The gamut of bird dogs, from Boykins to Brittanies, Springers to Spinoni, Pointers to Poodles, all are toasted and lightly roasted in words and drawings by cartoonist Bob Schweikhardt in Bird Dogs Lightly Done. Composed with a love and association with bird dogs extending back nearly seventy years, Bird Dogs is unencumbered by research, aided by boundless biases, and with an uncanny ability to make near-instantaneous generalizations. There is enough truth in the cartoons to amuse, annoy, or alienate nearly every owner of nearly every breed of bird dog.

About the Author

Back in the 1940s, a boy who liked to draw rode his bike down to the Gambles store and plunked down a hard-earned forty-seven cents and bought a box of 16-gauge shotgun shells. He borrowed his older brother’s English Setter (and his double barrel) and went bird hunting. He was hooked. In the 1950s, as a young man, he figured out he could better afford shotgun shells (and food) if he became a metallurgical engineer . . . rather than a cartoonist.

Many years, birds, and bird dogs later, Bob Schweikhardt is retired. He and his wife, Sheila, live in western Colorado where their year is divided into the four seasons: grouse, pheasant, duck, and yard work. Currently, they are being trained by her German Wirehair pup named Emma, who is a fuzzy toy on the couch with them in the evening but morphs into a horizon-buster rocket in the field during the day.