It is one of my all-time favorite puppy portraits, this photo of Blizzard's Huntmore Rocco. Rocco belongs to the Eric and Anna Jacobs family.  I assume Eric made this image with his cell phone.  I seldom keep pictures of other folks' dogs up on my computer.  This portrait of Rocco is up where I can see it whenever I go to work.

For what it's worth, right now, I do not care for the name "Rocco." There's a street staccato to it that doesn't fit with my Courier & Ives sense of Llewellin-ness, better suited for a Penn State linebacker or a wise guy back alley bookmaker with a toothpick spiked from the corner of his mouth.

I do have to admit it's a great call name, one that carries punch and pull.  I suppose that as this youngster grows into that handle, so might I.

But this isn't about what's in a name...it's what's in a portrait.   Of course there is the promise of a regal head, the deep muzzle, the silky chestnut tricolor coat.  Young Rocco definitely passes "the look test," the kind of dog you let out the front door when company comes and first impressions are formed.

What pulls me back again and again to this portrait is a pair of eyes that sidle off the camera lens to let us look into the earnest soul of a well-bred setter gun dog.

Dark, intelligent eyes glowing from a quiet mind.  Eyes that want to please. Eyes that search for connection, for reassurance, for direction. Eyes that help us sort through a litter of fine puppies and say with certainty, "That one."

The Delmar Smith school of bird dog training is arranged around "point of contact" in terms of how best to shape gun dog behavior.  I would extend "point of contact" to eyes like little Rocco's.  THAT'S the most elusive, most prized point of contact, the one that makes all the difference between a drilled automaton and a life partner in the field.

Those eyes reflect a "point of contact" that inclines a dog to check in without coming in, the one that balances drive, initiative and instinct with the sense of dancing with the one what brung him to the field in the first place.  That's the point of contact that positions the dog to keep learning how to learn and invites us to do the same.  Those are the eyes that look for direction when the handler's choices matter, the same ones that may one day ask for reassurance during first aid or when the puppies start coming, perhaps when a new person or another dog become part of our world.  Those are the eyes that, at the end, lend courage for us to do the hardest loving thing even as our hearts threaten to never be whole again.

Rocco is not my dog.  But his portrait draws me closer to my own as, together, we look for signs and portents, faith that we are making deep connections that make all the difference in our sport.