At one point, I took my phone number off of the website so that I wouldn’t get 4-5 calls a day, even when I didn’t have puppies. But Velma has put me to shame. Last year she had a smaller litter of 7, two months earlier in the season. So I had 8 or 9 reservations ready for pups to go home right now. Well, since I don’t force people to keep their reservations with me and things seemed strange with the timing, folks found pups elsewhere and I returned their deposits. I wasn’t taking new ones because I hate taking reservations, then being like, “I don’t have a puppy for you.” So as of Friday morning, I have five reservations, and a gentleman this morning saying that the check is in the mail. When that arrives, that’s six. (I got a call while I was writing this and now have seven reserved theoretically.) Update Monday, May 16th, all of the puppies have been placed.
Velma had fourteen (14!!) puppies yesterday, started at midnight, went all day, and she continued to whelp into last night. What a mama! I am so proud of my females and their powers of natural birth.
AKC/NAVHDA De Jac’s Zip-Ah-Dee-Doo-Dah, NA I “Velma” and the fourteen pups of Bluestem Kennels’ “K” Litter
Puppies will be ready to go home the weekend of July 9-10. They are sold with limited AKC and NAVHDA registration, which means that they do not automatically have breeding rights. Please speak with me if you hope to breed the dog in the future. The cost is $1100 for the pup, a $200 personal check deposit mailed to me, and $900 cash at pickup. This includes tail docking, dew claw removal, first vaccinations, deworming, microchipping, and a 3 year health guarantee against fatal genetic defects and hip dysplasia.
I will ship puppies to approved buyers via Delta Air Cargo Pet First out of Omaha Eppley, which is about 15 minutes from my house. They would take the first flight out at 7 AM and arrive at their destination midday. Shipping during the heat of summer is a challenge and the flight could be rescheduled due to temperatures on the tarmac at their connections. If at all possible, please plan to pick up the puppy at my home. The cost to ship is about $500 between the flight itself and the supplies that I need to do it.
This is a breeding that we believe in, as we kept a pup from the first litter last year to raise up as our future stud dog. He will be doing his NAVHDA Natural Ability Test tomorrow. Here are a few photos of Chief doing his work over the last few weeks.
Chief heading out to retrieve a dummy
A closeup of Chief on the water retrieve
Chief at full stride in the field
Chief in the grass
I don’t have very many good photos of the sire, Ben. His owners are not camera hogs like I am. I do have this photo of when I finished grooming him a few months back while I was working on getting him and Velma bred.
Ben fully groomed (please excuse my junk)
Ben is the son of our foundation pair, Sue and Sam, who were both preserve guide dogs and avid upland and waterfowl hunters all over the Great Plains. There are gobs of photos of our foundation pair on the About Us/Contact page, but these are a couple of good retrieve photos from December 2010.
Our foundation bitch, Sue, mother of Ben
Our foundation stud, Sam, father of Ben.
This is one of my favorites of Aaron and Velma (Sorry for the low quality, I would have to go back to an old computer to get the original. Maybe later.)
Aaron an Velma at her NAVHDA Natural Ability Test
Not having enough owners yet is actually really exciting for me. As I was typing this I got a call from a US Navy Aircraft carrier out in the ocean and it looks like one of the females will be going to a Navy Pilot who will be working with the San Diego NAVHDA chapter. So, if that goes through I’m down to seven spots. How exciting!
This is also exciting for me as a breeder to see the work of a closely managed natural breeding. No hormone testing, no reproductive assistance, no c-section. Just old school farmer skills that must come from generations of knowledge. Some of my cousins are respected cattle and horse breeders, so it must be in our genes.
I also wanted to drop in our most recent issue of The Griffonnier, the magazine of the American Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Association. To receive this great magazine in the mail, please join us at awpga.com/membership. I am the co-editor of the magazine and it keeps me busy. Amy and I are very proud of it! GriffonnierSpring2016_web
I will be heading out to Aaron’s to see the puppies tonight, check their palates and their overall health, and talk to Aaron and Keri about how we’re going to do all of this puppy rearing. And of course take more pictures. They already have an appointment at the vet on Monday to get a health check and their tails docked. I will post up some new pics of them along with the final gender count tonight. It was a pretty even split as we went along between males and females.
Talk at you later tonight.
Post-script: 10 PM
There are 8 girls and 6 boys and they are gorgeous. Time to get ready to leave for Chief’s Natural Ability test in the morning, so I’ll write more on Sunday.
Bluestem Kennels 
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