Hunting Dogs | Bluestem Kennels

Hunting season slowing down and puppy season upon us

December 17, 2013

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update, Puppy Update, Uncategorized Bird Hunting, Hunting Colorado, Hunting Dogs, Hunting Nebraska, Hunting North Dakota, Korthals Griffon, Nebraska Pheasant Hunting, Puppies, Quebec City, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Leave a comment

With all of the holiday and end-of-year activity, Charles has only had a chance to get out hunting once on November 30th, for the first time since my birthday hunt. They did manage to bag a few birds and we all hope to get out for a few more before the season ends at the end of January.

Charles and Matt each bagged a rooster on November 30th

Breeding season is upon us! Sam and BB mated on Friday and Saturday, so we are looking at puppy whelping around Valentine’s Day (February 14) and homegoing in mid-April as long as everything goes as planned. I am checking Mae every few days and we are getting closer, pro-estrous (bleeding) could be any day now, or it could be a few weeks out. Having some space between the two litters is a good thing! We are also waiting on Velma, but she has until mid-March to cycle within our cutoff time.

Right now I have 18 reservations for this breeding season and have already have a reservation for 2015. I am really flattered by all of the attention and positive feedback that we are getting on our puppies. We have so much fun raising them and love sending them to great families!

Speaking of our breeding program, our new male is just over 6 weeks old and looks like a fat little dude! Renee says that he is very active and inquisitive. We can’t wait to meet him. It sounds like his registered name might be Bourg-Royal FC Hector and we would call him “Tor”. A tor is a medieval pagan/early Christian holy hill in England. Here he is with his littermates

Tor at 6 weeks up at the very top of this photo on the left

Cordelia and I will be flying up to Quebec City on the Friday after Christmas and will bring him back on the Monday before New Year’s Eve. Of course, we will enjoy lots of great food, sightseeing and good friends while we are there.

Pupdate time. Roxy is from our 2011 “B” litter from Sam/Sue and lives out in Utah with Randy and Pam. Sounds like Roxy and Randy had a great time in North Dakota. Randy said:

Wanted to send a few photo’s of the results in North Dakota this year with some of my buddies. Bird counts were a little over the limit with what the picture shows but it took more people to run the cameras so they couldn’t all be in the picture. Over all another excellent trip in the Dakota’s even though the bird numbers were down.

Roxy done an amazing job and has lived up to everything an owner could ever expect. Again,,thanks for the ability for me to experience life like this with her by giving me the opportunity to get her as a pup from you. Griffs forever.

Randy and Roxy on the left

Another great day for Roxy and Randy in ND with the gang

Frankie from our Sam/Mae 2012 “C” litter is having a great life out in Colorado too. Her owner Mike said:

Frankie had a great year last year with several good wild hunts and a LOT of preserve training (82 successful points last year ). Not as many preserve hunts preseason but my oldest helped me gear her up a few times with some planted chukar. Opening day in Kansas we limited out. And we took a Wednesday last week into eastern Colorado. Very few birds and It took all day but me and a buddy both got our birds. Fetching is really coming in this year, was sketchy last year.

She is doing great, just thought I would say hi.

Mike and 20 month old Frankie with CO roosters

18-month old Abby is from our Sam/Sue 2012 “D” litter and lives with Rob down in Western Illinois. Rob said:

Abby was wonderfully today. Took her by herself for a few hours today trying to get more range. She was stretching out farther and covering ground methodically leaving nothing untouched. She worked for over an hour with no bird contact. Then she got birdie and tracked for about 150 yards. Then stopped on a dime. I was not sure she had it the it erupted from the switch grass a rooster. One shot later it was in her mouth and on its way back to my hand. She dropped it out about twenty yards and started tracking and up came number two. Hit it but not real hard she was on it and caught up to it. Two roosters in less than five minutes. She was great.

Thanks

Rob, 18 mo old Abby and roosters

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and most prosperous New Year! I will be sure to post a report when I get back from Canada with Tor and hopefully we’ll have some breeding news on Mae too. Sorry, I don’t get the dogs dressed up in elf garb or make them sit in front of the Christmas tree. May your days be filled with family, friends and some late season hunting too!

Mid-season hunting update

November 20, 2013

Charity Upchurch Hunting Tales, Kennel Update, Puppy Update, Uncategorized Bird Hunting, Dog Training, Gun Dog, Hunting Dogs, Hunting Nebraska, Hunting North Dakota, Korthals Griffon, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska Pheasant Hunting, Nebraska Sandhills, Puppies, Quebec, Southeastern Nebraska, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Leave a comment

I think I’ll start off on telling you all what is happening with this blog. It is blowing up on me a bit. Right now I’m getting between 60-100 individual viewers everyday, each reading between 5-10 items. If you search anything online about Wirehaired Pointing Griffons and hunting, we are the top kennel name that pops up. I’m getting phone calls and e-mails every day about puppies, which is great! But if you have to leave a voice mail, get me on the phone and I sound stressed and frazzled, or send me an e-mail and it takes me a week to respond, please try to understand. We are not a big farm with lots of kennel hands or anything. We are just a busy family that loves hunting with our dogs, which takes us on the road this time of year quite a bit too. I respond to everyone.

If I had to wager, I would bet that my females are getting ready to cycle in December. They are both showing about the same amounts of changes and Sam’s interest is high in both of them. Mae might be a little ahead of BB. So, I’m thinking that they’ll have puppies in February that go home in April. But it is Mother Nature after all, so we’ll just wait and see.

My birthday was on November 9th, so we went and chased some birds. Charles got 2 pheasant and a quail. I missed the shots that I had. But it was fun to get out on a beautiful fall day anyway.

Birthday girl Charity, your loyal narrator

BB, Sam and Charles with my birthday presents

Last weekend, we took time away from bird hunting for Charles to go after his annual mule deer in the Nebraska Sandhills. I was able to stay back in town and visit my family. He took this bad boy opening morning. It is a tie with his muley from 1999 for personal best deer antler rack.

Charles’s mule deer buck and rifle out on the prairie

Up close with Charles and his deer

I’ve been all amped up about trying to shoot a goose. There is a pond along the Platte River that I have access to and I went out to it for a couple of hours the day before yesterday. Saw lots of geese on an adjacent pond that is property of the gravel mine, so I’m hoping that if I get in some morning in the dark and set up, I might be able to get them flying into the mining pond. But we’ll see, it is a work in progress.

Charles will take the weekend off from pheasants due to it being the last weekend of rifle deer season. We don’t want one of the dogs to get shot on accident.

I am also getting ready to go to Quebec the weekend between Christmas and New Years Eve (God willing!). The puppies are three weeks old now and have their eyes open. I’m not sure which one of these three is mine, but I plan on calling up there tonight and I’ll find out. Renee and Gilbert have very busy jobs on top of having way more dogs than I do, so I completely understand.

Cristal and Fortis puppies at 3 weeks old.

I am so thankful for all of my owners who take such great pictures and write such nice e-mails to keep us up to date our our pups. 8 month old “Ed” is out of Sue and Sam’s 2013 “E” Litter. Here is what owner, Bob, had to say about their trip to North Dakota:

We had a great hunt in North Dakota this year. We had 5 hunters and got our limits 2 of the 3 days we hunted. It rained all day on our second day so the hunting was pretty short. Ed figured out the game and has picked up the art of pointing just like I hoped he would. He also has shown his desire to retrieve with no hesitation. Very successful first North Dakota hunt for Ed! It is awesome what a good dog can do. And at only 8 months old is unbelievable!

Bob and Ed had a great time in ND!

Ed’s stack of ND pheasants

And as always, year and a half old TracHer, from Sam and Mae’s “C” Litter is having a great time living in North Dakota! Susan and Tom are so generous to share their photos with us. On this day, Susan got the first bird of the day, but missed for the rest of the day (I know that feeling!!), but Tom got his limit.

Here comes TracHer with a pheasant!

TracHer retrieving another pheasant

TracHer is excited about the bird that she brought to Tom

Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be thankful for! Hopefully we’ll get out to chase some pheasants around then. Take care.

North Dakota Trip, AWPGA Nationals, Nebraska Pheasants and other news…

November 6, 2013

Charity Upchurch Hunting Tales, Kennel Update, Puppy Update, Uncategorized AKC Hunt Tests, Bird Hunting, Dog Training, Duck Hunting, Ducks, grouse hunting, Hunting Dogs, Hunting Nebraska, Hunting Nevada, Hunting North Dakota, Korthals Griffon, NAVHDA, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska Pheasant Hunting, North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association, Pheasant Hunting, Pheasants Forever, Puppies, Quail, Sharp-tailed Grouse Hunting, Southeastern Nebraska, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon 2 Comments

When you go three weeks without blogging, stuff piles up, so I apologize if this seems a bit like a random barrage. What most people come to my website for is to find out about new litters, so I suppose I will start there. Mae is starting to have changes and Sam wants to be in the kennel with her, so by the looks of things we will have a breeding between them within the next month. So, let’s project that they breed at the beginning of December; that would have puppies being whelped at the beginning of February and going home at the beginning of April. This is all just my somewhat educated guesstimation and by no means guaranteed. Mae is 6, so I suspect that she will have a litter around the same size as last year, which was 4. BB (who lives with us) and Velma (who lives with a friend) are set to have their first litters this year. They should come into season anytime between now and April. I will not breed after late March because any pups after that would interfere with being able to take a summer vacation before school starts for the kids and hunting season starts for us. Right now I have 12 reservations with deposit and other folks trying to decide. I could have anywhere from 12-30 pups if all goes as I plan, but it isn’t up to me.

October 19-24 Charles, BB and Sam met up with Lou, Murph and Midge in North Dakota for a pheasant/duck hunt combo. Also along was deer camp friend, Ozzie, and Lou’s father, Lew (AKA Lou Senior or Old Lou). They saw some stuff. They shot at some stuff. They stayed in a cabin and cooked on a Coleman stove. I’ll spare you the second-hand details and get down to the bird totals and photos.

Saturday, October 19, 2013: Charles and Young Lou got 3 sharp-tailed grouse.

Sam brings in the sharpie retrive with BB on backup. Photo courtesy of Oscar Hollenbeck

Sam brings in the sharpie retrieve with BB on backup. Photo courtesy of Oscar Hollenbeck

Sam bringing the sharpie into Charles. Photo courtesy of Oscar Hollenbeck

Young Lou, Murf, Sam, BB, Midge, Old Lou, Charles and the sharpie. Photo courtesy of Oscar Hollenbeck

The day’s stringer of sharpies back at camp. Photo by Charles

Sunday, October 20, 2013 – skunked

Monday, October 21, 2013: Charles got 2 roosters

Charles and the first pheasant of the trip. Photo courtesy of Oscar Hollenbeck

Tuesday, October 22, 2013: Charles got a rooster pheasant and a mallard hen late in the day.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013: Charles got one rooster

Thursday, October 24, 2013: Young Lou got two roosters (no photo available)

Random pic of Lou cooking since there is no pheasant pic. It snowed Saturday night, so this must be Sunday morning.

The trip was more about the memories and the time spent together than the bird totals anyway. I hope that the guys enjoyed themselves even without game bags overflowing.

The griffon masters

As Charles was driving home from North Dakota, Cordelia and I were on the road to the American Wirehaired Pointing Griffon National Specialty in Greeley, Colorado. We missed the fun hunt, specialty show and annual meeting, but managed to see the supported entry show on Saturday and go to the banquet. We also had an awesome sojourn into Boulder to shop and eat on Pearl St. and do some hiking in Boulder Canyon and at the Flatirons.

Cordelia and Charity in Colorado for AWPGA Nationals

It was great to catch up with some griffoniers and talk dog nerd talk freely. AWPGA National Specialty 2014 is on for Kennebunk and Union, Maine from August 25-31. In addition to the events held this year in Colorado, they’ve got the Korthals Cup back on and there will be AKC and NAVHDA hunt testing opportunities available (in place of the fun hunt), and an interesting grooming and handling seminar. I hope to make it out, but it is cutting it awfully close to the opening of dove and grouse Sept. 1. I encourage any and all griffon enthusiasts to join the AWPGA and attend a specialty, so much fun! Here are Susan Edginton’s photos of this year’s specialty dog show, if you want to check those out:

http://sedgintonphotos.photoreflect.com/store/ThumbPage.aspx?e=9111641&g=1ZZR001G02

Last weekend also had plenty of excitement! Charles and Matt went out on Saturday in search of rooster pheasants and actually found some! Nebraska Game and Parks planted 4000 pheasants this year on public land across Eastern Nebraska (finally). If you’ve read my blog during pheasant season over the past few years, you know how much I like to whine about the decline of pheasants in our part of the state and how much NGPC needed to stock. Well they have heard the desperate pleas of the hunters and “did us a solid” (as my kids would say). The Pheasants Forever Rooster Road Trip party took 17 pheasant out of Northeastern Nebraska in one day off of public land. We are very excited for this pheasant season in Eastern Nebraska, now that we know that we actually have a chance. Both Matt and Charles took their limits and Charles got a quail too. In total he said that they saw 20 pheasants and 50 quail.

Mid-day bag in Southeastern Nebraska

End of day bag. One of Matt’s roosters somehow got away.

By the time they pulled into the driveway, it was dark and the kids and I were in the middle of dinner, so no great photography went down. Sorry.

On the same day we found out that our new male was born!! He will be coming from Bourg-Royal Kennel in St. Lambert-de-Lauzon, Quebec, Canada, the same kennel as BB. Different parents, both French imports. We are very excited to bring him home around the first of the year!

Cristal and the 4 puppies: 1 male and 3 females

Announcement in the last Griffonnier with the parents’ credentials

And the blog post wouldn’t be complete without some pupdates. Here’s Midge (who went on the North Dakota trip), from Sam and Mae’s 2013 “F” litter with a big haul of pheasants from Montana. Charles said she is a hard charging little dog with a great coat and lots of prey drive.

Midge and Montana Pheasants

Midge’s older sister TracHer from Sam and Mae’s 2012 “C” litter has been having a great season up in North Dakota and is showing off all her skills. According to Susan, “Gorgeous day today….we limited out 50 miles from home. TracHer retrieved 4 of the six birds, one in water with cattails.”

18 month old TracHer on retrieve of a North Dakota rooster

TracHer on left with Tom, Susan with Zepher (griff unrelated to my dogs) and their friends, the week prior to the close-up photo

And one of my first dog babies, Whiskey from Sam and Sue’s “A” litter 2010, took his girl Andi out on her first duck hunt out in Nevada. They did so awesome and I love how much Whiskey is Sam Jr!

Andi, Whiskey and some ducks

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for right now. Charles and I are heading out on Saturday in hopes of some pheasants and ducks. We are still debating about where, but it will be pretty close to home. I’ll keep you posted. Until then, stay warm, winter is coming!

Duck Hunting the Atlas Blizzard, BB’s NAVHDA UT and more news…

October 14, 2013

Charity Upchurch Hunting Tales, Kennel Update, Puppy Update, Uncategorized Bird Hunting, Dog Training, Duck Hunting, Ducks, Heartland NAVHDA Chapter, Hunting Dogs, Hunting Nebraska, Hunting North Dakota, Korthals Griffon, Nebraska Sandhills, Puppies, Sioux Falls South Dakota, Snipe Hunt, Teal, Water Retrieve, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Leave a comment

Charles has been on the road during the week for his corporate job 3 weeks in a row now, then we’ve been traveling on the weekends for hunting, testing and training. I’m currently taking care of the 3 dogs and 3 kids, working as a substitute teacher in middle school and high school English, writing for Lion Country Supply and finishing my master’s degree in secondary education. So sometimes the wheels just come off the bus and not everything gets done as it should. I did manage to get my introductory blog post on to the Lion Country Supply site: http://blog.lcsupply.com/2013/09/postcards-from-the-great-plains-first-post/ It is different than writing for here, where I just sort of talk to you like I would if you were sitting here at my kitchen table with me.

But what did get done as it should was our duck hunt in the Nebraska Sandhills on opening day. It was extremely cold and windy, as we caught the southeastern corner of what is being called the Atlas Blizzard that devestated the cattle industry in southwestern South Dakota (I’ve been following on another blog: Just a Ranch Wife http://www.justaranchwife.com/). It definitely pushed the ducks south and right to us that day. We both got our limits by midday and it’s a good thing because I had cotton pants on that just got completely soaked by the flying snow and I was locking up with some pre-hypothermia symptoms. Our favorite method is jump hunting, so we were taking the action to the ducks. I managed to catch a duck double that I shot on GoPro video and I posted it on our YouTube channel:

And the final shot on the day. Let me tell you a bit about these end of the day shots. I have my camera on a tripod and use the 10 second timer to take these. I don’t look into the mirror before we take them. I line everyone else up, hit the timer, then run into the picture. I will never look like one of those cool, sexy huntresses in one of these pictures. Like this one, I look like I have a damn chef’s hat on.

Charity and Charles with BB on 2013 opener of duck season

The following day was completely blue sky and right when we get ready to hunt, I realize that my license must have fallen out of my pocket the day before. No hunting license, duck stamp or HIP number anywhere. So I just carried the camera instead (after a good cry, of course).

Charles and BB started Sunday with a wood dock drake

Charles and BB leave the wooded pond

The head of a wood duck drake is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature

Charles and BB back in the open looking for snipe

I call this one “Anticipation”. This is Sam having to let BB go as lead duck dog for the first time.

Charles and BB creep into a wet spot

Snipe way up in the air

Charles and BB also got a snipe on Sunday

A week later, BB received her NAVHDA Utility Prize III at the Heartland Chapter Fall Test in Thurman, Iowa. Although I had planned on attending and helping out with the test, my kids all caught colds and we just really needed to stay home and recouperate. We had considered pulling out of the test the weekend prior just because of having too much going on, but we had already paid our fee, so off Charles went. BB had a “no-pass” in Sioux Falls in August due to not doing the duck retrieve, so we have been focused on water work in both our training and hunting. She did what needed to get done with the duck search, steady by blind, and duck retrieve. She aced the track, as always. She was the last dog to run in the field and she was false pointing piles of feathers and breaking on the flush, which she hasn’t done in awhile. But we’ve been so focused on getting over the water hump that she hasn’t been on upland birds since hunting sharp-tailed grouse at the beginning of September. But we’ll take it! So BB is now officially Bourg-Royal’s CB Bluestem JH, NA I, UT III.

Our co-owned female, Velma (De Jac’s Zip A Dee Doo Dah NA I) who is the same age as BB, is now dual registered with the AKC and NAVHDA, which was the final step in preparing to hopefully breed her within the next few months, in addition to the females who live with us. I paid her a visit a month or so ago in order to take pictures that the AKC needed for registration.

Velma at 2.5 years

I had originally capped my reservations at 10 but there were more folks really wanting to get on the list, so it looks like I’m at 13 now after 3 verbal commitments yesterday and in the process of finalizing with deposit. As we are trying for 3 litters, I have high hopes that we will have enough puppies!

Speaking of puppies, we have our fingers crossed that Sam’s stud successor will be born around Halloween! He is coming from the same kennel that we acquired BB, Bourg-Royal Kennel in St. Lambert-de-Lauzon, Quebec, Canada. Should he be born and it isn’t a litter of all girls, he will be parented by two French imports: sire GCH Fortis des Sonnailles du Haut Davy FD NA I and dam Crystal D’O des Roches de Vouise.

Fortis on point. Photo by Amy Caswell

Crystal on point and posed. Photos by Claudette Blackburn

We are so very excited and hope that all goes well for human mom, Renee, mama Crystal and the babies!

Last but not least it is time for some pupdates. We got word from Kyle in Illinois within the last couple of weeks that Gomer got his NAVHDA Natural Ability Prize I with a perfect score of 112 points. I don’t have the name of the chapter, but will keep my eyes out for it in Versatile Hunting Dog magazine. He is from 2012 “D” Litter from Sam and Sue.

TracHer from 2012 “C” Litter from Sam and Mae took a limit of sharp-tailed grouse with owner, Susan, a week ago. TracHer and Susan live up in North Dakota. Susan said, “It is so rare that I hunt alone with just one dog, and very nice to go my own pace. TracHer did great. Ranged a bit, but would come back in. It is also rare that I get my limit!! TracHer found and retrieved to hand all 3 birds. ”

Susan and TracHer with a limit of sharp-tailed grouse.

TracHer’s sister (but not littermate), Midge, is from Sam and Mae’s 2013 “F” Litter and is really looking nice! I hear that she’s had some pheasants shot over her in Montana within the last couple of days.

Midge at 7 months old

Hearing lots of good reports from other owners as the season kicks off and I can’t wait to see the hunting pics!! Kyle from across town here said that he got Gomer’s brother Duke out on ducks, “I had the chance to get Duke out duck hunting a couple times this weekend. He did awesome. I didn’t get any pictures, but we got into the teal and wood ducks. ” Duke is also taking after his mama Sue, Kyle said, “I saw a while ago that you posted a picture of Sue with socks and toys in her mouth. That must be where Duke gets it from. We can’t keep socks in one place at our house, he finds every dirty pair and carries them around. Haha.” That really made me smile!

Oh this blog post has taken me way too long to write. Thank you owners for keeping me up-to-date with the pups!! What’s next for us? Saturday, Charles, BB and Sam leave for the big North Dakota trip. Charles will be focused mainly on guiding his old friend Ozzie from New York. A week from Friday, I leave for AWPGA National Specialty. If we can just make it through October, we’ll try to have a less insane November. But hunting season is only so long. And you only get so many hunting seasons in your life. So stay tuned for more craziness.

Missouri Early Teal

September 23, 2013

Charity Upchurch Hunting Tales, Kennel Update, Puppy Update Bird Hunting, Dog Training, Duck Hunting, Ducks, Gun Dog, Hunting Dogs, Hunting Missouri, Missouri Early Teal Season, Mound City Missouri, Pheasant Hunting, sora rail hunting, Teal, Water Retrieve, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Leave a comment

After work on Friday, Charles and I headed down to our friend Bill’s spot in Northwest Missouri to try our first shot at early teal. Although the reports were not good and the weather hadn’t really cooled down enough to move the big flocks, we figured it was worth a shot even as a scouting run for snow goose later in the season. All of the land surrounding Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge is privately held, so you either have to know someone who owns land, connect with a guide who leases land or belong to a duck club in order to hunt this area near Mound City, MO. We pulled into town around 7:30 and met up with Bill, who gave us some background information about the area. The most interesting thing for me was learning about the duck club culture, which is very similar to how a golf country club operates: a large (like $50k) startup membership fee, then a couple grand a year for dues. Many famous coaches and athletes are a part of the clubs that show up mostly for the bigger duck season and snow goose. Early teal is a slower season for the area, as there are just not that many folks coming in for a one-species hunt.

The cabin we rented was about 7 miles southwest of Mound City and only a couple of hundred yards from the 10 acre marsh and pond that we would be hunting. As we pulled into the driveway on Friday night, an opossum crossed in front of our vehicle. We knew it wouldn’t be long for the dogs to find it, but hoped that it would move on quickly so we wouldn’t have to deal with a dead critter. So much for that, because it wasn’t 15 minutes later that Sam showed up with it dead in his mouth. One less nest raider prowling in the night and good fur hunting practice for them.

BB on left and Sam with the opossum

Saturday morning, Bill, his son Cole, his friend Frank and Frank’s 14 year-old son Luke came out to the cabin and we all trudged out through the dense fog to the pond prior to shooting hours. Although we were 20 minutes before shooting hours started, we might have had a better chance had we gotten there earlier, as a flock circled our head a couple of times as we walked in. Bill went out into the decoys to turn on the mojos about 10 minutes prior to shooting time and a flock of 15 landed right behind him, then swam in front of him, getting spooked up when he returned to shore. Luke and Frank sat to the left of me at the top of the pit blind and Charles sat to the right, with Sam and BB on a lead. Bill and Cole sat behind us without guns. A pair of the teal came back and landed on Luke’s side, so right when shooting hours opened, his dad had him flush the ducks off of the water and took his shots. One of ducks clearly landed in front of us in the pond, the other appeared to fly off.

Fog in the bog

A flock of about 15 came in not long after and Bill called on us to shoot as they were about 4 feet from landing on the water. This was my first time on a pit blind hunt over decoys, so I was glad that he told us when to shoot because I didn’t know whether to let them land, then flush them up or shoot them on the way down. I squarely hit one of the ducks and fired a second shot into the flock. Luke and Frank also took shots, but Charles really didn’t have any clear shots at that point, so he abstained from firing. BB and Sam brought back the 2 ducks that we could see clearly in the water in front of us. We continued to sit, but as the sun rose and the distant shooting at the clubs to the north held steady for awhile, but then began to fade around 9 AM. We let the dogs loose to see if they could find anymore ducks and BB pointed one dead in the millet, then retrieved it. So that brought Frank and Luke’s total to 3 and I had 1. About 9:30 AM Luke and Frank decided to head back to Kansas City, while Charles and I were ready to try our hand at hunting the sora rails that we saw flitting around the swamp.

Luke, Frank, Charles and I with our teal

Charles and I weren’t quite sure how to approach the swamp and the sora rails at first. We walked around the edge of the swamp on the levee hoping that BB would wade out into the swamp looking for them. But she had never hunted sora before. We did get lucky and Charles shot one of the edge of the swamp, but BB really wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, so I waded out into the swamp to guide her. At that point, we just decided to wade around the mid-calf deep water between the millet strips and see what would happen. About 2 hours later, BB had become the sora master, both pointing and retrieving the tiny birds, about the size of a skinny robin. BB also found an additional teal that had been taken in the flock salvo in the morning, so since I was the only one who had shot at the teal out of the two of us, it went on my tag. Charles bagged 6 sora rails and I shot my first ever that afternoon. I think the first bird of a particular kind is always super exciting, so I had my first teal from the early season and my first sora in the same morning. We really had a blast on the sora hunt, as we had never waded through a swamp to hunt before.

Charles out walking the swamp for sora rails

Close-up of the sora rail harvest

Charles, BB and I with the harvest

Bill was really disappointed that we didn’t have the teal numbers to take limits both days. I think that is sort of the standard in that part of the world when it comes to waterfowl. He told the story of the record 1100 snow goose harvest by one hunting party in the conservation season (when there are no limits). That seems a bit wanton to us. We’ve been hunting long enough in various places to know that you don’t always know what you’re going to get, if anything. That’s why it is called hunting and not just killing. So we sat again Saturday night and saw one flock fly high over our heads, and again on Sunday morning, when we saw nothing. There wasn’t even much shooting coming out of the duck clubs Sunday morning, as the night had been warm and the morning was sunny. The ducks were sitting over on the refuge and had no reason to move.

We are excited to have made a connection down in Northwest Missouri and we look forward to returning for big ducks and snow geese!

Pupdate

TracHer had a great time at summer hunting dog camp in Wisconsin! She is around a year and a half old and is from Sam and Mae’s “C” litter 2012, TracHer is back home in North Dakota now and getting ready for hunting season!

TracHer working out in front of her trainer

TracHer holding steady after the flush

Bringing back the big retrieve.

Doing great on her water work too!

Thank you Susan for sharing the terrific photos!!

We have opening of Nebraska High Plains ducks the weekend after next, then a couple of weeks later Charles will be guiding some old friends from New York on ducks and pheasants up in North Dakota. BB’s breeders, Renee Fortier and Gilbert Tremblay, are coming all the way from Quebec to Lincoln for German Wirehaired Pointer nationals next week, so I will head down and visit them on Thursday. Somewhere in between high plains duck and the North Dakota trip is BB’s second shot at the UT test. At the end of October, the same day Charles returns from North Dakota, I leave for AWPGA nationals in Colorado. So we’ve got lots of dog excitement coming up and I’ll sure to keep you posted. Best of luck in the field to all of my fellow hunters out there!!

Pupdates and Hunting Season in 2 days!

August 30, 2013

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update Bird Hunting, Dove hunting, Gun Dog, Hunting Dogs, Korthals Griffon, Nebraska Sandhills, Prairie Chicken Hunting, Puppies, Sharptail Grouse Hunting, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon 1 Comment

I’m supposed to be packing for the annual trip to the Sandhills for the September 1st dove and grouse opener since we’re leaving tonight, but I just had to get these pictures out before I got too distracted by hunting season!

This is Zoey, she is 6 months old and is out of Sue and Sam’s last litter that was born early this year. Jimmy has been doing great work with her down in Oklahoma and is shown here perfecting her water retrieve. Rumor has it that she’s going off to waterfowl school, but she’s definitely got the basics down!

Zoey water retrieve at 6 months

Another shot of Zoey retrieving a dummy

Zoey also looks cute just laying around the house…

Zoey chilling on the kitchen tiles

Zoey’s sweet face!!

Thank you so much to Jimmy and Sandi for all of those great pictures!!

I swiped this picture off of Facebook, but I didn’t think that Deborah would mind. Whiskey is from Sue and Sam’s “A” Litter from 2010, so he is 3 years old now and lives out in Nevada. Here he is with his little Lab buddy Ruger who is holding him down and giving him a tongue bath. Too funny!!

Whiskey getting a bath from Ruger

Thanks Deborah for capturing such a hilarious moment!

Hunting Blog

For the last couple of years I’ve been posting our hunting stories on to versatilehunter.com, separate from this here kennel blog. I have to talk to Charles this weekend and see if we want to continue on that URL or if we want to consolidate our presence here on the kennel blog. I also used to be active on Twitter under @VersatileHunter, but just really hit a wall with trying to keep everything updated. Then to complicate things, I’m also going to start hunting blogging for Lion Country Supply. So I’ll probably be writing my first draft either here or on versatilehunter.com ( there is also a button to up at the top that says “Hunting Blog”), then write a final draft for LCS. Plus I’d like to start really honing my writing to where I’m submitting articles to magazines. So please bear with me as I decide where I’m steering this whole writing ship. I’ll let you know sometime next week where things are at so that you can keep up to date with my blathering.

So wish us luck up in the Sandhills, I will be wearing my GoPro, so hopefully I’ll actually hit something to show you on YouTube:)

AKC Walking Field Trials and other updates

February 11, 2013

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

Waiting for puppies

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

AKC Walking Field Trials

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

Unknown judge and handler in the Gun Dog stakes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pupdate

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

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

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

Dottie checking something out.

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

Rick and Dottie got a quail!

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

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

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

Dottie and Bear found some roosters!

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

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

Thanks Again!

Rick & Dawn and Family

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

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

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

Waiting for puppies

February 3, 2013

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update, Puppy Update Bird Hunting, Gun Dog, Hunting Dogs, Hunting Nevada, Korthals Griffon, Puppies, Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons Leave a comment

Mae is about 2 weeks along now, so we don’t see a whole lot of belly with her just yet, but Sue is definitely showing that puppies should be here in about 4 weeks!

Sue taking it easy in the house

Sue in the yard

The kids got a day off from school on Wednesday for a snow day, so we took the opportunity to sled and hang out with the dogs. They are always a joy to be around and we never have to worry about them hurting the kids.

Two moms-to-be on the run. Mae in foreground, Sue in background.

Profile of Mae looking paunchy at 2 weeks pregnant

Sam checking on the kids

Here comes BB!

BB and Sam tearing it up.

Sam giving Conrad a kiss

BB and Sam having a good time while Cordelia sleds down the hill.

All four dogs outside: BB, Mae, Sam and Sue

All four dogs inside: Mae Sam, Sue and BB

We will continue to give you updates as the two mama’s pregnancies progress.

Pupdates

We received a couple of updated photos from our “A” litter of Sam and Sue. Brothers Whiskey and Winston are looking good and all grown up! Here’s Whiskey out on his last chukar hunt of the season this year in Nevada. I just love his big mop of hair on his head!

Whiskey age 3 up on the mountain

His brother Winston has a bit shorter “do” on top. Here he is on the left, with his big “sister” Stella, a German Wirehaired Pointer. They live up in Minnesota and you would never know that they are two different breeds by looking at them.

Winston the griff on left, Stella the GWP on right

Thank you to Whiskey’s owners Pete and Deborah and Winston’s owners Kelvin and Nancy for sharing the updated photos. Even though there is snow on the ground here, the robins have returned and that is a sure sign of the spring (and the spring births) to come! Keep checking back for the latest!

On Breeding, Hunting and Pupdates

January 9, 2013

Charity Upchurch Kennel Update, Puppy Update Dog Training, Gun Dog, Hunting Dogs, Hunting North Dakota, Hunting Wisconsin, Korthals Griffon, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Ruffed Grouse, Woodcock Leave a comment

Update on 2013 Litters

We are excited to announce that we have one litter bred and a second breeding soon to come! I noticed Sue’s proestrous (bleeding) on our short hunt in the Sandhills on the Sunday before Christmas. Breeding took place between December 27th and New Year’s Eve, so we’re looking at a March 1stish whelping and May 1stish homegoing for Sam and Sue’s 2013 litter. Mae’s proestrous was noted on Saturday and she is not yet ready to breed, but it will be any day now (if I had to guess it would be within the next 2-7 days). So, that’s approximately a March 15thish whelping and a May 15thish homegoing. It will be a very busy spring here with two litters on the ground at once, but we can’t wait!

We finally had a good dose of snow right before school let out for Christmas break, but when I went to photograph the dogs and kids in the fresh snow, my camera’s battery went dead. I was able to get some good shots of everyone on Sunday, finally.

Four dog romp: Sue on top right, Sam bottom left, BB’s head and Mae’s hindquarters. Wirehaired Pointing Griffons.

Mae, Sue and Sam with Conrad and Caleb on the sled hill. Wirehaired Pointing Griffons.

Mae on the lookout for squirrels or coons with Sam following closing behind, hunting up…ummm…something else:) Wirehaired Pointing Griffons

Sam’s girlfriends having a serious conversation. Mae on left, Sue on right, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons.

Sue on the sniff. Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

Sue on the sniff and already looking paunchy 2 weeks pregnant. Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

Mae having a big run down the hill. Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

BB also had a good run. Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

Big daddy Sam looking quite serious. Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

A Pleasant Hunting Surprise

After some fruitless tries at hunting pheasant in Southeastern Nebraska and Northeastern Kansas, Charles and Matt hit a few quail spots last weekend with some success. I’ll eventually get a full hunting blog post out on it, but I wanted to share these photos.

Sam on point, Matt walking in, BB honoring

Wirehaired Pointing Griffon retrieving rabbit

Sam retrieving a cottontail rabbit. Photo by Charles.

Two rabbits and three quail for Charles, Sam and BB

A blast from our hunting past

A Sunday Lincoln Journal-Star article took us into the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission’s photo archives and back to our days before Wirehaired Pointing Griffons. This photo was featured in the June 2003 issue of NebraskaLand magazine. AKC Brittany Sir Sheaf Stout “Sheaf” (1996-2010) was our first child and family hunting dog. Here he is pictured in the winter of 2002 during the Heartland Chapter #491 Pheasant Forever’s Youth Mentor hunt held at Hunter’s Creek (now Grandpa’s Acres) near Syracuse, Nebraska. Pictured with Sheaf are Dustin Charval (youth) and Charles Upchurch (mentor). (The full Lincoln Journal-Star article: http://journalstar.com/sports/local/outdoors/birds-and-snow-a-great-winter-mix/article_f1384d3d-1691-5a84-b3ef-d49a867d1f6e.html)

Before we had griffons…photo courtesy of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission

Pupdates

Rob and Abby have been having some great woodcock an ruffed grouse trips up in Wisconsin. This photo was taken back in October at the age of 5 months. Abby is now 7 months old (from our 2012 “D” litter from Sue and Sam) and lives with Rob and his family in eastern Illinois. Here’s Rob’s report first-hand:

The folks I went grouse hunting with finally sent some pictures. Here is Abby with the birds she helped harvest. She pointed one of the woodcock and flushed one of the grouse. She retrieved both to my general location. Her registered name is Bluestem’s Quail Hammering Abby.

Rob and Abby (from Bluestem Kennels "D" litter from Sam and Sue, 5 month old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon female) after a successful October day of hunting ruffed grouse in Wisconsin.

Rob and Abby (from Bluestem Kennels “D” litter from Sam and Sue, 5 mo old female Wirehaired Pointing Griffon female) after a successful October day of hunting ruffed grouse and woodcock in Wisconsin.

Abby (7 mo old female Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) on left, hanging out with Ruby the GSP and fellow griff, Ace.

Abby’s brother, Gomer, lives in Central Illinois with Kyle and Jenna. He will be heading to Tom Dokken’s Oak Ridge Kennels (http://www.dokkensoakridgekennels.com/) for training soon and appears to be enjoying a great life!

Gomer (7 mo old male Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) and Jenna are ready for a snack.

Gomer (7 mo old male Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) is ready for a bath.

Gomer (7 mo old male Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) fetching up a shed deer antler.

Gomer (7 mo old male Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) on point in the snow.

We received a Christmas card from Rick’s family who lives just a few miles east of us and 10 month old Dottie (from our 2012 “C” litter from Sam and Mae) was featured, sporting some holiday cheer.

Dottie (10 mo old female Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) had a Merry Griffmas!

Dottie’s sister in North Dakota, TracHer, has been having a great pheasant season with Susan and Tom! Here she is lugging around a big North Dakota rooster, good girl!!!

TracHer (10 mo old female Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) retrieves a big boy from North Dakota!

Another shot of TracHer (10 mo old Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) and the North Dakota rooster.

There’s nothing like the North Dakota prairie. TracHer (10 month old female Wirehaired Pointing Griffon) in her element.

A huge thanks (as always) to everyone who contributed photos to the blog. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the breeding of the second litter and any end-of-hunting season adventures. Until then, stay warm and enjoy the extra moments of daylight we’ve been getting in the great outdoors!

More Field Trial Action and Pupdates

September 28, 2012

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

On Field Trials

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BB’s Fourth Place Ribbon.

Pupdates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Soon to Versatile Hunter

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

Shirts!!

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

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Waiting for puppies

On Breeding, Hunting and Pupdates

More Field Trial Action and Pupdates

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