AKC Field Trials | Bluestem Kennels

Q Litter Seven Weeks

March 24, 2021

Charity Upchurch AWPGA, Field Trialing, Puppy Update, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons AKC Field Trials, AWPGA, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Puppies Leave a comment

This litter is all microchipped with their new owners’ information and they start to go home on their eight week birthday on Sunday. Our next litter will be in Spring of 2022 between Wyo Plainsman Kenobi, NA I “Obi” and Bluestem Peaches En Regalia, NA I “Ruth”. We keep going back and forth on a final repeat breeding of Fire and Chief next year and have not yet made a final decision. Once these puppies are all in their homes I will start responding to my backlog of new interest emails. If you want to join the queue, shoot me an email at bluestemkennels@gmail.com.

I’ve made sure that the puppies all been over by the pigeon coop and have had a bird fly up near them so they get used to that wing flapping sound and are not startled by it. We’ve all had a couple of turns on the leash. They’ve spent time in the crate. They run around the yard like wild animals and run out into the woods so far that I’m afraid a coyote will eat them. They have their shots, microchips and vet checks. The papers from the AKC and NAVHDA are here. They are ready for their own people.

Queen (female) is going to Oklahoma as the family’s second Bluestem pup

Quartz (male) is going to Colorado

Quentin (male) is going to Michigan as the family’s second Bluestem pup

Qbert (male) is going to Iowa

Quince (male) is going to North Dakota as the family’s second Bluestem pup

Quest (female) is going to Ohio as the family’s second Bluestem pup

Quetzal (male) is going to Kansas

Qiana (female) is going to Central Nebraska

Quarry (female) is going to become AKC/NAVHDA Bluestem Sally Forth “Sally” and stay with us.

Here is the video that I took this week: Q Litter Seven Weeks Old

I really need to run and do puppy chores, but for now I’m just going to post the photo of Charles and Wyo Plainsman Kenobi, NA I “Obi” and their sweep of the Walking Derby at the inaugural AWPGA AKC Walking Field Trial, winning first in both the Amateur and Open Divisions! We are so proud and thankful that the club was able to pull off such an event. Biggest thanks to Tom and Kristen Mathis for their work. Also thank you to our Griffon friends for showing up, I really wish that I could have been there and thank you for all of the messages of being missed.

Charles and Wyo Plainsman Kenobi, NA I “Obi” First Place ribbons in both the Amateur and Open Divisions of the AWPGA AKC Walking Field Trial

1st Griffon-Only AKC Field Trial To Be Held

March 4, 2021

Charity Upchurch AWPGA, Field Trialing AKC Field Trials, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons Leave a comment

Come and be a part of history! The first Griffon-only AKC Field Trial will be held March 20-21 at Moraine View State Recreation Area near LeRoy, Illinois, sponsored by the American Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Association. All stakes are walking only, no dogs will be handled on horseback (although the judges generally are). Entry cutoff is March 17th at 6 PM Central. Your dog needs to be registered with the AKC to participate, but you do NOT need to be a member of the AWPGA.

There will be six stakes: Amateur Puppy, Open Puppy, Amateur Derby, Open Derby, Amateur Gun Dog and Open Gun Dog. Puppy stakes are up to 15 months old and are mainly judged on desire and running style. Derby stakes are up to 24 months old and are judged on desire, running and point style. Gun Dog stakes are for finished dogs who are judged on desire, running style range, steadiness, backing/honoring, point intensity and retrieving. Amateur is only available to non-professional handlers, whereas Open is available to professional handlers.

This Griffon-only AKC walking field trial has been a huge event for the field committee (thank you especially to Tom and Kristen Mathis) to organize and we are excited to participate!

Yes, it is a competition. You are braced with another dog/handler pair and you are competing against them head-to-head on field performance. Then your performance is evaluated based on the entire entry of dogs and handlers for placement. Full rules can be found by Googling for the PDF document “AKC Field Trial Rules and Standard Procedure for Pointing Breeds”.

Our dogs have been running in AKC German Shorthaired Pointer Club walking field trials for nine years, about the same time that we’ve been members of the AWPGA. It has been a fun experience and we’ve brought home some ribbons on derby dogs.

We hope to have an excellent turnout for this event and look forward to some great sportsmanlike competition and camaraderie!

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Our most recent success at an AKC Field Trial was with Charles handling Wyo Plainsman Kenobi, NA I “Obi” to a 4th place finish in the Amateur Walking Derby at the Heart of America German Shorthaired Pointer Club’s trial just last weekend.

Charles and Obi with their 4th place Amateur Walking Derby ribbon

Charles and Ruth at the line. Photo courtesy of HOAGSPC

Q Litter One Week Old

February 8, 2021

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update, Puppy Update, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons AKC Field Trials, Nebraska, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Puppies Leave a comment

Fire and the “Q” Litter at One Week Old

At this time the litter is entirely spoken for so any new interest should be considered for next year’s litters. Reach out to us at bluestemkennels@gmail.com. Aside from emails and phone calls from the new puppy owners, I am using my blog entries as my primary method of communication with the general public for the time being. I am hoping to be caught up on new interest emails by the end of this week.

Snow on top of snow on top of snow and subzero temperatures have been making life difficult in Bellevue, Nebraska lately. We shovel, and it snows, we shovel again, and it snows again. The last little skiff of snow is just sitting there unshoveled as we stare at it disgusted, knowing that it won’t get warm enough for it to melt and that we need to shovel again.

I know that I only have a couple of more weeks of Fire cleaning up after the puppies before I am going to be shoveling lots of poop. The setup might have to be in the basement if it doesn’t get warm enough. Right now the puppies are in the kitchen. I decided that the Step 2 sandbox was getting too small and moved the big whelping box in the house with a blanket underneath. I will need to change the blanket every day so that it doesn’t get stinky.

The puppies are starting to get loud sometimes at night. Hopefully the bigger quarters will prevent some of that but it might just be like having a baby for awhile where I have to get up with them in the middle of the night. I’m not working outside of the house a whole lot these days, just a couple of afternoons a week probably until they go home.

You can see their little legs starting to work a lot in the video: Q Litter One Month Old

Here is the montage of photos that I took today. You can click on the individual images to make them larger. The lighting in the pictures makes their dark liver coloring look black. They are not black! And in the video you see a bare patch on Fire’s back. She does not have any disease. This is where I went to grab her hide to stand her up during whelping and a big patch of fur let go into my hand. It is not uncommon for females to get weird bald patches right after birth, so she is fine. But anyway, here are the pics.

The only time that Ruth and Obi get a chance to see the puppies is when Fire is outside. Otherwise she will growl and snap at them to get back! A mother’s instinct is to protect her young when they are this small. Once they are up and moving around, Fire will allow the other dogs to have play time with them.

Once their eyes are open I will take individual pictures, identify their genders and give them their silly “Q” names.

Charles is signing Obi and Ruth up for an AKC Walking Field Trial in Missouri at the end of the month to get primed up for the big show in Illinois in March. Speaking of which, I had better sign off and get those premiums in the mail to the Heart of America German Shorthaired Pointer Club.

Stay safe and warm in these Arctic times. Until next week.

AKC Walking Field Trials and other updates

February 11, 2013

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update, Puppy Update AKC Field Trials, Amateur Walking Derby Stakes, Bird Hunting, German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Lincoln, Gun Dog, Gun Dog Stakes, Heart of American German Shorthaired Pointer Club, Heartland NAVHDA Chapter, Hunting Dogs, Korthals Griffon, Nebraska Pheasant Hunting, North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association, Open Walking Derby Stakes, Puppies, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons Leave a comment

Waiting for puppies

Sue is very pregnant and about 3 weeks away from whelping and Mae is definitely showing and about 5 weeks away from whelping. I really need to get into gear and get the whelping boxes and areas ready! Right now I have 13 reservations with deposits. I would be willing to take additional reservations, but at this point have no idea how many puppies I will have. Anyone who makes a reservation and does not get a pup out of these litters can either have their deposit refunded or have it carry over to next year’s breeding season (I have 2 reservations for next year currently). Contact us at (402) 682-9802 or bluestemkennels@cox.net with any questions.

AKC Walking Field Trials

Charles and BB participated in the first AKC Walking Field Trial in the area for the year, down in Osborn, Missouri (just east of St. Joseph) over the weekend, put on by the Heart of America German Shorthaired Pointer Club. This was a much more relaxed atmosphere than the 250 dog trial that we went to near Lincoln last year, it really felt a lot like a hunt test, except that we were the only ones there with kids.

Unknown judge and handler in the Gun Dog stakes

Charles and BB, center, head out for the Amateur Walking Derby run

There were four dogs entered in each of the stakes that they were entered into: Amateur Walking Derby and Open Walking Derby. There was a male and female Vizsla pair that was braced together, then BB and a male German Shorthaired Pointer were braced together. In both stakes, the Vizslas took first and second, BB took third and the GSP fourth.

Charles and BB at the trial grounds with their third place ribbon from Saturday

The weekend’s ribbons: third place in both the Amateur Walking Derby and the Open Walking Derby

I would really like to see more diversity of versatile breeds in the AKC Walking Field Trials. Charles told me that one couple who traveled from Colorado to St. Louis for a WFT two weeks ago had a Spinone Italiano that was entered. I would love to see griffs, Weimaraners, Spinones and the other versatile breeds recognized both by the AKC and NAVHDA participate in the AKC Walking Field Trials, not just GSPs, GWPs, Vizslas and Brittanys. The way that BB is winning over her bracemate is NOT by running like a bat out of hell and ranging far and wide. That’s not to say that she’s “pottering” as is the technical term for what we normally call “bootlicking”. She is just diligent in finding every single bird in the field.

On Saturday, the bird planters double planted the field, hoping to get the two Amateur Walking Derby braces covered with one trip. Well, the GSP had one find and BB had FIVE. She “cleared the field”, as they call it, and had to plant more birds for the next brace. They didn’t make the same mistake the next day, but there were still plenty of birds, as the GSP once again had one find and BB had three. Some of the positive things that the judges said to Charles is that BB is very smart, meaning that she knows how to analyze the terrain for bird cover, understands how to work the wind and the bird scent cone. Of course, the judges would like to see her range farther, but there really is a place for these closer working dogs in the walking field trials. It really should be about finds and not about running haphazardly and missing birds. Like I say, I want to see more diversity of versatile breeds out there so we can show the judges how we do our thing.

The next field event in the area is the German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Lincoln’s Hunt Test and Walking Field Trial on March 9-10. E-mail Tresha Moorberg at lincolngspc@gmail.com if you are interested in receiving premiums. As BB turns two at the beginning of March, she will age out of the Derby Stakes and now need to qualify for the Gun Dog Stakes. The AKC Field Trial Gun Dog Stakes require the same skills as the AKC Master Hunter test. So in the Derby Stakes, you are basically at Junior Hunter level skills, now we need to move up to MH skills. Our biggest challenge is stone steadiness on point and on honor. As my dogs are allowed to relocate without commands in the hunting field, they have a tendency to creep when the birds start moving. We are going to see if we can get Sam and BB ready for Senior Hunter test runs and Gun Dog Stakes walking field trials in time for the March test, but if not, it is something we will be working on all off-season.

Pupdate

Rick sent a great write-up with some photos of Sam and Sue’s 2012 “D” litter pup, Dottie, who is now 8 months old:

I wanted to give you an update on our pup, Dottie, and a recap of our winter hunting season here in Eastern Nebraska. The drought really took it’s toll on the habitat this year. We spent a lot of time trying out new CRP fields. Dottie has really developed nicely over the season. She did a good job with obedience and acclimating to the fields on her first outing in the fall. She covered a lot of ground, but the experiences were all brand new. We kept taking her out about every weekend, and by the last hunt in January, she was really doing great hunting out the birds. We didn’t encounter many pheasants for her to hone her pointing skills on, but it was a great year for quail, and she really did a great job working them out. Below are a few pictures from the season.

Here is a picture from our December 16th outing. Dottie sees something of interest here. We saw a few hens this trip, but the field must get hunted a lot because they spooked and flushed out pretty early.

Dottie checking something out.

December 28th. Rick and Dottie with the first “all Dottie” quail. She pointed the covey and located the dead bird! We’re still working on retrieving.

Rick and Dottie got a quail!

We went out again on a January 13th Hunt. This time Joey, my 9 year old son, was able to see Dottie in action. Once again, all we brought home was a single quail. (good thing we’re not counting on my hunting skills to feed the family all winter!) Joey sure liked seeing his dog in action. I think we’ve created a new hunter in the family. He’s asked to go every week since then.

Joey is fired up about bird hunting with some help from Dottie!!

Dottie and I were very fortunate the last weekend of pheasant/quail season to be invited out to my friend’s land to hunt with him and his griff, “Bear”. We had a lot of fun and got into a covey of quail that kept us busy for an hour or so. The dogs did great pointing out the covey after it broke, but we weren’t much of a shot. We bagged one out of the ordeal. (I can’t come home with just ONE quail AGAIN! 🙂 ). Luckily, the last field we hit yielded us some roosters to end the season. We bagged two to end the year.

Dottie and Bear found some roosters!

All in all, I’d have to say that reflecting back on the season, we had a pretty good first year with Dottie. Unfortunately, a lot of the CRP land we used to hunt is either out the program this year, or mowed down due to the drought, so it was a tough year to find good habitat for the birds. We’re really happy with Dottie. She is just excellent with the kids, and has a great demeanor.

I’m interested in working with her more this spring. I’m going to try and watch for any field trials that might be close to Omaha. I know you guys do this quite a bit, so any help or pointers would be great.

Thanks Again!

Rick & Dawn and Family

We are seeing if Rick and Dottie want to take a shot at Junior Hunter at the GSPC of Lincoln event in March, looks like she is ready to me with all the wild bird hunting, but I’ll let Rick and Charles talk through that one.

I had hoped to get the pregnant females out on some birds, but we might run out of time. This weekend we’re finishing preparations on the whelping areas, the weekend after that we’ve got our first Heartland NAVHDA Chapter meeting of the year, then the weekend after that I’ll be hovering over Sue waiting for the puppies to come. But we might be able to scrounge up some quail and do it this weekend, who knows. Thanks to Rick for the great write-up and photos, they are always appreciated and enjoyed! I’ll keep you all posted as to the latest.

Good luck tomorrow to the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon gang out in NYC for the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, I have plans to join you some year (just as a spectator!). Also, those of you going to Pheasant Fest in Minneapolis this weekend have a good time, hope some AKC griffs make it into the Bird Dog Parade!

More Field Trial Action and Pupdates

September 28, 2012

Charity Upchurch Field Trialing, Kennel Update, Puppy Update, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons AKC Field Trials, Amateur Walking Derby Stakes, American Field Region 19 Field Trials, Bird Hunting, Hunting Dogs, Korthals Griffon, Puppies, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons 2 Comments

On Field Trials

Saturday, September 22nd was a big day for AKC field events in the Lincoln, Nebraska area, so the kids and I hit the road to visit friends and family involved. Our first stop was the Missouri Valley Brittany Club’s AKC Hunt Test at Yankee Hill Wildlife Management Area just southwest of Lincoln, near Denton. Although Charles and I lived in Lincoln for a couple of years in the 1990’s, I had never been to this WMA. It is very nice, lots of good cover and space, I can see why the Nebraska Game and Parks selected it as a new spot to plant pheasant for the youth hunting weekend in October. Yet I digress.

I was headed to the test to visit with my friend Sally Jo Hoagland from North Platte. Although she is probably closer to my mom’s age than mine, she is one of the top (if not THE top) Weimaraner breeders in Nebraska (Weimshadow Kennel) and one of the only professional dog trainers in Central Nebraska (Four Paws Dog Training). We had met at the Grand Island Kennel Club Dog Show earlier in the year after first connecting on Facebook, due to our mutual involvement with NAVHDA and AKC. It was funny that at the hunt test I not only knew Sally Jo, but probably 90% of the people at the test and what was even funnier is that we were not the only family of spectators.

The hunt test environment is very family friendly, there are usually multiple families with elementary age children running about, so we all look out for one another’s kids and there is never any worry about any of the dogs being mean. The dogs typically sit quietly in their crates or on their stakeout chains and love to have the kids mess with them.

Following lunch at the hunt test and a good visit with friends and fellow local hunt test junkies, we loaded up and headed north to Branched Oak Field Trial Grounds near Raymond. Although we had been there for hunt tests in the past, this field trial environment was completely different. The German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Nebraska’s field trial over last weekend was four days long and had 235 entrants, making it one of the largest AKC field trials of the entire year. Our “camp” was out in the back 40, so when the kids wanted to go to the clubhouse to get some sweets and sodas, we had to wade through the melee. As most field trials are on horseback, most of the other camps consisted of a camper/horsetrailer/dogtrailer combo, a stakeout chain of 10-25 dogs and at least one horse. Anytime someone walked down the dirt road in the midst of the gypsy village, all 235 dogs barked and spazzed out on their chains. This was with the exception of BB of course, who really wanted her people very close to her in this strange setting. I don’t think that any of us were comfortable and felt pretty alien: a family with small children and one griffon surrounded by herds of barking shorthairs, German Wirehaired Pointers and Vizsla dogs along with their owners who reminded me of the rodeo crowd; not sure if their faces are red from being sunburned or last night’s whiskey, or both. The only time that I saw any other women is when they came out of their campers to water their dogs or smoke a cigarette.

A string of German Shorthaired Pointers at the AKC Field Trial on Saturday

Maybe I’m only drawing these caricatures because I was nervous and scared that my 3 year old was going to wade into a pack of freaked out hunting machines. I don’t want to hurt any field trialer’s feelings and I’m sure we’ll be back for more, so I’ll get more comfortable and quit seeing things that make me want to point them out. But as the hunt testing environment is where my fellow griffoniers find themselves, I wanted to point out the differences before anyone else decided to strike out into the field trial world. Not that I have any serious ideas of other griffoniers going this route, as a few of them have raised questions about participation.

Our take on it is that Korthals wanted to breed a foot hunting dog that was faster than the bootlicking continental breeds of his time. We do not believe that hunt testing does enough to test the athleticism and endurance of the animal, as it is a brief exercise that is only looking for the dog to satisfy the training requirements of the test (search, pointing, retrieving, steadiness, honoring etc.). Even in NSTRA and BHU trials, the field is too small for it to be a valid test of athleticism. We intend to continue to participate in walking stakes at AKC field trials and other trialers at the event encouraged Charles to look into American Field’s Region 19 events.

In my brief readings on American Field Region 19, these are events that last longer than an hour and are on open terrain and wild birds, which is a lot like what we are doing for hunting anyway, where we walk for at least an hour before stopping for water and usually two hours before we really stand or sit around for any lengthy period of time. I would suspect that BB would be the first griffon to ever participate in American Field, should we decide to check it out.

BB placed 4th out of 5 in the Amateur Walking Derby stakes last Saturday, beating out a Vizsla her same age, working the terrain more thoroughly and having the one bird find of the run. Although we are flying in the face of current convention with the breed, we worry more about the prevelance of designer house pets and conformation show-only dogs than about our involvement in walking stakes at field trials. I really just wish we could channel the spirit of Korthals to ask him himself, but in the meantime we’ll just keep doing our research to support our methods and having fun with our dogs.

BB’s Fourth Place Ribbon.

Pupdates

TracHer is busy as usual in North Dakota, she’s 7 months old now and been out on a few sharptail grouse and Hungarian Partridge hunts. She’s even retrieved a few of them! Most recently, she brought a live rabbit into the house through the doggie door while company was over, luckily they were fellow hunters!

TracHer on left (7 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) with Susan and her old buddy Zephyr with Tom and their limit of sharptail grouse!

TracHer and her bunny (7 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon)

TracHer retrieving a sharptail grouse (7 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon)

Mike out in Colorado has also been working with TracHer’s “twin” sister Frankie on some pheasants. He’s been working on steadiness on the point and he says she’s doing a great job! Both TracHer and Frankie are from our 2012 “C” litter with Sam and Mae.

Mowgli is 18 months old and is from our 2011 “B” litter out of Sue and Sam. Quite the looker! I saw his brother Duke’s owner at the movie theater when I was taking the kids to see Finding Nemo 3-D, so hopefully I’ll get to see him soon.

Mowgli (18 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) and his neighbor friend the Dachshund chilling on the deck

Coming Soon to Versatile Hunter

Well in less than a week, we’ll be headed back out to the Sandhills for some more hunting. There are no words for how terrible Eastern Nebraska has been this year thus far. The swamps are too dry for early teal and snipe, then the prairie chicken grounds have all been mowed for hay. Damn drought. We are going to have to start commuting to not only the Sandhills, but the Rainwater Basin of Central Nebraska, the pheasant fields of South Dakota and Southwestern Nebraska as well as the quail fields of Kansas. I hope that this is a temporary blip in the hunting situation in this part of the state because I don’t see us moving anytime soon. But we are in fear of this being the beginning of a total collapse in hunting in Southeastern Nebraska.

Shirts!!

Oh and one last thing, be sure to check out the new t-shirt designs on our Shop!! You can either click the button at the top of the page or go directly to http://www.wirehairedpointinggriffongear.com Buy a shirt to show your griffon pride, 100% made in the USA, from the shirt itself, the artists designs to the embroidery and screenprinting!!

BB’s AKC Field Trial: Amateur Walking Derby Stakes

August 29, 2012

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update, Puppy Update AKC Field Trials, Amateur Walking Derby Stakes, Branched Oak Field Trial Grounds, German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Nebraska, Korthals Griffon, Puppies, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons Leave a comment

On Saturday, August 25th, Charles handled our 17 month old female pup, Bourg-Royal’s CB Bluestem JH NA 1, more commonly known as “BB” to a 3rd place finish in the Amateur Walking Derby stakes of the German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Nebraska’s AKC Field Trial at the Branched Oak Trial Grounds near Raymond, Nebraska. We were in total shock. Charles stayed for the placement announcement, but somehow didn’t hear (a bad case of shotgunner ear) that BB won third. I was at the house and got a phone call from the trial grounds letting me know about it. We had been texting all day while he was waiting for his run and his phone was dead on the drive home, so he didn’t find out until an hour and a half later when he got to town.

The amateur walking stakes setup is nearly identical to a hunt test. The dog works planted quail for 30 minutes braced with another dog. No live fire though, the handler shoots a starter pistol on the flush. Places are awarded instead of pass/fail. I’m still learning the specifics about how it is judged, but in general it is based on covering ground/desire to search and bird finds/points. I think BB had a lot of individual finds/points and also backed her bracemate on another point.

As all of the fellow competitors were either Vizslas or German Shorthaired Pointers, we were quite excited to show them the potential of a good griffon who can run. The griffon will never range as wide as the big running dogs and that isn’t the point (ha, ha). BB was able to outscore her competitors with bird finds and tractability. BB’s bracemate ran like a bat out of hell and the owner spent most of his time trying to chase it down. It blew past a number of birds that BB was able to locate because of her attentive nose and appropriate pacing. There were only 7 dogs in the stakes, so the placement did not count for FC title points, but it was still the highlight of our weekend. I’ve only been able to find one other griffon within the last 10 years who has placed in an AKC field trial (in online research) and I haven’t had a chance to talk to the AKC about the rarity of the event.

I wasn’t there to take live photos and we have no rosette to pose with yet (it’s in the mail), so I’ll have to just post a past photo of BB. This is from her perfect score of 112 NAVHDA Natural Ability test in April.

Bourg-Royal’s CB Bluestem JH NA 1, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

So, for my birthday and Christmas this year I got myself the GoPro Hero2 camera to wear hunting. I should have enough battery and memory card power to just let it run all day (as long as I switch out the battery every 2 hours and the 32 GB memory card every 4), so it should be fun to watch me cuss, lose my breath, fall in coyote holes, miss easy shots and get lucky every once in awhile. It does get a little heavy on your head, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to convince Charles to try it, but I’m going to work on him. I took the camera out to the pond with us on Sunday, but I was pressing all of the wrong buttons and got nothing, but the videos of the week are two unedited GoPro videos of Caleb and I walking the dogs (first Sam and Sue, then Mae and BB) in the back yard. I should have edited them, but just really don’t have the time this week, sorry. Part I with Sam and Sue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbp7jhB2KCk Part II with Mae and BB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znd2BiO–14

Susan and Tom in North Dakota are always sending me great pictures of TracHer from our “C” litter earlier this year. She’s coming up on 6 months of age and is working good on pointing and retrieving!

TracHer on point, 6 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

TracHer looking pretty in the sunflowers, 6 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

TracHer after she retrieved the goose Dokken, 6 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

I also received an update from Rick who just lives on the other side of town with 3 month old Dottie from our “D” litter (the family liked her litter name so much that they just decided to keep it). She is the star of the neighborhood and is on track with her growth, as well as work in the yard and field.

Dottie pointing the pheasant wing, 3 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon

It’s time to move on to filling out more AKC event premiums and packing for the big weekend grouse/prairie chicken and dove hunting trip. It is supposed to be extremely hot, so we only see ourselves in the field for a few hours every morning. I hope we’re able to capture some cool moments on film to share with you and we’re always good for some long-winded tales. Wish us luck!

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