Everything looks like your average bird dog hunt test.

Good luck, Alex, Gary Kercher of Cheyenne, Wyo., says to his fellow handler.
After a pause, the other handler gets prompted to respond in-kind by his grandpa.

Good luck, Gary, Alex Irizarry says.

Alex, who a few days earlier blew out six candles on his cake, isn’t your average dog handler. He’s quite a bit shorter and a whole lot younger, considering most dog enthusiasts possess drivers licenses, if not AARP cards.

It’s likely his enthusiasm for dogs runs in his blood, considering his grandfather, Jim Keller, is a professional trainer. For sure, Keller has influenced the boy.

It started about three years ago when one of Keller’s Irish setters had 10 pups. Alex picked out one of the male puppies and made it his.

The boy named the pup Auggie. Whether Auggie was the toddler’s best attempt to say doggie isn’t clear, but the name stuck.

And the dog stuck to the boy, too.

They took turns using themselves as pillows, Keller said.

As Alex grew a little older, Keller gradually involved him in Auggie’s training. That mostly meant teaching a few commands and letting the boy and dog run around together on his acreage southwest of Lincoln.

Last year, at the age of 5, Alex started handling Auggie at American Kennel Club hunt tests. The tests measure dogs against standards of pointing, trainability, hunting desire, retrieving, etc. Handlers give commands and otherwise keep the dogs on track during a test.

This is basically a natural-ability test, Keller said.

At a hunt test Oct. 20 near Crab Orchard, Alex and Auggie attempted to earn their junior hunter title, the first significant milestone for dogs in the hunt-test system.

It’s fairly unremarkable for a 3-year-old dog to pass, Keller said. But when you consider the handler is 6, that’s quite remarkable.

Keller accompanied his grandson on the course, which was planted with several pen-raised bobwhite quail. As the dogs started cutting wide circles in search of quail scent, Alex really had to pump his 6-year-old legs to keep up.

A minute or two later, in a field of recently mowed brome grass, Auggie locked on point.

Point, Alex shouted.

Then the boy walked over to his dog and kicked his sneakers in the short grass, trying to flush the quail. Auggie flinched a few times but otherwise held his point.

Finally, the quail flew and Alex fired a blank gun. When Auggie started chasing the quail, the boy called him back with a few blasts on his whistle, again with his grandfather’s prompting.

Over the next 20 minutes, Auggie pointed several more quail. A gallery of other dog handlers applauded the dog’s style and the young handler’s performance.

The beaming grandfather predicted good scores from the judge.

Nice job, Squawky, he said, using the nickname he gave the boy.

Near the end of the run, Auggie ran across a gravel road and pointed another quail in the road ditch. Keller took his grandson’s hand, guided him across the road and instructed him to retrieve his dog.

The handlers in the gallery loved it. Someone joked that Alex is the only handler at the event who needs to get permission before he crosses a road.

Most of the handlers enjoy seeing Alex at the hunt tests.

Very rarely do you see anybody under 18, said dog handler Staci Sullivan of Lincoln. To see anybody under 6 is pretty incredible.

A little later, Keller told the boy to go inside the shed and check on his scores. As predicted, the scores were all eights and nines on a scale of 10.

One of the test organizers handed the boy a big orange ribbon, signifying his dog was a junior hunter.

Good job, Squawky, the grandfather said again as he tousled the boy’s spiky dark hair.

Alex looked up and smiled.

Then he ran off to climb a tree.

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.