Dogs Forever was picked up by OLN, which ran 24 original episodes in 2000 and 2001 and aired repeats through 2004. In two seasons of crisscrossing the country, Chris, Laurel and Jessie hunted in 11 states for 13 species of upland birds while highlighting the skills and temperaments of 16 dog breeds. The result: Hunts that are refreshingly "regular guy," with long moments spent crossing windswept fields in North Dakota or thrashing through dense undergrowth in New England. The show's theme song is an adaptation of an old Quaker folksong about friendship: a striking contrast to the blare and blast of so many hunting shows.
Although Bird Dogs Forever is back on the air with the Sportsman Channel, you also can buy the entire run-eight hours of upland hunting on four DVDs. For more information, call 970-221-0170, or visit the Hageseths' Website (www.birddogsforever.com), which includes a new series of Podcasts (both audio and video) as well as an extensive online directory of bird dog kennels and wingshooting destinations.
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