BURRILLVILLE -- Ruth A.B. Clegg, a photographer known for her portraits of families and children, is beginning to focus on sporting dogs in action.

"I really enjoy watching dogs work and move," she says. "I look for their personalities, just as I do with people."

Early this year, Clegg donated a day-long photo shoot to raise money for the Ruffed Grouse Society, a conservation group dedicated to preserving and restoring woodland habitat for wildlife. Ron Mouchon of Charlestown won Clegg's time at the group's fund-raising auction. Last week, the photographer drove to Addieville East Farm in Mapleville to photograph Mouchon's one-and-a-half-year-old Brittany, Brandy, during a pheasant and partridge hunt.

Brandy is a story herself. The runt of her litter, she was the only puppy to survive a mysterious illness that claimed all of her sisters and brothers soon after they were born, Mouchon says. The dog has had virtually no training, other than a little obedience work, but she's a natural pointer. One of her hind legs is shorter than the rest, but she runs like dogs twice her size with four good legs.

Mouchon is a member of the Nooseneck Hill Club, a 103-year-old sporting club, based at Addieville East Farm. The club always begins its afternoon hunts with lunch, so Clegg joined Mouchon and his father, George, for a lunch of braised venison shanks over orzo that the younger Mouchon had prepared.

Mist hovered over a field of switch grass when the Mouchons started to hunt around 1:15 p.m. Mist usually means little breeze -- not the best conditions for a bird dog.

Brandy didn't seem to mind. Mouchon wrapped a beeper collar (it's easier than a bell on a dog's hearing) around her neck, and the little Brit flew into the high grass. Every 10 seconds, her collar beeped a noise that sounded like the cry of a hawk. When the dog stopped to point a bird, the hawk's cry intensified.

Brandy wasn't on the ground for four minutes when she scented a chukar partridge, tucked tightly against a stone wall. The beeper collar screeched, and Mouchon and Clegg rushed into action.

At first, Clegg used a long lens to photograph Brandy on point, but as it became more obvious that the partridge wasn't going anywhere, the photographer moved in for some close-ups. Brandy was as still as a stone.

Someone once had advised Clegg not to photograph a dog head-on, advice she promptly ignored. "I want to shoot a dog head-on if I can," she says, "because of the eyes and the intensity of their jaw. I think that's really incredible, and I don't want to miss that."

Clegg and her family have lived with a springer spaniel, and now have a yellow Labrador retriever, Jake, in their family. Jake has worked with professional trainer Jennifer Broome of Quinebaug Kennels in Connecticut, and Clegg works with the Lab four to six days a week on the Green River in East Greenwich where she and her family live. "Jake's extremely muscular, and he's always hunting," she says. "I love to watch him."

Though Clegg does not hunt (her husband and sons do), she understands the relationships between hunters and their gun dogs. With the hunters, she says, "There's a certain amount of ego, and I'm respectful of that."

She says she has never had a problem with dogs. "Dogs are just like children," she says. "Children aren't difficult. Parents are difficult. Dogs aren't difficult; their owners are. If the owner is nervous, the dog is nervous."

In Clegg's signature photographs, subjects look relaxed, natural.

Mouchon said he and Brandy felt at ease with Clegg when they hunted together last week.

The photographer said that was what she was shooting for.

Many of Ruth Clegg's photographs are online at www.angellfineart.com and www.quinebaugkennels.com.

tmeade@projo.com / (401) 277-7340