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.
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.
Please email bluestemkennels@gmail.com to inquire about future litters.
Yesterday Caleb and I took Ruth down to York Vet for a pregnancy confirmation ultrasound. At 44 days it was about 10 days too early to do a puppy count x-ray. Since the possibility exists that some of the skeletons showing are not viable puppies, I don’t do puppy count ultrasounds or x-rays. I just do an ultrasound to confirm a pregnancy and that there are enough puppies en utero to trigger a natural whelping. In the event of a one or two puppy pregnancy (which thank the Lord I have not encountered) the puppies don’t generate enough of the hormone that makes labor start, so folks have to c-section those pregnancies.
Ruth with a vet tech and Dr. Ashley Goforth of York Vet doing the ultrasound yesterday.
My biggest preoccupation with Ruth right now is balancing outside time and staying cool in this heat wave. I let her out to run morning and midday, then bring her inside early and late afternoon. She is still comfortably fitting in her crate at night, but the indoor kennel is set up for when she needs to move over to sleep in there in a week or so. We are also feeding her extra midday, focusing on things like meat, bones and vegetables to give extra puppy development nutrition. Now we just wait the two to three weeks for the little ones to arrive!
Ruth taking a nap and keeping cool in the house a couple of afternoons ago
Keep on Trainin’!
Last weekend we found a great pond to work with Obi on blind retrieve for NAVHDA Invitational. The blind retrieve skill is where the dog is sent, does not do a duck search and goes directly to the far end of the pond, retrieves the duck, then swims back to the handler on the other side of the pond. Charles says that the Invitational pond is around 100 yards across one direction, the one that we were practicing on was right at 125 yards.
Typical for when you are starting off on a skill, the dog needs commands to complete the task. On the side of the pond where the duck is placed in plain view (in a gap in the vegetation), someone hides in the shrubbery to briefly call the dog in the event that the dog gets confused about what is going on and turns back towards the handler. The first time we did it, Obi needed two re-directions, the second time he only needed one, the third time he did it with no commands. After three back-and-forths across the pond the dog had swam 750 yards, so that was enough for one day. Plus the oppressive Southern afternoon heat was creeping up on us!
I’m going to once again put the training photos in a gallery, if you want to see enlarged versions you just click on the first photo then page to the right with the arrow to the see the remaining photos.
Obi swimming to the bank for the duckObi picking up the duckObi swimming with the duck to CharlesObi bringing the duck to the bank to CharlesObi’s second swim across with a duckObi’s third pond swim coming to CharlesObi’s third water retrieveObi closing in with the duck in mouthObi retrieving to handObi looking at Charles after his third retrieve
Tomorrow Charles, Caleb and the dogs will be up to Rimrock Preserve in Statesville, NC at the Foothills NAVHDA training day. It sounds as if there will be other Griffs and owners there too if anyone wants to pop in and observe. My gang usually doesn’t get a bunch of training done on those days, with Charles helping other handlers and dogs on their skills quite a bit.
Health Testing Updateand Breeding Thoughts
All of my dogs are seen by a vet at least twice a year, actively breeding females usually three or more. In the past, I’ve only done OFA Hip or PennHIP x-rays. I’m in the process of getting my three younger dogs through OFA CHIC certification, in the long form that is the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals Canine Health Information Center. For the Wirehaired Pointing Griffon breed, the screenings needed for CHIC are: hips, OFA elbows, ACVO Eye Exam and an Autoimmune thyroiditis blood panel from an approved veterinary laboratory. Keep in mind that these are simply certifications of clear health that we already know exists through close veterinary observation. I will post the results to the blog as they come in (everyone but Sally already has hips, Sally is x-rayed hips and elbows in a couple of weeks) and update my About Our Dogs page as well.
Some points of clarification about health testing in general. The health tests for OFA CHIC do not cover all of the genetic problems known in the breed. You need to trust your breeder to be educated about other issues, to know how to watch out for them, and to be honest with their breeding to exclude dogs exhibiting them. I do that. Making a laundry list of the problems in our breed is not within the scope of this blog post, maybe another day. Additionally, health testing an individual dog does not certify a clear pedigree. Puppies have been bred with hip dysplasia (not by me) that have had generations of clear ancestors. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants and trusting that those who have gone before us have made sound breeding decisions.
Breeding is a passion project for us. Working to recover what Korthals intended for the breed and creating a healthy hunting dog with family member temperament is for our purposes as well as spreading the joy to others. We will be keeping a pup out of this litter and keeping one in the spring as well.
It’s strange when a hobby takes over your life. Nineteen years of owning and hunting with Wirehaired Pointing Griffons and thirteen years of breeding them. This will be my twentieth litter whelping soon, all natural breedings (no artifical insemination) and natural whelping (no c-sections). Charles and Obi are heading to our Super Bowl of hunt training, the NAVHDA Invitational, in September. It has been a grand adventure and I pray that we can keep it going.
Conclusion
This is a deadly heat wave, keep the dogs cool! If they are outside, make sure that they have access to shade and water. Exercise them early in the morning. Keep them brushed out so that their fur isn’t holding in heat. Make sure that they have access to open water or a pool after exercise. Know the signs of heat stroke in dogs and how to save them if they start to stroke out (oops, there’s another article). Everyone stay cool, hydrated and safe now. Keep us in your prayers. Talk at ya later.
Bluestem Kennels 