Pointer-owning visitors to Union Springs, Alabama might be stunned where they stand if they weren’t expecting to see a life-size bronze statue of an English Pointer** in the middle of town.
The statue sculpted by renowned bird dog artist, Bob Wehle, was erected in 2010 as an homage to the eleven individuals honored by the Bird Dog Field Trial Hall of Fame, their names engraved on the 8 foot tall granite pillar. The concept of honoring exceptional dogs and individuals in the field trial sport, however, began in the late 1930s. Formal rules and regulations for the Hall of Fame were established by Bill Brown in 1953, and the first inductees were honored in 1954.
Why Union Springs? The city of roughly 3100 people hosts major field trial events such as the National Open Shooting Dog Championship and the National Amateur Free-For-All Championship every February, and it has become renowned as the, “Field Trial Capital of the World.”
It wasn’t always so. Around the 1920s, former cotton plantations were transformed into game preserves in Bullock County where Union Springs is located, no doubt spearheaded by Lewis B. Maytag, the grandson of Frederick Louis Maytag, founder of the household appliance company, Maytag Corporation. Lewis’ passion for bird dog and field trials was well known, and it probably surprised no when when he bought the 14,000 acre Sedgefields Plantation off Highway 29 and turned it into hunting grounds. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, Sedgefield had become a prominent and prestigious site for hunting and field trials.
For nearly 50 years, the Maytag family owned Sedgefields Plantation, and today it is called Sedgefields Lakes Plantation, a part of the original Sedgefields Plantation, and still a premier destination for hunters.
We conclude with a bit more about the Pointer monument. Gifted by George F. Landegger, the CEO of the paper company, Parsons & Whittemores, the donation was part of a larger effort to document and preserve Alabama’s cultural and historical heritage. The model for the statue was the great National Champion Pointer, Elhew’s Snakefoot, a significant dog in the Elhew line of Pointers bred by Robert Wehle (word game nerds may have noticed that the kennel name is Robert Wehle’s last name spelled backwards).
CH Elhew Snakefoot was known for his exceptional qualities in the field. In fact, we came across a description of the dog that said he was a dog that would “take your breath away and stop your heart” with his performance. Snakefoot was said to have remarkable style, speed, and pointing ability, traits that extended beyond his own accomplishments as he contributed significantly to the gene pool of subsequent generations of Elhew pointers.
Image photographed by Carol M. Highsmith and shared via Wikipedia and public domain
**The AKC and Canadian Kennel Club list this breed as the “Pointer,” while the FCI and United Kennel Club have it listed as the “English Pointer.”