The “V” Litter finished going home last Saturday and everyone is spoiled and loved. Our next litter will be later this year between Obi and Sally, email bluestemkennels@gmail.com.
Eva with Valentino to Arkansas
The first to go home was Valentino with Eva to Arkansas. She is a vet tech who duck hunts, so he will be well cared for and have adventures.
Tate with Victoria to Kentucky
Tate is excited to take Victoria out west for adventures and be able to leave her home with his girlfriend when he has to go out as an electrical lineman for storms. They will be based in Kentucky
Sheri, Stelios and Vance to New Jersey
Sheri and Stelios drove down all the way from New Jersey and picked up Vance early one morning. He will be a hunter and companion.
Alex and Vincent to South Carolina
Vincent went home with Alex down towards Charleston. He will hunt waterfowl and be a buddy.
Joe and his girlfriend took Vaughn to North Carolina
Vaughn went home with Joe and his girlfriend to the Raleigh, North Carolina area. They will hunt and try out NAVHDA.
It’s always fun to see everyone go home to their new families to become beloved members. I’ll take a break from blogging in between litters to catch up around the house and farmyard. I’ll be back to let everyone know when Sally comes into season for the next litter this year. Take care of yourselves until then.
All pups are spoken for, feel free to email bluestemkennels@gmail.com about future litters.
I felt comfortable enough with my veterinary support team in Bellevue, Nebraska to take Briar back with us to visit our adult children. The Christmas visit had been planned for a long time, but Charles left Duke and Briar together in the dog box in North Dakota in October, we confirmed a pregnancy right after Thanksgiving, so we nearly cancelled. I’ve whelped far more litters in Bellevue and have made sure to breed a line that whelps naturally without complications.
I’d had her set up sleeping next to me on a blanket in the AirBnB, but the night of the 26th she was restless and digging at the carpet under the nightstand. There was a mudroom adjacent to the outside door and it was open to the living room so that I could just set up an ex-pen to keep her from running the house tearing stuff up while she was whelping. I took up residence on the living room couch and heard the first pup arrive around 11:30 PM Central/12:30 PM Eastern (that is why their birthday is on the 27th, since that is when most of them were born, and even the first two were after midnight Eastern).
Even though the sandbox was there, she had dragged a blanket out on to the floor and was whelping on the blanket on the floor. After the second pup was born, I lifted Briar off of the floor and into the plastic sandbox with a different blanket to keep the mess contained. I didn’t have to take any sacs off of the puppies, she did it all herself and had the five pups by 1:30 AM Central/2:30 PM Eastern. Four boys and one girl, all healthy and nice with no stillborns.
We drove straight from Bellevue to home in Clover, South Carolina in one 18 hour shot. The sandbox fit perfectly in the back of my Toyota Sequoia and we kept the heat cranked up. The trip home was uneventful, we just had to make sure that Briar was walked away from the dog polluted gas stations and truck stops for fear of tracking disease in to the nest. We got the kennel set up in the basement the next day.
They are growing like weeds and all seem healthy at one week old yesterday. I have matched the puppies with their owners and the one immediate alternate knows who they are. If you are farther down the list, I’ll be in touch soon and let you know what it looks like for Sally and Obi’s litter later in the spring/summer (or if anyone drops out of this litter).
Here are their one week photos:
V Litter One Week Old
I don’t take individual photos, take videos or assign them names until they are two weeks old. This is because of potential mortality during early life, which is totally normal for breeders. These all appear healthy and strong. I will be back next Saturday to let you all know how they are doing!
For those who have emailed me in the past week, I will be sure to get back with you tomorrow, I’ve been busy matching up owners for these little ones and with the holidays. I hope that it was merry and bright for you all!
The puppies of the “U” Litter have all gone to their new homes. Due to a last minute business trip for one of the new owners, the last one flew away to Texas as a carry-on item yesterday. I will be working through my list that I have for Spring 2025 over the coming weeks to see if folks want to stay on or have made other decisions. Also, if you have emailed with new interest in the last few days, I see you and will get back to you before Friday.
A quick aside and a shameless promotion of the 2024 American Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Association National Specialty, I present you with this infographic covering our schedule at a glance. You can find the detailed version on the club website at: https://www.awpga.com/2024-natl-specialty-schedule.html
The only event that is AWPGA members-only is the Morning Annual Meeting, all other events are open to non-members. The AKC Hunt Tests on Monday are Wirehaired Pointing Griffon only. I am not doing this alone, there are many members behind the scenes helping to prepare, but covering that and thanking them are not within the scope of this post. If you are looking to see Griffons and network with the community, plan on taking this great opportunity to do so. I will post ticketing information as it becomes available.
Back to puppies! The eight plus weeks that go into raising a litter involve a lot of interrupted sleep and manual labor. By the time puppy pickups happen, I’m pretty drained from the process and mourning that separation process a little. I am bad about catching all of the family members’ names and the new names of the puppies. But I do know that they all went to fantastic families where they will be loved and cared for.
Wes and Caroline will work on waterfowl with Ulysses in AlabamaUnity will have three young boys to play with in North Carolina (the other two were in school).Gaines and his daughter will work with Ursula also in AlabamaRyan and his family will be doing NAVHDA in Pennsylvania with Uschi and his father-in-law, who also has a Bluestem pup.Colin with be hanging with Unique down on the South Carolina coast.This is John and BJ’s second Bluestem pup, taking Uriah with them back to Tennessee.Zach will be training Upman with NAVHDA in Kentucky.Uma flew with Saxon yesterday to Texas.
So that’s a wrap on the “U” Litter! Charles is busy getting Obi ready for Invitational this fall. I need to finish Briar’s AKC Junior Hunter (I have commitments on the weekends for the rest of the month, then testing shuts down until September). Ruth has her spay appointment on Thursday, then I nurse her back so that she can join her mom, Fire, traveling between Minnesota and Arizona with our friend, Ron. I’ll be sure to keep everyone up-to-date on our adventures over the summer, although it won’t be as frequent as hunting season or when we have puppies. You know where I am in the meantime, shoot me an email at bluestemkennels@gmail.com if you need to talk Griffons (I do talk on the phone, I just use my email as my robocaller screening tool).
My time with these little ones is coming to a close soon, we go to the veterinarian for final checks, shots and microchips on Thursday, then they start to go home on their eight week birthday on Monday. I’m only doing spring litters at this point, so my next litter won’t be until 2025. Feel free to reach out to bluestemkennels@gmail.com if you are thinking about getting on a list for that time. There are several people who already have deposits down, but things always change with us since the deposits are fully refundable. We pride ourselves in being reputable breeders of Wirehaired Pointing Griffons; you can see the health clearances, hunt titles and pedigrees of our dogs on the “About Our Dogs” page.
They’ve all done really well with cap gun fire exposure, I call them to meals by banging on a metal bucket with a rod, so loud noises have a positive meaning for them. As long as their new owners focus on working with bird contact excitement while exposing them to things such as starter pistols and eventually shotgun fire, they won’t have problems with gunfire conditioning. I still like Richard Wolters Gun Dog as an easy place to start with puppies in book form. Of course, once your puppy is fully vaccinated you should take him or her to their first NAVHDA training day for advice too! Griffons don’t do very well with being sent away for training since they are so attached to their people, so if you decide to work with a professional, have them work with both you and the dog together.
Their favorite toys are rope bones and hard rubber balls. They eat Diamond Puppy food twice per day, about 3/4 cup per pup each feeding. They are all used to wearing collars and have been exposed to walking on a leash briefly (if owners want to pick out and bring their own collars, they are wearing the small 8-12 inch size). They naturally tug and resist the leash at first, as you can see here in this photo:
They’ll get their first crate exposure later on this week as well. I recommend puppy families put the crate next to their bed and start nighttime crate training right away. I will take them out at night when they wake up for the first week or so and as needed to avoid accidents. After a week or two they usually sleep through the night as long as they are getting plenty of exercise during the day.
I’ve been walking them twice per day around the farm, for about an hour of exercise per day. It makes it so that they are calm in the kennel. I do not work on them with housebreaking, but if you take them out once an hour or so, then every time they wake up from a nap, they will naturally learn to hold it until they go out. Just give them a firm “no” when you catch them starting to piddle and don’t give them too much room to roam where you can’t see them. I use lots of baby gates to keep a pup in the room with me when I am housebreaking. If you don’t have time to watch them, they need to be crated.
Okay, so here are the photos from the live and dead bird exposure. The set up I use is to take them out of the kennel, walk them to the live chukar in a cage on a leash, after they check out the live bird I pick them up and praise them on the way to the ex-pen where the dead quail on a string sits. I keep the interactions fun, low pressure and positive. I don’t make them pick up the dead quail, I let them just sniff it or pull feathers off if they want to. So these are the last photos of the litter before they go home to their families!
Females
Unique
Unity
Ursula
Uma
Uschi
Males:
Ulysses
Uriah
Upman
And here’s the last video for this litter:
Next time you’ll hear from us will be with the puppies homegoing photos! Enjoy spring until then!
Time is getting shorter and shorter with this bunch. For those of you who check in with my often, you all know that my litters are spoken for well before they are bred. For those of you who are new to my blog and are looking for a puppy in the future, feel free to reach out to me at bluestemkennels@gmail.com. It is taking me a few days to get back with folks since I am so busy with not only these six week old puppies, but I just trained the new editor of the AWPGA magazine the Griffonnier, and I’m working on more preparations for the 2024 National Specialty in North Carolina in November. Whew!!
I needed a new headshot with the puppies, so here I am (from a week and a half ago, the pups are smaller here than they are now):
Spring in the Carolinas with puppies and pear blossoms (and sun in my eyes!)
And here is Charles from his latest NAVHDA Utility Test run with Cedar & Spruce’s Apollo NA III, UT III “Duke”. They hit prize three in both runs this spring with the Foothills and Carolinas NAVHDA chapters after Duke just turned two. The duck search is so hard, but we’ll take some passes to start.
A cool morning in the Carolinas is great for NAVHDA Utility Test field work.
April 2nd was the 14th birthday of my “A” litter. Thank you to Winston’s owner Nancy for posting about it (I have a spreadsheet with litter whelp dates, but I’m terrible with birthday wishes for humans even). Winston is the last one alive who I am still in touch with. Whiskey in Nevada passed at 13.5 in January and Gauge in Nebraska passed not too long before that at 13. Their mom “Sue” lived to be 17, so I am not surprised.
Happy 14th birthday Bluestem “A” Litter Winston in Colorado!!
Of course, here is what everyone has been waiting for: puppies! I should have posted this yesterday, but the eclipse threw my whole groove off. I probably spent at least and hour looking through my eclipse glasses at it, since North America won’t see another one for 20 years.
Here’s this week’s video, good thing I got the footage yesterday because it is raining today.
It’s taking me a few days to respond to emails, but if you’re patient and want to talk Griffs, feel free to email me at bluestemkennels@gmail.com and I’ll get back with you as soon as I can. These puppies are all spoken for.
I can tell that I’ve been running on a really low battery, looking back on some of my previous weeks’ photos. It looks to me that last week, I double shot the same girl pup under two different names! Now that we have collars on them it will be so much easier to tell them apart. We even noticed after we shot this week’s video that we had two girls with red collars and fixed that right up, so I’ll be extra sure not to get confused. This is really when I start looking at who belongs to which family.
The “breeder pick” process is pretty common in Wirehaired Pointing Griffons, where we are getting interest from all over the country well in advance. We basically interview our families and evaluate our puppies to see who will be the best fit together. There’s no time for folks to come over and pick out the puppies themselves, so we handle it for them.
Here’s this week’s video:
Here are their individual photos.
Females:
Unique (black collar, had red in video)
Unique, female, faceUnique, female, body
Unity (green collar)
Unity, female, faceUnity, female, body
Ursula (blue collar)
Ursula, female, faceUrsula, female, body
Uma (light pink collar)
Uma, face, femaleUma, female, body
Uschi (red collar)
Uschi, female, faceUschi, female, body
Males
Ulysses
Ulysses, male, faceUlysses, male, body
Uriah
Uriah, male, faceUriah, male, body
Upman
Upman, male, faceUpman, male, body
These are really just the shots that I caught them in that moment. They are all up to pretty much the same things, they are really tough to get in action! They are eating only kibble now and running around the yard twice a day while I clean out their kennel. I need to start the deworming process and make their appointment for first shots and microchips.
I always enjoy this phase with the puppies, where they are big and rambunctious. They’ll start ranging farther away from the kennel and I can start bringing out the pheasant wings and things to play with. It is getting late and people and pets need attention, so I’ll wrap it up for now. Catch up with you next week.
We are half way through the early puppyhood journey of the “U” Litter prior to their departure to their new families. I am going to be honest, I am struggling with my email traffic right now. Normally I can turn around responses in 24 hours, but between keeping in touch with these new families, trying to stay on top of my breed parent club responsibilities and responding to new contacts, it is taking me a few days to get back to folks via email. So if you are patient with me and want to talk Griffs at some point in the future, feel free to shoot me an email at bluestemkennels@gmail.com.
Here is this week’s video. It was shot in the twilight of a long day of getting the kennel and the puppies moved outside, then cleaning up the whole mess inside. So the puppies are acting in this video how I feel!
I feed them canned food twice per day, but now that they are outside and around kibble, that transition to kibble-only just happens naturally. They will also nurse when Sally lets them. Now that they are outside with more space, they will get stronger and more sure on their feet. They will go from hardly being comfortable outside of the dog house to wanting to bust out of the kennel as much as possible within the next week.
Here are their individual pictures. Once again, they were done at the end of a long day, so some of their poses are awkward and less than ideal.
Females:
Unique
Unique, female, faceUnique, female, backUnique, female, side
Unity
Unity, female, faceUnity, female, backUnity, female, side
Ursula
Ursula, female, faceUrsula, female, backUrsula, female, side
Uma
Uma, female, faceUma, female, backUma, female, side
Uschi
Uschi, female, faceUschi, female, backUschi, female, back
Males
Ulysses
Ulysses, male, faceUlysses, male, backUlysses, male, side
Uriah
Uriah, male, faceUriah, male, backUriah, male, side
Upman
Upman, male, faceUpman, male, backUpman, male, side
Well that is all of the puppy news for this week. On Saturday, Duke earned his NAVHDA Utility Prize III at the Carolinas Chapter test with Charles as handler. I don’t know if anyone got any photos, but we don’t have any as of yet. It isn’t a bad prize for a dog who just turned two. They will have another go at it at the end of April.
I’ll be back here next week with another update. Take care until then.
All of these cute little ones have homes and it takes me a few days to respond to emails these days, but if you want to reach out, I’m at bluestemkennels@gmail.com.
Here’s this week’s video. It was a little cool for outside today, so we are inside in the whelping box.
They started food today with much fanfare and excitement. I didn’t want to try and get them started on food and run the video camera at the same time, so you just get a still photo of that. All I do is take canned puppy food and mix it with prepared puppy milk replacer to make a soft puppy mush. If there were a larger litter or some puppies who were small, I may have started them on food sooner, but where they were getting plenty fat from mom I didn’t feel the need to rush this year.
The “U” Litter with some puppy mush
It was really warm earlier this week, like 80 degrees, so they got to go outside on the lawn one day. They squirm around and get back into a pile at this point, not a really big excitement.
“U” Litter puppies squirming on the lawnThey made it back into their puppy pile in the sun
Here are there individual photos. There still really isn’t a lot going on personality wise, they are just busy being puppies. They will move into the outdoor kennel on the back patio a week from today so that they quit stinking up my basement and get lots of fresh air and room to run around.
Females:
Unique
Female, Unique, faceFemale, Unique, back
Unity
Female, Unity, faceFemale, Unity, back
Ursula:
Female, Ursula, faceFemale, Ursula, back
Uma:
Female, Uma, faceFemale, Uma, back
Uschi:
Female, Uschi, faceFemale, Uschi, back
Males
Male, Ulysses, faceMale, Ulysses, back
Uriah:
Male, Uriah, faceMale, Uriah, back
Upman:
Male, Upman, faceMale, Upman, back
Charles and Duke run in the NAVHDA Utility Test at the Carolinas Chapter this weekend and I’m hoping the best for them. The duck search is always such a pain, we’ll see where it all comes out. I’ll check back in with you all next week.
All of these puppies have homes, but if you’d like to talk about the future here, feel free to email me at bluestemkennels@gmail.com.
Here’s the two week old video, not very exciting just yet!
They are all fat and happy
Puppies getting attention from our son Caleb and his friend.
All of their eyes are open and they are starting to get up and walk. There are five females and three males for a total of eight puppies for Sally and Obi. Here they are:
Females
Unique:
Unique, female, faceUnique, female, back
Unity:
Unity, female, faceUnity, female, back
Ursula:
Ursula, female, faceUrsula, female, back
Uma:
Uma, female, faceUma, female, back
Uschi:
Uschi, female, faceUschi, female, back
Males:
Ulysses:
Ulysses, male, faceUlysses, male, back
Uriah:
Uriah, male, faceUriah, male, back
Upman:
Upman, male, faceUpman, male, back
As you can see, they are pretty floppy looking at this point. They will liven up as they get older. One more shot of them all together and then I’m going to sign off for the night and hope that I can get the video posted in the morning.
Both Ruth and Sally were bred during the days surrounding Christmas, with Ruth and Duke having their first tie on the 22nd and their last on the 26th, then Sally and Obi having their first tie on the 26th, then two on the 27th. Ruth and Duke had four ties, one each day for four of the days and taking one day off in that span, Sally and Obi were three ties in two days and done. So puppies should be whelped at the end of February/beginning of March and go home at the end of April/beginning of May.
As my reservations list is pretty long, anyone who is expressing interest at this point should be comfortable with waiting until Spring 2025 in the event that I do not have enough puppies to satisfy all of my reservations this year. Feel free to email bluestemkennels@gmail.com and we can exchange phone numbers from there to talk. All of the health clearances, pedigrees, etc. can be found on the “About Our Dogs” page, with the button up above. I am still compiling our recent hunting photos on the “Hunting Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Photos” page, but you can go back through the last couple of years of hunts (and more) from the Archives dropdown menu over to the right. I spend so much time between taking care of dogs, having contacts with folks through email, and blogging that my static pages get a little neglected.
I am in the process of going through my reservation list to make sure that the folks who are on it are ready to take a pup this year in the event that I have one available. If you are farther down the list, it may take a little bit as I am giving folks a chance to contact me back in order. I have had a few switch to next year already, and since my deposits are fully refundable up until the puppy is three weeks old there could still be more changes as folks have life situations arise between now and then.
Ruth, Sally and I will visit the vet at the end of the month just to confirm pregnancy, not to count puppies. From there we will wait to see what is whelped and makes it through the first couple of weeks. I usually have a good idea within the first 48 hours what my final count will be, but sometimes in a really large litter there can be a pup or two who fails to thrive in the first couple of weeks. As I have a health guarantee, it does me no good to send weak or defective puppies home to folks, so I let the mom and Mother Nature drive a lot of what happens early on. By two weeks of age, I feel like I have pups who will live long and healthy lives.
In hunting news, things have been a little slow in the woodcock fields of South Carolina lately. Caleb did get his first shot off on a woodcock a couple of weeks ago but it didn’t connect. He and Charles are only seeing singles here and there, no flights as of yet. We’re seeing some folks in states north of us having great success.
I decided to take my camera out yesterday on our near-daily walk down the power line cut next to our house. We were able to survey the flood damage to the creeks. Our yard and home were spared from harm, just a few small gullies in the gravel driveway and side yard with some branches and buckets blown around.
I tried to get shots of everyone, but some are better than others. Sally got one kind of boring picture and then I forgot to get any more of her alone.
Sally sniffingRuth coming out of the brushObi running towards me with Briar off in the distanceObi off in the brushBriar on a full runBriar in the grassDuke jumping around the creekDuke trotting aroundFive dogs is a dog pack: Sally, Ruth, Briar, Obi and Duke
Having a dog kennel is a lot of work. Not only are we training and keeping healthy a bunch of dogs, there is a plenty of human interaction online and over the phone, then additionally there’s our volunteer work with the dog registries and clubs who help us preserve our breed. It is much more of a lifestyle than a hobby or business.
So the next you’ll hear from me here is towards the end of the month with our pregnancy confirmation ultrasound results and any other hunting news that we have. Good luck to those winding down their late season hunting and also everyone who is gearing up for spring hunt testing and puppies. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for healthy pregnancies.
Bluestem Kennels 