The History and Debate of High Tails Versus Low Tails in Pointing Dogs

From their home base in Winnipeg, Craig Koshyk and Lisa…

The History and Function Behind Pointing Dog Tail Positions Reveal a Deep Divide in Breeding Philosophy, Hunting Styles, and Cultural Traditions.

In this episode, Craig Koshyk explores two distinct perspectives on pointing dog tails—whether they should be held high or low. What might seem like a minor detail sparks a deeper debate shaped by centuries of breeding, cultural differences, and shifting hunting styles. Craig takes us back in time through research, art, photographic evidence, and written accounts from the early years of pointing dogs. He expands on his own personal experiences, from Europe to the United States, and offers theories on how and why these differences—and the strong opinions surrounding them—persist today.

Parts of this history have broader implications, including the crossbreeding of not just various hunting dog breeds but even hounds. It prompts us to think long and hard about whether the tail truly matters—and when it does, why it matters at all.

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Podcast Episode Transcript

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Hunting Dog Confidential podcast. I’m the resident gundog nerd, Craig Koshyk. In this episode, we’re going to talk about something really, really important—or not important at all. It really depends on where you’re coming from. So welcome to Episode Four: The Tale of the Tail.

What’s the most important part of a hunting dog? For many, the answer is the nose. And it’s hard to argue with that position. After all, a dog can be perfect in every other way, but if it has a poor nose, it’s more or less useless to a hunter in the field.

But what about the other end of the dog? How important is the tail?

Obviously, compared to the quality of a dog’s nose, it means next to nothing. Yet here we are, in the 21st century, with breeders on both sides of the ocean refusing to breed to dogs from the other side—not because they think those dogs have poor noses or lack desire or any other essential trait. No, they won’t breed to them because they don’t like the tail carriage, tail action, or more specifically, the position of the tail when the dog is on point.

So, the tail isn’t really important—except when it is.

Why a Pointing Dog’s Tail Does or Does Not Matter

American breeders of pointers and setters, for example, select for a 12 o’clock tail when a dog is on point, and a cracking or merry tail while it runs. Most European breeders do the opposite. They prefer a tail that shows very little motion as the dog runs and is held more or less level with the back when the dog is on point.

So what happened? How, when, and why did these huge differences emerge?

Let’s have a look at tail action first, and then we’ll move on to tail position while pointing.

When a bird dog is galloping across a field in search of game, what exactly should its tail be doing? And does it even matter?

Well, like everything in the world of hunting dogs, it depends on who you ask.

Personally, I rarely pay attention to what my dogs’ tails are doing when they run. But I know they must move them around quite a bit because, even though they have a long protective coat, they often come back from the grouse woods with blood at the tips of their tails.

But for other people, the movement of the tail is super important—and it even plays a role in their breeding decisions.

In America, and in some parts of the UK, people want to see a merry or cracking tail—one that shows great animation as the dog runs, almost like a whip antenna on a Jeep bouncing over rough ground.

Others, mainly Europeans, want to see what’s called a dead or still tail—a “quiet tail,” they call it—that shows very little movement while the dog is running.

Opinions on Tails in Early Pointing Dog History

And this difference of opinion isn’t new. Throughout the 1800s, hunters argued over which was better: an active, merry tail, or one that didn’t move much.

Those in favor of an active tail pointed to the spaniel heritage of the setters. Stonehenge wrote, “The low carriage of the setter’s flag when at work and his spaniel-like lashing of it, I think, indicate his spaniel descent.”

Oh, and by the way, you’re going to hear the word “flag” or “stern” quite often in this episode, because that’s what some of the old-timers used to call a tail—a flag or a stern.

Anyway, Stonehenge also had a bizarre theory about how the tail is actually related to the nose. He wrote, “My bias in favor of tail action was founded upon the close observation of three successive litters which I bred from a wonderfully good bitch about 30 years ago. Lucy was extremely handsome, fast, and untiring, which qualities—coupled with a good nose—gave her a considerable local reputation.”

She had merry tail action without being overdone, and I was anxious to breed from her. Lucy had 19 pups in three litters, and of those, about half had the tail action of the mother while the rest were without it. And in every case, without a single exception, the trailers had no nose whatsoever—or a very bad one.

Meanwhile, the lively ones possessed excellent scenting power and were nearly all first-class dogs. That’s what first drew my attention to the two types of flag carriage. Since then, I’ve almost always seen that a quiet tail is accompanied by a dull nose.

Arkwright also liked the lively tail, but unlike Stonehenge, he didn’t have any wild theory about it. He just liked it because it looked cool. He wrote, “We go shooting with our dogs to enjoy ourselves, and their gallant ranging with high head and wanton tail will charm away fatigue from many a barren stretch of moorland.”

Early Opinions on Pointing Dog Tails in America

In America, merry tails didn’t really become the norm until Seawiew Rex—a pointer born in the 1920s—won some major trials and sired a good number of active-tailed, high-tailed dogs. Before that, a high merry tail was more of a curiosity than a trait people intentionally bred for. But once Seawiew Rex’s high, merry tail got the ball rolling, it never stopped.

If you watch any high-level field trial for pointers and setters in America today, you’ll see dogs with extremely high, active, merry—cracking—tails blasting across the fields.

Personally, I love the look. And I can understand why a handler on horseback, working a dog that could be half a mile away in tall cover, would want a dog with a merry tail. It just makes them easier to spot at a distance. And to a lot of people—including me—a merry tail seems to indicate that the dog is happy, confident, eager to work, full of energy, and ready to get the job done.

So, why would anybody want the opposite? Why would a low or nearly motionless tail be seen as a good thing?

Pointing Dog Tails in European Trials

Well, to be honest, I never even saw it until I started going to trials in Europe. I had been used to seeing American-bred pointers and setters running, and I was used to seeing that high, cracking tail.

So it was one of the first things I noticed when I started attending field trials over there. I mean, here’s this pointer or English setter blasting across the field at unbelievable speed—but there was just something different about it. And after a while, I realized that its tail was just kind of hanging there.

Well, I shouldn’t say “hanging there.” The tail is held in a similar position to that of a Greyhound. If you watch Greyhound races, take a look at the tail—it kind of droops down a little. It might point up slightly at the end, but it’s not really doing much other than counterbalancing during a turn.

Watching the setters, they reminded me more of Border Collies, actually. Just go on YouTube and look up “Border Collie running.” You’ll see that their tail is held more or less level with—or even lower than—their back, and it doesn’t really move much, even while the dog is running at a full sprint.

That’s kind of what the setters’ tails in Europe are doing. At first, it was strange to see, but after a while, not only did I get used to it—I started to understand why it was selected for.

I remember a couple of times in Italy and France when I asked judges, handlers, and pro trainers, point blank: “Dudes, what’s the deal with the tails?”

Theories Supporting Low Tails in European Pointing Dogs

One fellow told me, “Look, it’s just the natural position of any canine.” He said, “Watch any photo or video of a wolf, a fox, or a coyote stalking prey or running full blast across a field, and you’ll see that the tail stays level with the back or lower.” His point was that the natural tail position of canines isn’t at 12 o’clock—not when they’re pausing to pounce on a rabbit or a mouse. In other words, not when they’re pointing.

And I must admit, the guy had a point. That low or level tail is the more “natural” position for a canine. Even felines—even cats—hold their tails that way. There are a lot of four-legged animals out there that run, stalk, and pounce, and I can’t think of any that run with a merry, cracking tail or that suddenly lift their tail to 12 o’clock right before they strike.

But the counterargument to that would be this: our dogs—our bird dogs—aren’t natural beings. They’re synthetic creatures. They are man-made.

Sure, our dogs resemble wild animals, and they share many traits with them. But we’ve honed and enhanced certain traits and eliminated others. They’ve been molded and shaped to suit our tastes. And that’s really what it comes down to.

Take a look at a Great Dane. Take a look at a Chihuahua. Or a French Bulldog. These breeds are vastly different from each other—and that’s because people bred them to look that way.

So if we want a high tail, we breed for a high tail. If we want a low tail, we breed for a low tail. You could say, “I prefer a more natural look to my dog.” Or you could say, “I prefer a more modern look, or a more American look, or a more North American look.”

We choose our dogs’ coat colors. We choose their ear shape. Their nose shape. We choose everything. So why not the tail?

Another reason I heard from people in favor of a level tail was that it’s an old trait—something that goes back to the days of hunting with nets.

If you’ve got a dog that’s going to point or lay down on point because the birds are right in front of it, and your plan is to throw a net over both the dog and the birds, then having a level or low tail is a good thing. A big 12 o’clock flagpole tail would probably get in the way.

So it’s an old-fashioned trait that’s simply been retained in modern dogs. It’s something people like. It’s something they remember from the old days, and it’s something they’ve chosen to keep.

But then again… how many people hunt with nets nowadays?

Not many.

There are still a few. I’ve even interviewed people in Pakistan and that region of the world who still use pointers and setters to hunt migratory quail with nets. And for them, sure, that low tail—or even a dog that lays down on point—is ideal. You throw the net over them and the birds, gather up the birds, and head home for a cookout.

But in most parts of the world, hunting with nets has fallen out of use. People just don’t do it anymore. And in a lot of places, it’s actually illegal.

So, again, we’re left with this idea of the level tail being tied to tradition. But at the end of the day, it’s just that—tradition.

And finally, one of the more convincing arguments I heard—especially concerning tail movement while a dog is running—is based on the fact that in European trials, judges, handlers, and trainers don’t want to see their dog gallop. They want to see it sprint. They want to see a dog running in top gear—like its ass is on fire.

And to do that, the dog really can’t be putting much energy—or any energy, really—into its tail. Not to hold it up, crack it, or keep it merry. That’s the thinking, anyway. And to their eyes, it’s simply not aesthetically pleasing. They want to see their dogs run like greyhounds.

Seriously, go to YouTube and watch any greyhound race—or any sighthound for that matter—and you’ll see that their tails are very similar to those of pointers and, to a certain extent, setters in European field trials. The tails just kind of hang off the back. They might point up slightly at the end, and they might oscillate a bit, especially when the dog is turning. But otherwise, they’re not doing much.

And in fact, I’d be curious to see what would happen to an American-bred pointer or setter with a very high, cracking, merry tail that suddenly shifts from a gallop into a full-on sprint. Let’s say your dog is out there running, tail cracking, doing everything an American pointer or setter is supposed to do. Then a rabbit pops up right in front of it, and it gives in to temptation—hits that extra gear.

We all know our dogs have that one extra gear. My dogs will be out there galloping nicely, covering ground. But if they’re going to be bad boys and chase a rabbit or a deer, I know they’ve got another level they can shift into. And at that gear—when they go into that extreme “ass on fire” sprint—I don’t care where the dog was bred, be it America or Europe, that tail is going to be affected.

Once the dog hits that top sprint, the tail will probably be less active—simply because it can’t be. The dog’s body just knows: “I’ve got to put all of my energy into running. Let’s forget about the tail for a bit.”

And that right there is what the Europeans want to see—right from the start. Their dogs don’t gallop; they sprint. And in order to do that, they use their tails the way we see them use their tails. It’s been selected for.

Crossbreeding Other Dogs into Pointing Breeds

Beyond selecting within the breed for a high merry tail or a lower, quieter tail, those traits have also been shaped by crossbreeding with other breeds. We all know that in the early days, foxhounds and greyhounds were bred into pointer lines. Pointers and setters have also been crossed with each other over the years, both in the Old World and the New.

But in the last 100 years, the infusions of outside blood have differed between America and Europe. In America, there is strong evidence that over the last century, foxhounds—or some type of running hound like the July hound—have been bred into some pointer lines. In Europe, there’s equally strong evidence that greyhounds, galgos, or other types of sighthounds have been bred into pointer lines.

So, on one side of the ocean, you end up with dogs that have a more hound-like tail—thicker at the root, covered with coarse hair, and, above all, held higher and more animated while the dog runs. On the other side, you’ve got a more greyhound-like tail.

It’s thinner, longer, and more pointed at the end—just to look at and to hold. But while running, the most important difference emerges: it’s basically held like a greyhound’s tail.

So, the bottom line when it comes to tail movement between the American and European dog populations comes down to what’s been added to the breeds since their original creation—and how they’ve been selected over the last couple of hundred years. Both populations started with the same main ingredients: dogs from the UK. I’m talking about pointers and setters here. If we’re talking about German or French dogs, the same general concept applies. Everyone starts with a foundational type, a platform, and then builds their modern version of the breed on top of it.

In America, we started with dogs from England, Ireland, and Scotland. The Italians did the same. So did the French. Everybody started with British dogs. But from that point on—once those dogs left their homelands—people began selecting for different traits, depending on what mattered to them.

Maybe they were on horseback and needed to see a dog from a long distance. Maybe they wanted extreme speed and selected for traits that supported that. Whatever it was, people began selecting for specific things—and sometimes adding outside blood to emphasize them. That’s what ultimately created the differences in how tails move (or don’t) while running—and, as we’ll see, how tails are held when the dog is on point.

European Hot Takes on Americans and Their High-Tailed Pointing Dogs

I first began traveling back and forth to Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I was working on my first book, Pointing Dogs Volume One: The Continentals. That was still kind of the primitive era of the internet. So while European breeders, hunters, and field trialers knew there were dogs in America of the same breeds—we had pointers, setters, and all the different types—not many of them had seen photos of our dogs. And if they had, it was only once in a while, and they likely didn’t remember them clearly.

When I wanted to show them the kind of photographs I could take—and the style I hoped to bring to their dogs—I didn’t pull out a smartphone (because I didn’t have one back then). I carried a portfolio. A nice, leather-bound book with 8×10 or 9×12-inch printed color photos of the kinds of dogs I liked to photograph and the photography style I envisioned for my book.

Whenever we were at a break in a field trial, or hanging out with a breeder in a field somewhere while he got his dogs ready to run for the camera, I’d pull out my portfolio and start flipping through it with them—just to show my work.

And inevitably, when we got to the photos of American-bred pointers and setters with 12 o’clock tails, most of the Europeans were honestly kind of shocked.

They had heard about those dogs. Maybe they had even seen one in a magazine. But I actually had a couple of people ask me, “Why did you Photoshop their tails like that?”

They literally didn’t think it was real. They thought I had taken a level tail and digitally altered it to make it stand up like a poker-straight, 12 o’clock tail.

I even had one smart-ass Italian guy looking at the pictures who called his friend over and said, “Hey! Hey Joe! Come here. Take a look at these pictures. I think the Americans give their pointers and setters Viagra.”

It was shocking to them. They really didn’t see that kind of tail very often, and when they did, it was so different and so bizarre to their eye that they couldn’t, at first, believe it was real.

But the truth is, high tails have actually always been around in all of the pointing breeds. They weren’t common, but they weren’t unheard of either.

Evidence of Tail Positions in Art and Photography

Sure, if you look at the old paintings and illustrations of pointing dogs, the vast majority depict dogs with a level tail or one held slightly above or below the line of the back.

Take one of the earliest paintings of pointers—it was done around 1725. It shows the second Duke of Kingston upon Hull shooting over his pointers. He had them almost like a pack of hounds out on his front lawn. But all of the dogs in that illustration are shown with level tails or very slightly raised ones.

That said, there are old images from the same era—or slightly later—that do show dogs with high tails.

There’s one picture from 1800 attributed to the artist James Barringer. It features a dozen dogs on point, and every one of them has a different tail position. One or two have tails well below the back, like a pump handle. A couple have nearly vertical 12 o’clock tails.

But those illustrations are rare. You really have to dig deep to find them. I’ve spent a lot of time looking for old paintings, engravings, or pencil drawings of dogs with high tails, and I’ve found a few dozen. But that’s not much compared to the thousands I’ve collected that show dogs pointing with level or slightly raised tails.

Almost all of the classic illustrations show a level tail. And that was considered the most stylish position by hunters and judges until about the mid-1900s.

To my mind, one of the most classic illustrations of a pointer is a painting by Charles Towne from the late 1700s. It shows Colonel Thornton’s dogs, Juno and Pluto. That, to me, is sort of the archetypical pointer image. You can find it online. The tails are slightly raised—Juno’s tail is about at the 9 o’clock position, and Pluto’s maybe at 10 o’clock. But that’s about it.

Anything higher than that was hard to find and wasn’t considered stylish at the time.

In early America, low or level tails were the norm until about the mid-20th century. Of course, there were always a few dogs with high tails. As I mentioned before, they’ve always been there. But they were usually considered unusual—and, for many people, undesirable.

There’s a really cool photograph of a high-tailed dog from 1903 in Joseph Graham’s book, The Sporting Dog. It’s a picture of a dog named Peach Blossom. The caption under the photo reads:

“Champion Peach Blossom is the most typical living representative of the Count Gladstone IV blood in the kennel. She’s an affectionate pet—vivacious and intelligent. In the field, she is dashing and brilliant. Her peculiar carriage of tail on point is shown in the photograph taken by the author.”

So there’s solid evidence that even in 1903, in America, a high tail on point was still seen as something strange—a peculiarity, as Graham called it.

Nevertheless, judges were able to see beyond it because Peach Blossom did become a champion. If she had been campaigned in field trials maybe 15 or 20 years earlier, chances are she wouldn’t have made champion—or it would’ve taken her a lot longer. Judges’ attitudes toward the high tail were a lot stricter back then.

They just didn’t like it. They wanted to see the classic, more or less level tail with the back—that tail position they had seen in all the classic literature, the one they knew was popular over in the UK. That was considered the way a pointing dog breed should point. Anything above about 10 o’clock, especially at the extreme angle that Peach Blossom showed, was frowned upon.

I mean, you can check that picture out online. She’s got a sickle tail over her back. Not only does it go straight up at the root, but it curls over the back. That would’ve been seen as very unfashionable back in the day.

American Hunting’s Influence on Pointing Dog Tails

But by the early 1900s, attitudes were changing toward high tails—and a lot of that change came thanks to hunters who were realizing that a high tail on point, especially in the grouse woods and in the kind of cover we have here in North America, was a huge advantage.

High tallgrass prairies and your basic woodcock and grouse cover—there, a high tail was a big help.

Here’s Joseph Graham writing about the type of cover most Americans were hunting in at that time. He wrote:

“A great deal of quail shooting is done in cover which makes it difficult to keep a busy dog in sight. Judging from my own observation, I should say that four-fifths of the work dogs do on quail is in cover of that sort. In Maryland and Virginia, birds are most plentiful in the neighborhood of thickets and brushy places. In the Indian Territory, they are found either near draws and small timbered watercourses or else not far from the patches of corn which are scattered among the pastures and cotton fields. In Illinois and Missouri, the same general character of shooting presents itself to the sportsman, though the country has a greater area of regular cultivation.”

So, what could a hunter do to make a dog easier to find?

Well, the first and most obvious solution was to breed for dogs with more white in their coats. Graham wrote:

“In the cornfields and thickets, a dog of prevailing white color is much more readily kept in view.”

He also suggested that hunters stop selecting and training dogs to drop on point and described a dog named Sure Shot, whose pointing style was problematic in field trials. He wrote:

“Sure Shot, the fastest and widest ranger of Jesse Rodfield’s sons, is so heavily ticked that he is almost a dark gray. He drops on point. In public trials, his handler is always nervous lest he get out of sight, drop on birds, and be thrown out by the judges before he can be located.”

Graham also thought that a high tail—he called it a “high flag”—would make a dog easier to see in heavy cover. But he made sure to mention that it was still considered a bit strange at the time:

“Another unfashionable attribute which has a useful function is a fault charged with some disparity against the low well-ins. It is the tendency to carry a high flag in ranging and to take a point with the tail in the same high position. For the same reason just mentioned in speaking of the advantage possessed by the white color, the high flag has a decided utility value to the sportsman. A dog which carries its flag high will nearly always point with a high head. It must be admitted that the attitude loses from the standpoint of style as compared to the low stern and the more extended and intense position of the pointer and of some setters. But a man learns after experience to rather fancy the upright position and the high flag.”

As a guide to the eye, it can be regarded with indulgence—if not with decided favor. Nearly all handlers agree, too, in the belief that the high head and tail on point are indicia of spirit and vigor.

Notice how Graham first describes the high flag as “unfashionable,” but then explains that a man, after experience, learns to fancy the upright position and high flag.

And he was right. Before long, breeders started specifically selecting for high tails—even though they remained unfashionable for years. In fact, rumors circulated that some pointer breeders even crossed in hounds to get that high tail.

Then, in the 1920s and ’30s, several high-tailed dogs began to win trials, despite the fact that most judges still preferred a lower tail.

High Tails Become Fashionable in the United States

One of the best sources of information we have from that era is a book called Bird Dogs and Field Trials by Jack Harper, a really well-known field trialer and handler back in the day. He describes a conversation he had with another well-known handler—an older man who had been in the game since the late 1890s. His name was Mack Pritchett.

Harper describes a conversation he had with Old Mack one day about the style of dogs running in the 1930s compared to dogs running decades earlier in the late 1800s. Harper asked him if the dogs of the 1930s were more stylish and had higher tails on point compared to the dogs of Mack’s early years.

And Pritchett told him that, yes, indeed—higher tails had become more fashionable in the 1930s.

He said, “Dog owners would always try to get the highest possible tail position for taking pictures. But before, level tails were more in fashion—especially at the National, where Mr. Ames presided. Dog handlers then would push their dogs’ tails to a lower level or wait until they were tired to take a picture for publication.”

That, to me, is an absolutely fascinating detail found in Harper’s book. Here we have an eyewitness pointing to the exact era in which the fashion shifted—from level tails, with handlers pushing tails down for a photograph—to the opposite, with handlers holding tails up while someone took the picture for publication.

After recounting that conversation, Harper goes on to name a number of dogs that, in his opinion, were the source of the high tail trend in modern dogs. He wrote that Seawiew Rex, a pointer born in the early 1920s, may have been the first champion to have what eventually became known as a 12 o’clock tail.

But since many of the old-school judges still considered a high tail a fault, Seawiew Rex never won the National Championship. Harper wrote:

“Whether his tail had anything to do with it or not, Rex could never gain anything more than a gallery decision at the National. But he won many good stakes elsewhere. He probably did more for raising pointer tails than any other sire. I doubt if he had any foxhound blood in him other than from the original cross—where, according to historians, the English Pointer was produced by crossing foxhounds with the old Spanish Pointers. And Eugene M. probably did more for raising Setter tails than any other sire.”

There are two things that jump out at me from that particular passage in Harper’s book.

The first is the line where he says, “I doubt if he had any foxhound blood in him other than from the original cross.”

Now, I don’t know if Harper was just being reluctant to say anything more—maybe because, at the time, throwing such accusations around might have hurt someone’s reputation—or if he simply didn’t know any more about it.

But the fact is, the pointer was not simply developed by crossing Foxhounds with the old Spanish pointer. It’s a much more complicated story than that.

The other point Harper makes is that Eugene M., a setter, was responsible for the rise of high tails in setters. Now, it may be true that Eugene M., because of his winning ways and the championships he and his offspring racked up, brought more attention to that trait. But the fact remains that even as far back as the early Laverack and Llewellin imports, setters were sometimes criticized for having high tails. The high tail has been present in setters pretty much forever.

In a more recent article from the early 1980s, John Criswell wrote in Gun Dog Magazine, going even further than Harper and coming right to the point. He wrote that Seawiew Rex:

“Pointed with his tail straight in the air. He ran with it high and cracking, much in contrast to other dogs of the day. The dogs that Mr. Ames and his fellow judges elevated to the National Championship… in spite of the Ames theory, the new style caught the fancy. Handlers as well as owners fell in line, and hunters decided that it was more attractive to see a dog standing there in the woods with his tail up and intense than at back level.”

Some didn’t care much about that part of the dog—and still don’t. But as field trials split into all-age and shooting dog divisions, and as more and more dogs entered the circuit, loft of the tail became an easy way for some judges to distinguish what they liked and didn’t like. It was easy and obvious.

But how did so many dogs get such high tails so quickly, when the pointer was originally a level-tailed dog?

Introducing Hound and Red Setter Blood into Pointing Dogs in the 20th Century

There were reports in The American Field that Seawiew Rex came from a dam that was unregistered at the time. And stories abounded about the introduction of hound blood to raise the tail in this line of pointers. Some even suggested that the high, curving tail carriage itself was evidence of those stories being true.

Was this infusion on the East Coast? Or did it happen in the plantation country of Georgia and Alabama? There’s no official documentation—just the obvious change that occurred.

Personally, I agree with Mr. Criswell and believe that an infusion of hound blood in America during the early 1900s likely played a role in raising the pointer’s tail. But it’s also quite possible that the trait came through crosses to setters, where high tails were already seen in some dogs winning championships.

In any case, by the 1950s and ’60s, high tails in pointers and setters had become a must-have—especially at the highest levels of field trial competition in America. They were so important that when Ned LaGrande and his partners set out to breed competitive red Irish setters, they realized they needed more than just range, speed, and desire.

They knew that if they really wanted to win, they would need red setters with a 12 o’clock tail. And since that trait was very rare in the breed at the time, they understood that to get it—especially quickly—they would have to cross in high-tailed English setters.

LaGrande wrote:

“During the late ’40s and early ’50s, when I used to spend a lot of time—especially nights—hanging around Rusty Bayard’s gasoline station, the red setter was then a pretty common bird dog term. David, too, used to join us when he was in town. The three of us used to talk and dream by the hour about red setters with high tails that would point early, break as derbies, and be able to run with—and whip—the pointers in field trials.”

Today, a high tail on point is the norm for almost all pointing breeds in North America.

Look at any photo from the last 50 to 75 years showing the winners of any major field trial for pointing breeds in America, and you’ll see dogs lined up with handlers holding their tails at the 12 o’clock position.

How the Tale of Tails Lives On in Pointing Dogs Today

I asked field trialer and writer Craig Dougherty about why high tails became so popular in field trials, and he wrote:

“I can almost guarantee you what happened. Someone showed up at a field trial with a dog with a high tail—when that wasn’t in fashion—but beat all the low-tailed dogs wanting to win. Other people bred to that dog, and more high-tailed dogs found their way into the money. Before too long, people who didn’t really understand what was going on thought you needed a high-tailed dog to win. So they bred to more high-tailed dogs. Now, if your dog doesn’t have an almost perfect tail and posture on point and an eye-appealing gait, you might as well stay home. Field trials have always been about winning. That’s what drives breeders who compete—and why those who can’t breed winning dogs disdain field trials so vehemently.”

Today, the high tail is so common in North America that many people see anything lower than 12 o’clock as unfashionable. In Europe, the opposite is true. Europeans prefer a more traditional tail position on point—level with the back or only slightly raised. A dog with a 12 o’clock tail would be seen as a curiosity by hunters there and would likely be at a disadvantage in field trials.

And therein lies the ultimate irony of the entire tail discussion: on the one hand, tails mean very little. They’re not the most important part of the dog—until they are.

Here we are in the 21st century, and for nearly 100 years now, we’ve had two separate populations within many pointing breeds—one in Europe and one in America. These populations are rarely, if ever, crossed. And the reason isn’t range, speed, bird sense, or any other quote-unquote important trait. The reason is the least important part of the dog: the tail.

Even when breeders are desperate to find something outside their immediate gene pool—when things are getting tight genetically—they won’t consider going to the other side of the ocean. Why? Because of the tail.

Everyone says it’s unimportant—and I agree. A tail is absolutely not important in a dog.

Until it is.