Bluestem Kennels

Please feel free to e-mail bluestemkennels@gmail.com if you wish to be on the contact list in the event that Fire has more puppies than I have taken reservations.  I currently have ten reservations for our Spring 2020 litter, but have had litter sizes up to 13-14 puppies in the past, so there may be an opportunity to get a pup from us this spring.

Charles and Fire in Southwest Nebraska a couple of weeks ago.  Photo by Aaron Wimmer

One of my Christmas presents this year is that Fire’s heat cycle started on Christmas Day, so now it is countdown to ovulation and breeding sometime after the new year.  Luckily, Chief is just a twenty minute drive down the road so I can continue avoiding the reproduction vet and progesterone testing another year and just let my stud and dam tell me when it is time to get this done.  That has puppies being whelped in March and going home in May, just as I had wished for!  Send us some positive breeding vibes, I just got word that a top female in the breed reabsorbed her litter halfway through gestation and is very ill.  This process is not without risks and I feel incredibly lucky that everything has gone smoothly over the last ten years of breeding here.

Kyle and Chief hanging out

A New Home for Ally

My second Griffmas miracle was one of Ruth’s sisters down in Oklahoma easily finding a new home.  I had originally thought to take her back, but there is just too much craziness around here as it is for me to take the time to retrain a dog right now.  Prior to putting it out to the general public, I asked my friends Jimmy and Sandi if they knew anyone who would want her.  They have Zoey, which is from my “E” litter in the way back, which was my last litter with Sam and Sue.  Come to find out, they had been thinking of adding to the dog family.  Ally went home with them yesterday, what a blessing for us all!  I can’t thank Jimmy and Sandi enough for helping me with this.  I want to make sure that my pups are all in happy homes throughout their lives and if anyone ever needs to re-home one of them due to life situation changes, I am here to help with the process.

Ally headed to her new home.  Photo by Jimmy Clark.

Southwest Nebraska Pheasant and Quail

Charles and Fire had a great trip to Southwest Nebraska with private land access at the beginning of December.  They had plenty of success, but when you send a guy out with his buddies on a hunting trip, the photography is pretty scarce.  The first day that he was out, I got a text at the end of the day saying that he’d had success and of course I asked for a photo.  This is what I got:

Standing around the dumpster cleaning birds

That is never going to make it into Grey’s Sporting Journal, but I guess it is true to life.  At least a few days later he tried to clean the dumpster photo a bit (but still not up to artistic standards):

A lineup of roosters and quail on the dumpster

Finally someone must have heard my silent internal screams of angst and got a halfway decent action photo.

Charles and Fire looking for birds.  Photo by Aaron Wimmer.

Fun was had by all, he got to eat bierocs (homemade runzas) and sauerkraut pizza (I guess it is good), get some good dog work in and spend time with some downhome rural Nebraskans.

The story about Fire from this trip that I hear over and over again is that there was one instance where she was retrieving a quail and totally locked solid on point on a hen pheasant.  It is always cool to see the instincts kick in like that.

European Tower Shoot

When you see the influenza maps of the US and Nebraska is in red, you had better believe it.  I have gotten sick more times this year than I have in a decade.  Guess we’ll be getting flu shots next year.  I was totally sick at the European Tower Shoot, but I went and handled Ruth anyway.  It was cool to watch her do 15 retrieves in a day.  It was our first time doing one and the way they work is that there are stations in a circle, sort of like a skeet range.  Except the circle is a few acres and is filled in with cedar trees in the middle so that people don’t shoot each other.  The birds are released from a high tower in the middle so that they fly over the trees and you shoot them.  Don’t tell PETA.  There were probably 75 pen raised birds who gave their lives for the sport that day.  It was a noble cause.

Charity and Ruth in the shooting station

Charles in his European-style garb

Ruth retrieving a black pheasant

The traditional ringneck rooster retrieved by Ruth

That photo of Ruth and the ringneck is probably one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken in awhile.  I like the colors of the pheasant and the one eye of the dog.

Change of Seasons

I have some sad news to report.  Charles also took Zoro on the trip to Southwest Nebraska and it did not go well for him.  He collapsed in the field and we had to say goodbye.  We are not sure if it was an environmental poison or congenital defect, but something attacked his liver according to the tests.  It was the hardest on little Caleb, who loved Zoro very much.  We had high hopes for him and he leaves a hole in our breeding program.  Rest in Peace, Zoro.

Caleb and Zoro

Yet hope springs eternal and a new breeder has a male pup ready for us in a couple of weeks.  As of today, I want to register him as “Kenobi My Only Hope” and have the call name “Obi”, but we’ll see.  We want Caleb to name him.

The pedigree could not complement our breeding program any better.  He is the great-great grandson of “Mae” AKC/NAVHDA Little Lady Aspen, who is the mother of two senior hunters from our kennel.  The pup is also the grandson of a sibling of our foundation stud Sam’s sire.  He is also related to our foundation bitches Sue and BB.  I’ll post the pedigrees and show everything off in detail once he is in our anxious hands!

This will be our third attempt in the last five years at securing an outside stud dog.  We will have close to $10,000 wrapped up in having a stud of our own when all is said and done.  So when people wonder where the puppy money goes…yeah, it goes fast.  But we are passionate about continuing to improve this breed.

In the words of Princess Leia, “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!”

Happy New Year everyone, and new decade depending on who you talk to.  Let’s make it a great one for the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon breed.  In the last few years, we’ve become the second most registered dog in NAVHDA behind the German Shorthaired Pointer.  Make these quality dogs, not just quantity.