Please email bluestemkennels@gmail.com regarding future litters. Ruth is at right around 30 days gestation (God willing) and is starting to show. We go to the veterinarian for an ultrasound on July 13 and will hopefully see a pregnancy. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted here, on Facebook, and on Instagram as news develops. Here are a few photos of her from the last couple of days:

Ruth having a rest on the living room floor yesterday
Ruth side profile in the driveway
Ruth having fun in the yard

Dogs generally don’t show much in the first 30 days, but I can definitely see and feel a little pooch. Keeping her cool in the heat and spending plenty of quality time with her indoors are a priority right now for the completion of a successful pregnancy. Please send us good thoughts and prayers for the weeks ahead.

Training

Charles is out dog training pretty much every weekend and spends time working on skills with the dogs daily. I went out for a training day with the Carolinas Chapter of NAVHDA towards the beginning of June and got some photos. My camera seemed to be focused on Sally, so here is a gallery of her training photos. You can click the first photo of the gallery to see an enlarged version, then page through the remaining enlarged photos.

Sally on point
Sally pointing while gunners shoot
Sally retrieving chukar
Sally retrieving to Charles
Sally close-up on point
Sally running
Another shot of Sally retrieving
Close-up of Sally retrieving
Charles sending Sally to duck search
Sally with the duck
Sally shaking off after giving up the duck
Sally swimming through water lilies
Sally with a duck retrieve
Charles working with Sally on steady by blind

Her training day was basically a mock Utility Test and Sally is probably at the level of passing this fall, fingers crossed.

We also worked with Duke on skills for the Utility Preparatory Test and Obi for Invitational, but my photos of them were not as focused or plentiful. Here’s Duke’s selection:

Duke on point
Charles walking in to Duke’s point
Duke in the field
Duke retrieving a bumper in the water

And last but not least, by a long shot, Obi:

Obi bringing in the dummy in the double mark retrieve
Charles watching Obi work on the double mark retrieve
Obi on left with “S” litter pup Chase on right at a NAVHDA training day. Photo by Ian Taylor

One of our puppy owners caught the above photo of Obi with one of his pups and posted it to Instagram on Father’s Day, so cute!

Otherwise, when we’re not out training, we’re just hanging around the yard. Charles had some quail escape and Ruth found one in the back driveway.

Ruth pointing a wayward quail

With the temperatures rising, it was time to get the kiddie pool out for the dogs. They each have their own style of getting wet.

Ruth likes to sit in the pool and scoot around
Obi gets his whole body wet
Sally usually ignores it, but sometimes digs
Duke doesn’t want his rear wet

So those are the goings on here lately, I will be sure to post in a couple of weeks once we get the ultrasound results on Ruth. Everyone have a safe and Happy 4th of July, please be sure to keep your dogs crated in a safe area while lighting fireworks (typing that just brought up a childhood memory of our family cocker spaniel attacking a Roman candle as it was going off). Dogs and fireworks don’t mix. The biggest problem with trained gun dogs is that they’ll run towards the sound of the shot thinking that there is a bird down and you lose your dog in the commotion if you’re not careful. So for everyone’s sanity, put the dogs up.

Happy 4th of July!