Where has the time gone? How has it been three months since I’ve written my last blog post? We’re in semi-retirement right now with no firm breeding plans. I appreciate y’all who have been checking in, you never know if an accident could happen with two females and a male on the property.
I also love the pupdates coming through email and text. I have totally neglected re-posting those, I feel terrible. Let’s plan those over Christmas break, since I decided to go back into teaching middle school English this year and it is hectic just keeping up with the dogs and a son in his junior year of high school. My head kennel tech/son Caleb is currently holding straight A’s since freshman year with hopes of going to either Clemson or The Citadel to major in urban planning and civil engineering. Our older son Conrad is getting ready to graduate from Metropolitan Community College Omaha with an Associate’s Degree in Information Technology. Our oldest, daughter Cordelia is the sales manager at an optometrist and is thinking of finally using her finance degree in banking.
Duke was our first dog to go into retirement this year, he went out to Oregon to live the good life with Ben. We really appreciate Ben giving Duke a great home. Duke has put out some nice puppies but we really want to focus on higher level hunting test dogs. A NAVHDA UT III is respectable, but there are enough VCs nearby between our Obi and our friend’s dog Gauge that we think that we have what we want for males here.
Duke and his new GSP buddyDuke with ducks and Ben
Briar has gone to live another fantastic retirement life in Virginia with Priscilla. I absolutely love Briar’s size and she is the sweetest dog, but she just didn’t have what we wanted in the ability to take pressure in training. She was my pick of that litter, we bought her back from someone and love her genetic contribution to the breed, but whatever happened with guns and pressure in training while she was away was not good. She has her Junior Hunter, but we were nervous to try more advanced things with her. So she is a beloved family pet to a couple who spends a lot of time with her along the James River.
Briar’s adventures in retirementMore of Briar’s adventures in retirement
Sandhills Hunting
Charles and the rest of the pack: Obi, age 6, Sally, age 5, and Belle being almost two went out to the Nebraska Sandhills at the beginning of October for grouse and ducks this year and it was rough hunting. Caleb went with him and got skunked. Here is the run down of the game bag:
It was day four of the hunt when he and Belle got on the board with two grouseDay five was one snipe with BelleBelle with a limit of woodducks at an old creek haunt of ours
After a week, Caleb came back home to get back to school after fall break. The dogs and Charles spent a few days of working in Nebraska, then they made their way up to North Dakota. The hunting is never a giveaway up there, but it was more productive in a short amount of time than the Sandhills this year.
Day One North Dakota: Obi and Belle with two roosters and a grouseNorth Dakota Day 3: Sally, Belle and Obi with two ducks (one a nice drake mallard) and three roostersNorth Dakota Day 4: Belle and Sally with three roosters and a grouse
Charles is actually packing up today to go out to South Central Nebraska for pheasants. It is going to be a snowy trip, so it will be interesting to see what comes of it. I will be back sometime over Christmas break, I hope that everyone enjoys their holiday season!
Hope that you all are staying cool in this hot, hot summer! Our next litter (maybe litters?) won’t be until Spring of 2025, so if you are looking to get on our reservation list or just want to ask questions in general, you can reach us at bluestemkennels@gmail.com. If you’ve sent me an email in the last couple of weeks, we’ve been on the road, but I’ll be sure to answer them in the coming days.
We were podcast by Bill Tomlin of The Whoa Post in Episode 21 on June 24th. It is available on all podcast platforms, or you can try this link: https://pca.st/episode/7bef06bd-9943-4bfb-866e-503ea39063e1 It was really fun and I hope that you give it a listen!
On our way out to Nebraska, we met Ruth’s retirement family in Missouri who also has her mom, Fire (now Bella). Ron and Bonnie used to go back and forth between Arizona and Minnesota, but have sold their home in Minnesota and now are either in their RV or in Arizona.
Ron, Ruth and BonnieRon with Fire, Bonnie with RuthGracie the GSP, Ruth and Fire on the campsite. Photo by Ron Funk.
I know that Ruth and Fire have a great home in Arizona and it sounds as if Charles may go out that way to hunt with them in January or February.
It was great to have a cool down while we were out visiting in Nebraska, the heat of the day was only 75 or 80, so when we would get out in the morning it would be in the 60s.
Here are some pictures from one day when we were roading the dogs out in the Sandhills. It is tough to get good shots of running dogs from a moving vehicle, especially when my telephoto lens is on its last legs (I’ll be getting a new one for my birthday/Christmas). This isn’t something that we just do out of nowhere with the dogs, we start with fast, long foot walks and build up to this. We might be going 10 mph when we’re driving the truck. We live right next to a busy road and they are around the truck in the farm yard, so they know to stay out from under tires. But it is a situation where I have to say, “we are professionals, don’t try this at home!” because of the risk if you haven’t been doing this for a long time.
From left: Duke, Sally, Briar, Obi and Belle in a swampy green valley in the SandhillsLeft to right: Briar, Sally, Duke, Belle and Obi running out in the open.Left to right: Duke, Briar, Belle, Obi and Sally heading into a windmill.
I got a few extra pictures of the “little girls” as we call them: almost two-year-old Briar and five-month-old Belle. Here’s Belle:
Belle on the runBriar and Belle checking something out.Belle retrieving a stick in the water
Belle using the string on the Dokken to retrieve since she’s used to smaller ones
Now here’s Briar’s batch of photos. You can see that she has more brown in her coat than most of my other dogs, similar to a Stichelhaar. This coat style goes all the way back to my foundation pair of Sue and Sam. I have not seen it since then. She is DNA tested 100% Griffon, but this harkens back to when all of these European rough-haired breeds were all one.:
Briar standing in the prairieBriar checking something outBriar on the move through the grassBriar on the water retrieve
Here are some field shots of Sally:
Sally taking a stroll on the prairieSally with a look of joy on her face
Here’s our younger male, Duke:
Duke on the run with Obi in the backgroundDuke was also having a grand time on the prairie
Last but not least, our patriarch Obi, who is getting ready for NAVHDA Invitational:
Obi mid-stride with the sand dunes in the backgroundDuke and Obi going all-out in the field
Multiple times during our excursion we saw prairie chickens in the field, at one time it was a large group of six or eight, so it should be a good year for bird hunting. Once again, taking photos of moving animals in a moving vehicle is very difficult, so I didn’t get as cool of picture as I wanted.
Prairie chicken in flight!
Here’s one more photo of everyone swimming for Dokkens in a pond:
Obi, Duke, Sally, Belle and Briar in the pond
Like I’ve said before, the weather was just perfect for running dogs out in Nebraska, but now we’re back in the South Carolina heat. Griffons love to have fun and so making the training fun makes it easier for everyone.
Charles has already been back out with the local NAVHDA chapters doing the serious training while I get everything ready for Caleb to start his sophomore year of high school (I can’t believe the first day is August 1st!). He has also acquired his learner’s permit, so we’re practicing driving.
The clock is ticking on the 2024 AWPGA National Specialty events in November, so I continue to plug away at that.
According to the calendar, Sally should already be starting her heat cycle, but nothing with dogs ever follows the calendar. The one thing about having two males is that I never have to worry about missing it! Since Ruth is the alpha of the two, I don’t wonder if Sally’s waiting for hers to start. I’ve had two litters at once before and it is super busy, but doable. I do have quite a list of reservations, but since my deposits are refundable there’s no guarantee that each of those people will take a pup. So feel free to email me at bluestemkennels@gmail.com if you’d like to discuss, but realize that there might not be availability until Spring 2025. We don’t know until they get here! I’ll keep everyone posted once things start happening with the heat cycles, I check the girls every day. Hopefully, I won’t be waiting until Valentine’s Day, but it could happen.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Charles headed to central South Carolina to look for some quail. One thing that he has learned about hunting down here is that you really have to read your regulations. Some fields are only open for hunting for certain days per year. The place that he went was one of those quail management units, which is not how it is out west, so it was something new for him to check out. There was one other hunter there without dogs, so they just worked away from each other. He had our pointer Dolly out first with our older male, Obi, and she is just a bird finding machine. I really did not want a pointer, but it is nice to have a hot-footer out in front sometimes really zooming around looking for birds. They pushed up a covey and another single before they connected here. On this one Dolly stayed on point, Obi honored, Charles got the shot, then Obi retrieved.
Obi and Dolly with their quail
The second half of the hunt was a Sally and Duke run. I’m not sure who ended up with the retrieve, but Sally is a long nose. She points birds from really far away and is steady.
Duke and Sally with a single South Carolina quail
While Charles was hunting, I was down in Atlanta visiting family and picked up the seasonal crud. This is just a funny picture of what it is like when you’re sick with Griffs around.
Sally and Briar making sure that mom knows that she is loved.
I’ve also been busy working on the AWPGA 2024 National Specialty for Winston-Salem, North Carolina for November 7-12, 2024. For those of you who don’t know, a national specialty has our national breed dog show (the winner of Best of Breed automatically qualifies for Westminster), then it also has field events such as AKC Hunt Tests and/or working standard field trial, possibly an obedience trial, some educational seminars, plus we have social events like receptions and an awards banquet. I don’t want to steal the club website’s thunder, so I’ll wait and link to that for the tentative calendar of events once it drops. If you would like to join the AWPGA, the AKC breed parent club for the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, please visit our website: https://www.awpga.com/2024-member-application-form.html
I was the editor for the quarterly club magazine the Griffonnier for four years, I went inactive for awhile, now I’m back serving on the Board of Directors as Secretary while also being the Chairperson of the National Specialty. It is fun and challenging. We went with a futuristic logo with a Griff’s head with the NC state shape inside. Our club is passionate about the breed and welcome new members and attendees to the national specialty. I will keep you all posted as more news of the event drops.
I apologize for my absence from the blog and social media in general. Organizing the trophies for the Eastern Regional Specialty Dog Show in York, Pennsylvania has taken up so much time. Not only did I have to figure out all of the placements for three shows, but then I had to figure out the budget for each placement and order a prize. I think that I’m getting closer to the end of the process. The trophies are all hunting dog items, so where I’ve written for hunting dog catalogs and have just been a bird dog junk junkie for 15 years it was actually fun to shop for the items. I was able to give business to all of the major players: Cabela’s, Orvis, Filson, Gun Dog Supply, Lion Country Supply and Ugly Dog Hunting. Those are all unpaid shout outs and they all had something unique to contribute to the cause.
So here is the basic schedule: Thursday is the Field Day at York Pointer and Setter Club, Friday is ALL DAY of dog shows: Sweeps, Supported Entry and Regional Specialty. For those of you new to dog shows, what will happen is that the classes of the first show run, then we go through best of breed for that show. Then we go to the second show where the same thing happens, you go through the classes, the best of each class is awarded, then it goes to best of breed. We do it a third time for the Regional Specialty. It will be a very exciting day to see many old friends, but also stressful and chaotic with so much going on. I have never helped with that many shows all in one day, they are usually spread out over multiple days. This whole schedule is intense, since we are doing double/double AKC hunt tests Saturday and Sunday.
Due to the intensity of the schedule for the performance events and the fact that it is St. Patrick’s Day that Friday night, there is no banquet scheduled. Those of us who are running dogs Saturday morning in the hunt tests have to be at the field ready to go by 7:30 AM, so we’ll need to start moving in the morning around 5:30 AM. We’ll probably get some dinner groups together at the show for Friday night just by word-of-mouth and those of us who have to be up early the following day will be done by 9 PM.
I am running our young dogs Duke and Sally in AKC Senior Hunter at the York Pointer and Setter Club. Since it is a double/double, I’ll be doing four runs a day (two runs a day with two dogs) for a total of eight runs. There will be lunch available to purchase at the hunt tests both Saturday and Sunday. Once again, there are no formal dinner plans and we’ll just bunch up and figure things out during the day.
My hunt test style from 2020A more recent photo in travel mode
In the event that you are looking for me at the shows or the hunt tests, here are some pictures of me. I am usually behind the camera instead of in front of it. I have a blaze orange knee length dress that I am planning on wearing to the shows, so I should be easy to spot.
Breeding Update
As of right now, I have eleven reservations with deposit for my Fall 2023 litter between Obi and Ruth. As my deposits are fully refundable until the pups are three weeks old, these numbers can change rapidly depending on peoples’ life situations. I have frequently had four or five folks defer to the following year in those first three weeks. Obi and Ruth will be having their last litter before Ruth’s retirement in the Spring of 2024, so should there not be enough pups in the Fall of 2023 the reservations can roll over. We’ll also be breeding Sally and Duke in Spring 2024. Feel free to email bluestemkennels@gmail.com to express interest in the litters. I know that I have a few emails sitting in my inbox needing responses, so if one of those is yours from the last few days, I will be getting to them this afternoon (I also had to get my tax information to my accountant this week, so I’m sort of on brain fry mode, sorry).
As far as the specific breeding schedule for the fall, Ruth had her winter heat cycle at the end of January. So that means if my experience from the past is correct, her summer cycle will be at the end of July. Pups would then be born at the end of September and go home around Thanksgiving. That is all guesstimation from past experience and Mother Nature is in control.
Social Media Info
I am not going to be on TikTok. I downloaded the app and started looking at videos one day and the very next day the financial information stored in my phone was compromised. I caught it before my bank did since I was looking for it. So no TikTok for me.
Instagram is a lot of ads. Also, the AI censors hunting photos from hashtags. So if I have dead birds and a gun in my pictures, it gets wiped from the hashtag almost instantly. I am going to use it sparingly. Once I start backing up old hunting photos again this summer, I will get those posted. I will try to be more active on it, but like I say, I am a bit salty about the censorship. The two pups from the “R” Litter are very active on there under the accounts @griffons.griffon and @thelifeandtimesofbeatricebriar. The first one follows Chase Wiley with his family here in the Charlotte suburbs, the second follows Beatrice Briar as a Kentucky ultramarathon trail dog with her veterinarian dog dad.
Even though this blog/website is thirteen years old and my photo galleries are pretty sketchy with their organization (I will fix it this summer), this is my primary tool. I have to use my English degree skills somewhere. I am not good at little tidbits of information spread out through days and weeks. I have to sit down and write you an essay. I also like Facebook since it is full of Boomers and Gen X, those are my people. My page there is old and has a lot of followers, so I’ll just keep riding that until we are all in the nursing home I guess. I do not have anyone else with login access to this blog. I do not have a “last post” written and in storage anywhere. The thought of doing estate planning on this website does not appeal to me and I’m just not there yet. So hopefully the construction dumptrucks of the Carolinas continue to avoid hitting me.
YouTube is what I use to make videos of puppies anymore. I would love to do grooming and training videos someday, but I need to figure out the whole Patreon racket so that I get paid for views. And although I have the hardware to do video content, I also need to invest in Adobe Creative Cloud software, specifically the Premier Pro video editor, to do my art the way that I want it to look. And then I need to train myself on it. So hopefully more YouTube content will be rolling in the next year or so (weekly low budget puppy videos will continue as normal without change for now).
South Carolina Woodcock
Charles and Obi wrapped up the woodcock season at the end of January with one in the bag. I have to be honest, as much as I love the Carolinas, Charles is dying to get back to Nebraska at some point. The hunting here is not what he wants. I’m in love with the Carolinas and am determined to stay here. Although we have a piece of raw land way out in Western Nebraska, we’re talking about having a second home close to our kids in Omaha so that he can go out and hunt, he can work remotely and access the airport if needed. Both of us moving back and forth as needed. We are at least a year away from that possibility with two kids in college right now, but that is in our minds pretty seriously. Send us good intentions for the manifestation of that dream.
Oh, but the woodcock with Obi! Here it is:
The trusty SKB 12 gauge, Obi and the woodcock from the end of January. Photo by Charles.
Fire in Retirement
I loved seeing this picture of Fire (now “Bella”) on the right, enjoying her retirement life moving between Arizona and Minnesota with one of our old pals from Pheasants Forever in Nebraska. Out getting in on some wild quail action in Arizona with her GSP buddy. Thank you Ron for giving her a great retirement home. She is the mother of our current females, Ruth and Sally.
Fire/Bella on right enjoying her retirement with some Arizona quail.
Well the day is getting on and it is time to wrap up the blogging. I have a gobzillion dog hunting items to unbox sitting in my entryway! Spring is really springing here and I hope it makes it out to the frozen wasteland in North Central Nebraska and South Central South Dakota. They are in a top 10 snowiest year on record and folks are pretty miserable about it. Keep our beef cattle ranchers in your prayers as they are having a tough start to calving season.
Good luck to everyone with spring pups and doing training/testing. Talk at you again soon with the update from Pennsylvania.
Feel free to email bluestemkennels@gmail.com if you are interested in reserving a pup from our planned litter for Fall 2023. We will not be breeding or hunt testing in the spring due to some family travel obligations.
While I was in South Carolina wrapping up raising our last litter of pups, Charles took Obi, Sally and Duke out to the Sandhills of Nebraska and the prairie pothole region of North Dakota for some mixed upland and waterfowl action. The trip was a great success, especially with the new technology allowing Charles to work his regular job remote for a few days, then hunting a few days.
I don’t have a ton of details except that the dogs covered lots of ground and had plenty of wild bird action.
The first morning in the Nebraska Sandhills with a limit of sharptails. Obi, Sally and Duke.Duke went solo went some teal (also on Day One in the Sandhills)The end of the day photo from the first day in the Sandhills: a grouse limit, a woodduck and four teal.
The second day he had to work for his grouse limit, which he didn’t wrap up until the middle of the afternoon. He added one teal to this photo before he headed back to my mom’s house.
Grouse limit for day two in the Nebraska Sandhills. Obi, Sally and Duke.
He spent the next three days working, then picked back up for another grouse limit and a ringneck duck.
Sally (farthest away), Obi (on left) and Duke (in the foreground) pointing an antelope.Sally, Duke and Obi with the three sharptailed grouse and a ringneck duck on the third day of Nebraska Sandhills.
Charles then worked another handful of days before heading out again. I was really surprised with all of the negative reports that I had been hearing from locals and ranchers due to the drought that he had such great success each day.
His last day in the Sandhills was a super windy day (you can see by the dogs’ head furnishings blowing in the wind in the photo) and he decided to focus on waterfowl for the day. He took Duke out for the three snipe and Sally for the mallard drake. Mallard drakes are super difficult to jump hunt and Charles just happened to pop over a hill and the the duck was right there as he got up from the water. I have never shot a mallard drake.
Duke and Sally with three snipe and a mallard drake for the last day in the Sandhills.
Charles had another first when he shifted his hunting to the prairie pothole region of North Dakota. The very first spot that he and some of our neighbors down here in South Carolina hit had a low flying flock of Canadian geese. Charles was able to snag a goose out of the bunch. Although Sally is pictured here, none of the dogs really knew what to think of the goose flopping around since the largest birds they’ve ever messed with up to that point were mallards and pheasant.
Sally and the North Dakota Canadian Goose from day one.
Although he and the neighbors were there for four days, I didn’t really get a good run down of the bird numbers. As near as I can gather from our texts, the second day the neighbors got three roosters, Charles got two roosters and four ducks.
Griffons, pointers and setters on the prairie, with the neighbor Quentin on the right.
I don’t have any photos from the third day, but the report was that Charles got a pheasant double off of Obi’s point, two grouse and one duck.
The fourth day was another mixed bag, with the neighbors getting one rooster, Charles got three ducks, a snipe and the most exciting part was a Hungarian partridge! This is only the second hun that Charles has shot. I’ve only flushed one covey up in Montana in 2016 but never got in a shot.
The excitement of a North Dakota hun!Duke, Obi and Sally in harvested corn in North Dakota
So that was a wrap! Here’s the traditional North Dakota trip game bag shot, with the dogs posed underneath:
Obi, Sally and Duke with the 2022 North Dakota game bagThe beauty of a North Dakota sunrise
Aside from missing the hunt, I missed seeing the usual people of the towns that we visit down there. They are such interesting characters, I’m glad that Charles went and laid eyes on them. The cafe is still going, the same ladies are at the registers at the grocery store and the gas station owner still recognizes the regulars. Charles headed home after a long journey but the neighbors continued on to South Dakota where they had better pheasant numbers. But to us, sometimes the comfort of tradition beats the number of birds in the bag.
I have more news about some hunt testing success of some of our progeny, some health test results for Duke and social media pages where you can follow some of our pups, but I need to get on with the day for now. Good luck to those out in the hunting fields, Charles will be at it again in a few more weeks. I am going to wait patiently for woodcock hunting down this way after the first of the year. Talk at you more in a week or so.
We had a busy last week with the pups, as my daughter was visiting over the University of Nebraska-Lincoln spring break.
Cordelia and the “R” Litter pups
They passed their vet inspection with flying colors. Their teeth are all straight, their umbilical openings have closed, everything sounded and moved as it should.
The two girls at York Vet
In addition to the trip to the vet, they got some individual crate time in on a day that Cordelia and I went to the gym for a couple of hours.
Puppies crate conditioning in the “dog room” (and hunting junk room)My head puppy assistant Caleb also got in some extra time with them the last week
We also worked on walking on a leash a little bit. They are used to following me around, so it doesn’t take much to get them to just ignore the leash and follow me around. Since Reba is going to be a dock diving dog, she got to see the retrieving bumper just briefly.
Reba checks out the bumper while on a leash
Other trainers have told me that it is important to only use the bumper for the task that you are training towards, it is not a chew toy or reward item. So this was literally less than a minute. It has been pretty chilly here (for South Carolina) the last few weeks so their time in the water was pretty limited.
Pups in the swamp
There is a little swampy area on the border of our property after it rains, so they were able to climb around in that a bit.
Rosalind will be working some birds, so she got some bird exposure while she was here.
Rosalind sight pointing a wingRosalind retrieving a dead quail
The way that I do the frozen dead quail is that I put the pup in an exercise pen so that they don’t have a chance to run off and get distracted by other things. I tie a string to the quail and drag it around inside of the exercise pen to get the pup’s attention. Then they pick up the bird and carry it around to much praise.
Rosalind checking out our bird menagerie
She also got a chance to check out some live birds in the bird pen. Early exposure folks are divided on whether to let a pup get their mouth on a live bird. I used to let a pup play with a live bird, but where we are testing more with pen-raised birds that they are able to catch at times, I would rather just avoid a problem and start them at “look/point only”.
Reba going home to Kentucky with vet Dr. Blair to trail run and dock diveRosalind going home with Clint and his wife to Pennsylvania to hunt and blood track
Then first thing Sunday morning, both of the puppies went home. The timing was such a blessing because I would have struggled with only having one of them here. They would have basically needed attention as if I were keeping the pup and I feel so lucky that both of the new owners were able to make it on the day that they turned 8 weeks. I look forward to watching them grow, they are great little girls! (Please note: the 8 week birthday rule is a USDA regulation for dog breeders and should apply to all dog breeders in the United States. Anyone sending puppies home prior to their 8 week old birthday is in violation of APHIS regulations and is opening themselves up to potential US Department of Agriculture enforcement.)
Since Ruth is five and it took us so long to get a male purchased, tested and raised to our specifications, we will be doing another litter in the fall. It looks like it is probably all reserved, but feel free to email bluestemkennels@gmail.com to get on our backup contact list. After the Fall of 2022, our next planned litter is the Fall of 2023. Our daughter is graduating from college in May of 2023 and we need to be able to travel back to Nebraska for that event. Spring of 2024 will be Ruth’s last litter and then she will retire. We will keep a female puppy (or puppies?) from those last two litters. I suspect Spring of 2024 will be Sally’s first litter, as long as everything turns out with health testing.
Speaking of graduations, our son Conrad graduates from Clover High School two months from tomorrow! I am not sure when I’ll be back here blogging, but Sally has her UPT test and Obi has his last UT test (we’re trying for the UT I one more time, I told Charles that he is not allowed to test him ten times like some people do for the UT I) in May at the Hudson Valley (NY) Chapter of NAVHDA. I will also have to keep you posted as to when Ruth comes into season for the next round, I’m hoping that she can hold off until July to come in, but it may be June. She and I will be working out and getting ready. And Duke will be training with Caleb for NAVHDA Natural Ability.
So that is a wrap on “R” litter 2022, good luck to everyone out there training and testing this spring!
I always, always say that I won’t know how many puppies I have until they are two weeks old. There is always a small one that hangs on a good week and then fades away seemingly out of nowhere. When I posted last Sunday, the little boy was still taking a bottle and nursing the teat, even though he wasn’t putting on weight at all. Like I’ve said before, the most intervention I will do is helping a pup on to the teat and giving a bottle. I won’t try IV fluids or tube feeding like some breeders do, that is just too much intervention that could possibly be bringing up a defective pup that will pass early in life. Little boy stopped eating Monday morning and was gone Tuesday morning. We have two sisters who are going strong and their eyes are now open.
Rosalind and Reba
I finally got Ruth’s bloodwork results back late Wednesday. Although there were no answers, I am glad that it was not a viral outbreak that would potentially impact the future. The working theory is that we switched to an oral chewable for flea and tick when we moved to South Carolina. She was due for that at 30 days gestation. The package is marked “safe for pregnant females” and I was worried about an infestation with year-around bugs down here. So I gave her the chewable. Many fellow breeders and vet friends say that they’ve seen similar outcomes with the flea and tick chewables, and that the study to mark the medication safe for pregnant females was a very small sample size. Ruth had an unplanned litter right when she turned two that had nine healthy puppies, so it isn’t her. And we may never know the full answer, but this is where the collective thoughts are at this point. DON’T GIVE PREGNANT FEMALES FLEA AND TICK CHEWABLES.
I’ve decided to call them Rosalind and Reba. Rosalind has the blaze face and a little bit longer coat. Reba has the shorter coat and liver face.
Rosalind faceRosalind backReba faceReba back
Their eyes are just opening, so it is tough to get very photogenic pictures of them since they are so squishy at this point.
Ruth and the girls
Ruth really does not like cameras. She is a little bit more used to the still camera, but she growls at the camcorder.
I take the puppies out of the whelping box and put them on a sleeping bag to help them practice using their legs. I try to keep the wood chips under them, but Ruth is always digging them away. Once their eyes get good and opened, they will start to use their legs more and more. Then we will introduce puppy mush and they will really get going.
South Carolina Quail
I had no idea that bird season was still open down here until Charles mentioned that he was going to head into North Carolina with a buddy to chase some ruffed grouse. That fell through due to his buddy’s doctor’s orders and Charles didn’t want to hunt someone else’s spots without them.
So luckily the neighbor across the road just happens to run pointers and setters. Who knew that when we randomly picked our house sight unseen, that we’d pick one right across the road from another bird hunter? So Quentin and Charles headed out for some central South Carolina quail yesterday, even though woodcock closed at the end of January, quail goes until the end of February. Charles got two and Quentin got one and a rabbit. Charles forgot his chaps and his legs are full of blackberry thorns. The brambles down here are horrible, if I go work at cleaning up the thickets on our property, I end up pulling thorns out of me for days.
Charles said it was fun to watch our dogs work with other upland breeds, he thinks that it makes them better.
Sally with the pointers with Quentin going in.The full bag for the day on Quentin’s horse trailer dog box.Sally with the South Carolina quail
The bag limit down here is twelve per day, so we were excited that they found some! Obi ran with the setters but didn’t have any luck.
So we’ll just keep plugging along here on raising puppies and doing some late season hunting for a few more weeks. We’ve got a little surprise catching a flight into the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport this week and you’ll get to see it in our next blog post next week too.
Oh and congratulations to all of the NAVHDA Invitational Invitees in this month’s Versatile Hunting Dog, a lot of familiar names in there in the Wirehaired Pointing Griffons! And a Griff on the cover even! Keep up the good work everyone.
The three musketeers of the “R” Litter have made it to one week old. We went to York Vet on Thursday for a health checkup and to have their tails docked and dew claws removed. We also had Ruth examined and blood drawn from her to make sure that everyone is healthy. There are no outward symptoms of any sort of infection, so we are anticipating the bloodwork to come back clear.
The two females are just huge since there are so few puppies to compete with, then little brother is about half of their size. He moves normally and latches to the teat on his own, so we’ll just hope for the best unless things take a turn. This next week is extremely critical as we count down to when their eyes open and they can start taking a little bit of canned puppy food mush.
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Puppy nap pileLittle brother nursing while the two big sisters nap
Last day of hunting season
Charles and Sally went and harvested a couple of more South Carolina woodcock yesterday, as it was the last day of the season on public land. They are having good adventures in the cane swamps of the central part of the state. Charles says that it is tough shooting through the tree branches and the terrain is pretty uneven, so it is a challenge. But nice to see them put birds in the bag in a new state.
Sally and the last two woodcock of the season
So keep us in your doggy prayers this week as we wait for the bloodwork results on Ruth and hope that this little boy keeps on trucking. Our two weeks of winter are winding down here and it will be spring later on this afternoon, it looks like. It is so strange going from five months of winter with a few subzero weeks to pretty much no winter at all. I’ll take it though! I’ll be back next week, hopefully with all good news from here on out.
Complaining that I only ended up with three beautiful, healthy puppies and a perfectly healthy mama is like getting some really nice stuff for Christmas, but griping that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I have had friends go into the emergency vet for a c-section and come out with nothing, no mama and no puppies. I’ve had friends come out with puppies and no mama and vice versa (a living mama that is unable to breed again and no puppies). Dog breeding is not a vending machine and it is really whatever mother nature gives you. You cry and pout with the mama, but you have to keep going with positivity for the pups who are here and those who are yet to come. I can’t even count how many times I’ve said “I’m never doing this again” to myself. But I’ve matured as a breeder over the last 12 years and I do it for this:
Whiskey of our “A” Litter 2010 will be 12 in April
Old Whiskey of our “A” litter will be twelve in April. There have been so many great dogs that we’ve made. And we have to push past these times to get to the good ones.
“R” Litter Arrival
I woke up Sunday morning to two puppies nursing and one still born. It was all a very normal birth that lasted from the early morning Sunday until about mid-Sunday afternoon. Ruth never strained with any of the puppies, it was all 2-3 pushes and they came out. About an hour between each pup. There were more angel puppies than I would have liked, but I was at five alive on Sunday night.
Ruth and pups Sunday night
One of those was a girl who was slow to come around after being born and I really worked on to get going. The other was a boy who seemed fine and lively at first but come Monday morning, I saw no signs of any peeing or pooping from him, which really concerned. me. I tried to get both the boy and the girl to take a bottle with limited success. The vet and I both agreed that we just needed time and Mother Nature to sort things out. I tried getting them to take a teat with help, but once again, with limited success. I don’t do tube feeding and I don’t to intravenous fluids to try to save a pup, it just isn’t worth it to me to try and save a pup that could have problems later in life from whatever issues they were having.
Ruth never showed signs of any illness or distress throughout her pregnancy or whelping, nor now. She is shaking off the sadness of the lost babies and focusing on those that are strong and thriving, same as I am.
Ruth and the three puppies todayRuth and the R Litter PuppiesR Litter Puppy Closeup
Ruth and the puppies go in on Thursday morning to York Vet for examinations and tail docking and dew claw removal. Ruth will have a full exam with blood work done to make sure there is nothing identifiable/viral as the cause. It really could be anything from random congenital abnormalities, a reaction to flea/tick preventative or Ruth unknowingly ingesting poisoned mice. We may never know. But we’re going to do a full blood panel to rule out anything identifiable (brucellosis, canine herpes, a parvo exposure breaking through her vaccination, etc.).
I really appreciate the Griffon breeder community for their insights and talking through theories and next steps with me on this litter. It helps to hear other breeders similar/worse experiences and how to best react and move forward.
(One totally random thing that came up in all of this is that a FB dog friend asked about the bottom of the whelping box. This is a very well-heated interior room of the house. So here’s the layout of the bottom of the whelping box: mom and puppies on top, pine shavings, plywood under the whelping box, tarp that goes under the entire whelping box and kennel and is zip tied to the kennel wire, horse trailer pads that are like wrestling mat type material that is under the entire tarp and kennel, linoleum, cement floor. The puppies are not laying directly on a wood floor of a barn or house. I have tried blankets, towels, and carpet scrap as fabric alternatives but I have found that they are so dangerous, along with gross and unsanitary. The bitch will dig up any fabric I put under them and then I find the puppies and mom all wadded up in a scary way. So I ditched fabric years ago and found that this works best for us. Where there is bare wood showing is where Ruth has shoved the wood chips out of her way.)
Ruth looks healthy and is moving around well, this is her spontaneously running to me this morning, I didn’t call her to get her to run just for a photo. She is producing milk and tending to the puppies as she should be.
Ruth is looking healthy as a mama
So there are two girls and a boy. At this time, all are spoken for. I have decided that I’ve had enough stress with the move, the holidays and having a one year-old pup Sally that I am going to hold off on keeping a puppy myself (so they will all go to owners on my reservation list). Obi and Ruth are young enough to breed again and we’ll be making sure (as much as we possibly can) that we control the environment for potential hazards such as: hold off of flea/tick medication during breeding and gestation (even though the packaging says it is safe) and making sure our immediate neighbors aren’t setting out bait poison for raccoons or poisoning mice without us knowing.
The reality is that we may never know what caused the angel puppies (but obviously I’ll let you know if I find something out). So we’ll just keep trying and praying and hoping for the best.
“Find us ready, Lord, not standing still/find us working and loving and doing your will/find us ready Lord, faithful in love/building the kingdom both here and above/building the kingdom with mercy and love.” – “Find Us Ready”, a newer Catholic hymn by Tom Booth
I will be back on Sunday with the One Week Old pupdate!
Sally’s first wild bird retrieve
Sally brought this woodcock to Charles on Friday
Charles had the day off on Friday and took Sally back out by herself for some South Carolina woodcock. They got into a few more and connected with this one. The first one a week or so ago, Sally found it and just stood there sniffing it, not sure what to do. This time, she picked it up and brought it to Charles. The retrieve in the field is usually the last basic hunting skill that they pick up. Birds are stinky and sharing is not a natural instinct. It takes lots of training and practice to get to this point where they bring the bird back to you. Sally is Ruth’s full sister from Chief and Fire’s litter last year (both Chief and Fire are retired from breeding now). This picture is another great reminder of what this is all about.
We are expecting our “R” litter from Obi and Ruth in the next week or two. I currently have 18 reservations with deposit. The largest litter of Griffs registered in recent times is 16 puppies, so I assume that I have homes for this bunch. If you are interested in waiting until our Fall 2022 litter, email bluestemkennels@gmail.com. Once the spring litter is two weeks old, I should know where my fall list stands.
Here are some updated photos of Ruth sporting her very pregnant belly. It doesn’t seem to slow her down much!
Pregnant Ruth running in the yardRuth side profileAnother belly shot (a little fuzzy phone pic)Pregnant Ruth running in the snow (I circled her so you can see her)
Now it is just a matter of waiting for puppies to arrive! We just finished our whelping box setup this morning. It will be so nice to have them in a bedroom in the house instead of the heated garage. That way I have a bed right next to the whelping box in case of all-night puppies!
Ready for puppies!
This will probably be my last blog post until after puppies arrive. As they are being whelped, I will keep my Facebook page up-to-date. Then I will contact folks who have reservations once we are done whelping and I’ve had some rest. Finally, I will make a post here to the website.
First South Carolina Woodcock!
Charles is getting Sally ready for her UPT in May up at the Hudson Valley NAVHDA Chapter in New York. This is the NAVHDA chapter nearest to Charles’s hometown of Newburgh and he thought it would be fun to get up there to run some tests. He will also be re-testing Obi in UT to see if he can get a Prize I.
In the meantime he is trying to figure out the hunting game in these parts and he and Sally had success this weekend. They only saw one woodcock pop out of a cane swamp on some public land and they were able to put it in the bag. Charles is pretty sure that this is his first woodcock and it was Sally’s first wild bird.
Sally’s South Carolina WoodcockOur South Carolina Woodcock
I was really excited to hold a bagged woodcock, as I’ve only flushed them in the Missouri River Valley back in Nebraska while out exercising dogs maybe three or four times. I’d only ever seen photos of them up close. Their feathers are much more colorful than a snipe and their bodies are stubbier.
Here’s a random photo of Sally training in the yard with Charles back in November that I just noticed in my files.
Charles and Sally doing yard work
Here’s another random photo of Obi bringing me a stick the other day when I had my good camera out.
Obi with a stick in the driveway
Having snow on the ground in South Carolina is pretty fun and we are so glad that it isn’t day after day with feet of snow piling up like it was back in Nebraska. I think it will be all melted by tomorrow. But for now I will throw on my boots and go muck around in it with the dogs.
Keep an eye on my Facebook page for the latest on the puppies whelping and keep us in your thoughts and prayers for good health.
Bluestem Kennels 