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!
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.
Before you reach out about puppies, just know that I have a long list awaiting this news. My email is bluestemkennels@gmail.com if you want to inquire. It may be 2025 before I have any puppies available, as whoever does not get a pup this year rolls over into next year in the order that their deposit was received. Normally, I can get to emails within 24 hours, but I am trying to get the basic pieces nailed down to the 2024 AWPGA National Specialty dog shows, meetings and field events so it is taking me a few days to respond to kennel emails right now. I appreciate your patience.
If you are on my list and have not yet heard from me yet, you will be hearing from me in the next week. The list did shift up several spots, so you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was also awaiting these ultrasound results to find out if both females are pregnant before I started saying, “Well there may be a chance…” and having it be unreasonable.
As confirmed by York Veterinary Services in York, South Carolina, both litters of Bluestem Peaches En Regalia NA I, UPT II, UT III “Ruth” x Cedar and Spruce’s Apollo NA III “Duke”, as well as Bluestem Sally Forth SH, NA II x Wyo Plainsman Kenobi NA I, UPT III, UT I (2023 and 2024 NAVHDA Invitational Qualifier) are going to be whelped towards the end of February and the beginning of March. Ruth appears to be farther along. We are keeping a male from the Ruth and Duke cross. The vet is saying that Ruth’s litter will be smaller than Sally’s and probably come a week or so sooner.
We are excited for puppies, but this is always a nervous time. I’ve had friends who have dealt with last minute spontaneous abortions. Females in the breed have died in emergency c-sections and the puppies have had to be bottle fed and raised by hand. Every time someone breeds a litter they are risking the life of their female. Not everything you see in an ultrasound comes out as a puppy that will live a full healthy life. So be happy and hopeful with me, but realize that this is a nervous and stressful time too.
Ruth’s ultrasound at York VetSally’s ultrasound at York Vet
AKC Junior Hunter
On January 20th and 21st, Bluestem’s Carolina Briar Thicket “Briar” (Obi x Ruth) and I went to do some fun runs towards the AKC Junior Hunter title at the double-double AKC Hunting Tests hosted by the Sandhills Pointing Breeds Club in Jackson Springs, North Carolina. Jackson Springs is just a wide spot in the road with a couple of buildings, but it is just a ten minute drive to the Pinehurst golf resort community which is really nice.
It was absolutely freezing that weekend with high winds on Saturday, so there were more entries who scratched than usual. It was also funny to see the menagerie of attire as most folks down here don’t have cold weather hunting gear and just threw on their ski clothes with a hunting vest on top. Our first run was with a nice Bracco Italiano bred by one of my friends who also breeds Griffs, so it was fun to have that connection and we both passed (even though I biffed it in the backfield, I had some bad boots on that were too heavy for the terrain).
Scorecard and ribbon for our first JH run
The second run was with a huge male Weimaraner who had bullied his last bracemate so badly that she scratched at the starting line and didn’t come back the rest of the weekend. I got mad at the dog and gave him a “heeyaah” as he came over to mess with her for like the third time. I ended up scaring my own dog in the backfield but she recovered. We got into the bird field and there was this giant berm on the edge of it, right next to the woods where all of the previous runs’ birds were hiding. She was locked on point up there, so I climbed the berm to kick it up. There was nothing there, I think she was doing a long nose point into the woods. I wiped out again, managing to roll down the berm on my side. It is a good thing that I have a little extra cushion on my body because it was like a rugby hit, my legs just totally went out from under me and I went on my side and rolled down the hill. We did not pass that run.
I made the mistake of not getting a hotel room in Pinehurst and I’m not doing that again. So there I was all banged up after two falls (the second one being pretty hard) and half frozen driving two hours home, then getting up early the next day to drive two hours back. I knew that I had to be there on time because even though we were down the list a little ways on braces, lots of folks scratched due to it being 15 degrees out. Sure enough we ended up as second brace with all of the folks who scratched. My bracemate was pulling up to park as the first brace was coming back in from the bird field (which I was so happy for, otherwise we would have been stuck with the giant dorky Weim again). Instead it was a nice little GSP whose owner had lived out in Sioux City, Iowa for a time. It was an uneventful run for Briar and I, for only being with me for four months she really listens well. I didn’t even start whistle training her (with a Fox40 whistle, she’s used to my mouth whistle) until the week of the test. Even though the GSP took the bird field from the breakaway instead of going into the backfield like he should have, we both passed. I appreciated the judge’s feedback that I was over handling in the bird field and giving too many commands around the birds instead of letting Briar do her own thing. It came in handy in the last run and it made it fun instead of nerve-wracking.
The ribbon from our second run and scorecard.
Our third run was with the hunt test chair and his English Setter. We had an interesting scenario come up in the backfield where I was standing in a spot and all of a sudden both of the dogs are circling and pointing at me. This is at the end of a weekend where probably a hundred birds had been planted at that point. I look down at my feet and there are two quail running away from me. I see that both dogs are on point, so I decided to make it a find for them and kicked up the quail to fly and fired my starter pistol. Not a minute later, the other handler finds where the bird bag with birds in it had fallen off of the ATV not two feet from where I had kicked up the quail. It was just a funny scenario that I had never experienced before. Both dogs and handlers got a pass on that run.
Last ribbon on the day and score card.The parting shot: Briar and I with our ribbons on the weekend.
We’ll be back at it in a couple of weeks to try to finish out our last run for the title.
Hunting season is over for Charles and Caleb. They did not find any woodcock this year in South Carolina. Our old training dummy dog and South Carolina rescue pointer Dolly is having a grand life in Nebraska with our buddy Aaron and Chewy the Griff.
Chewy, Dolly and Aaron
Ruth and Sally’s mom Fire (now Bella) had a grand time this year out in Arizona chasing quail too.
Two GSPs to each side of Fire (Bella) in the middleFire (Bella) with the Mearns Quail in Arizona
I better wrap it up here and get to dog farm chores, but we’re about a month away from pups on the ground so you’ll hear from me then if not before (maybe Briar will get the JH title soon). The AWPGA National Specialty 2024 is slowly coming together for November 7-12 in North Carolina, here is our tentative schedule of events: https://www.awpga.com/2024-natl-specialty-schedule.html . You don’t have to be a member to participate in the specialty, you just can’t attend the annual meeting if you are not a member. I’ll get the sign up page posted once we have it all put together later this year. It takes a lot of people to run a breed and I hope that all of the Griffon breeders out there with litters planned or on the ground this spring have good whelping and healthy puppies.
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.
Merry Christmas from Bluestem Kennels! I figured that Charles spending seven days hunting in Nebraska would butt right up to breeding season and I was correct! He got home just in time to get everyone full of energy and nutrition for puppy making. When I emailed out my prospective puppy owners a few days ago, it looked like Sally was going to be the first to breed. But with Ruth being the alpha and older, I knew that a silent heat could be possible and that she could be bred first. Sure enough, yesterday Duke was just barking his head off when Ruth was around and she was starting to stand and be receptive. We had a tie between Ruth and Duke yesterday and this morning. Sally just stopped her proestrus bleeding and should be a week or so away from breeding (but you never know, you can also have split heats where they bleed, are infertile/unreceptive for awhile, then out of nowhere are ready to breed). There is a lot of observing behavior at this point since I don’t run to the vet for daily hormone testing and I’ve always done it naturally.
I do have a longer list going of reservations, so I’d say anyone inquiring at this point should understand that I might not have availability until Spring 2025. Feel free to contact me at bluestemkennels@gmail.com and we can exchange phone numbers from there. My deposits are fully refundable, therefore there could be folks who drop off of the list or want to wait until the following year due to life circumstances. I’ll be reaching out to those who are on the list after the holidays to make sure that they are in a place to take a puppy in May. At this point I’ll assume that the breeding will take place in January, with puppies whelped in March and going home in May.
Seven Day Hunt in Nebraska
Charles took a new hunter in his twenties from Virginia, Evan, out to Nebraska with his German Shorthaired Pointer, Ridge. They were able to visit and hunt with our old friend and co-breeder, Aaron, who still has old Velma who was the mother of a few of our litters. Aaron was just down to one dog, his Griff Chewie, so we all decided that Dolly the English Pointer should go and live with him. She has already harvested six or seven wild roosters with Aaron and he says that she’s even starting to retrieve now that she doesn’t have a bunch of Griffs to do it for her.
Obi, Duke, Ruth and Dolly running on the first day
There were no birds harvested on the first day, but it was a chance for everyone to get acclimated to being out west. Luckily the weather wasn’t super cold and there weren’t any blizzards, but it was definitely dry.
As they worked their was across South Central Nebraska, they finally got into birds on day two. It is never a blowout for pheasant in Nebraska anymore, so Charles, Obi and Sally scratched out a couple of roosters the second day. Sally was queen of the bird finding and Obi came up with the retrieves.
Sally, Obi and Charles’s two roosters for the day
It was finally on day three that everyone got on to the board. Having four Griffons with him, Charles was bracing Obi and Sally together, then swapping them out for Duke and Ruth midday generally. Here is a shot of Sally retrieving the first rooster of day three.
Sally bringing in a pretty one on day threeEvan and Ridge with two roosters and a quailCharles with Obi, Sally, a limit of roosters and a quail
Day four was an all-Charles show again. The experience of the dogs plus the hunter in these scenarios is a pretty unfair advantage. You’ll also see that Charles now wears shooting glasses. When we were out in the Sandhills, I noticed that he was missing shots that he should have been hitting. He had Lasik surgery about 20 years ago and I was betting that some of the focus was starting to wear off with age. So I made him an appointment at the eye doctor and sure enough enough he needed some corrective lenses. He says that they are making all the difference (thank God, the yelling about the bad misses was getting tiresome!).
Ruth and Duke with two roosters for the morning of day fourSally and Obi rounding out the day with one more rooster for the limit of three
(Just FYI, I don’t have a lot of control over the size of these photos and I keep messing them up trying to change them, so it just is what it is right now.)
Day five was a total bust on public land, but day six was on some nice private ground that Charles made contact with through folks at his old job in Nebraska. Thank you to the hosts for having Charles, Evan and the dogs on your property. Here are all of the photos from that day, the bird total was: 3 quail and a rooster for the hosts, 6 quail for Evan and Ridge, then five quail and a rooster for Charles and the four Griffons. Duke is pictured for the Hunting Wirehaired Pointing Griffons, but Obi, Sally and Ruth also contributed.
Charles and Evan in the back of the truck with the morning harvest, the hosts/locals standing to the sidesEvan with Ridge the GSP and Charles with Duke the Griffon and the birds for the morningDuke and Charles with a rooster, Evan and ridge with a quail in the afternoonEvan and Ridge with the host, Duke, Sally and Charles with a bumper bird total on the day
Of course on day seven, you not only end up with tired dogs, but also tired photographers. Here’s the bumper bird total with Evan and one of the hosts. The breakdown on the day was two roosters for the host, two quail for Charles and one rooster for Evan.
The host and Evan with a tailgate bird total for day seven
I’m not even going to go back and do a bird total on that trip, an epic adventure for sure! The most important thing is that there was good dog work and everyone came out of it uninjured. There was some fur worn off of the tops of noses and a few burrs in beards that I had to pull out when they got home. They were sore and hungry for a few days afterward.
Now they’ve bounced back for puppy making, what a whirlwind! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers for successful breedings. Merry Christmas everyone and if I don’t have any other news prior, I’ll throw in a Happy New Year just for good measure. I appreciate all of our puppy families past, present and future: may God bless us all, everyone.
Please email bluestemkennels@gmail.com for inquiries relating to our upcoming or future litters.
I am checking Sally everyday for sign of coming into season, as the boys are starting to act like things are going on and there are some subtle changes occurring. I’m going to be conservative and say that she’ll be bred by Christmas, but once proestrus bleeding starts I’ll know more exactly. That would put puppies being whelped in January or February and going home in March or April. I am not keeping a puppy from this litter with Sally being young enough for me to do that, so that will move folks up the reservation list one slot. It is always tough to tell where everything will shake out owner-wise between a list and a litter. With my deposits being refundable until a puppy whelped is three weeks old and the possibility that some people will want to wait for Ruth’s litter, or have life situations arise where they will wait for the following year, even having a long list doesn’t guarantee folks showing interest now won’t get a puppy. We are all placing bets on a natural process and just pray that it all works out.
The breeding that is coming up soon is AKC/NAVHDA Bluestem Sally Forth SH, NA II “Sally” and Wyo Plainsman Kenobi NA I, UPT III, UT I “Obi”. Obi qualified for NAVHDA Invitational in 2023 and recently re-qualified for 2024. Sally went 5 passes in 5 runs for her AKC Senior Hunter. Her NAVHDA Natural Ability Prize II was with our son Caleb as a junior handler. We’ve tested her in both Utility Preparatory Test and Utility Test and she does all of the skills except picking up the live duck at the end of the duck search. She had a bad run in with a mean duck pecking her in the face and we’re working back into being aggressive on the live duck. I’m hoping to re-test her in the Fall of 2024, she is still young and we have plenty of time. There are so many things that a dog has to do right in the Utility Test and just missing one is not the end of the world. She is phenomenal in the field and is a pretty looking and healthy dog.
The second breeding probably won’t happen until between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, that will be between our older female Bluestem Peaches En Regalia NA I, UPT II, UT III “Ruth” and our young male, Cedar and Spruce’s Apollo NA III “Duke”. Ruth is beautiful and one of our best bird-finders, just off-the-charts prey drive. Duke is our young male who was also handled in NAVHDA Natural Ability by our son as a junior handler. This is Ruth’s last litter and we really want a pup between her and Duke so we are going ahead with the pairing before he even utility tests. His hips are phenomenal, his prelim elbows were good, his eyes are normal and we’re waiting for his two year birthday in a couple of weeks to do his final elbows and thyroid test.
All of the dogs pedigrees and health clearances are on the “About Our Dogs” page. They are not only hunting dogs and breeding stock, but also our family pets. Everyone is crate trained, housebroken, good with kids and other dogs (free range chickens and cats are a no). You can train a Griffon to be friendly with a cat, like when we go to the vet there are loose cats and they don’t eat them, but my dogs want to torment cats. We have a barn cat that gets chased up trees. You have to have chickens or any birds in a coop.
Hunting Wirehaired Pointing Griffons
Speaking of birds, after Caleb and I returned to South Carolina last month, Charles continued his adventures with the dogs, leaving my mom’s house in Nebraska and headed up to our usual old haunts in North Dakota. He did bring home German kuchen and sausages like I always ask for. It looks like the young dogs Sally and Duke got in on most of the action. He got excited and took the first picture in the morning before he had finished his harvest.
Sally and Duke with a couple of morning roostersThey ended day one with a limit of roosters and two sharptailed grouseOn the camp chain gang, from left to right: Duke, Sally, Ruth and Obi
On the second day, Ruth and Obi harvested three ducks and a pheasant, but there was no photo.
Day three Duke and Sally were back on duty and took two ducks and a pheasant.
Duke and Sally with two ducks and a pheasantObi, Sally, Ruth and Duke with the North Dakota harvest
North Dakota produces but does so with great effort. A person has to root pheasants out of little cattail patches in harvested fields, walk the rolling hills for sharptails and check scattered ponds for ducks. But it is always a fun hunt and we love checking in on the people that we’ve now seen almost annually for about 10 years.
Charles stopped back in the Nebraska Sandhills to work remotely for a few days and was able to get in a couple of more days of hunting. The first day was photographed with Duke getting in on a few ducks.
Duke with three Nebraska Sandhills ducks
We’re not sure what the rest of the hunting season holds for us, Charles may sneak in one more trip out west, there’s talk of looking for some North Carolina ruffed grouse, around the New Year there should be some woodcock moving through down here, we’ll just take it all as it comes. As much as we love the mild winters down here, we really have our sights set on Charles working remotely out of Nebraska once Caleb graduates high school in 2027. The hunting out west just cannot be beat.
I have a new friend who I would like to introduce you to. I bought back one of my “S” Litter pups since we won’t be repeating the Obi x Ruth cross again. She is just over a year old and I have her ready to NAVHDA Natural Ability test, but there are no test openings before she turns 16 months old. So my current plan is to use the AKC Junior Hunter as her puppy test this spring. What is really crazy is how much she looks like our foundation female, Sue. So here is little Briar getting a treat from Charles last night:
AKC/NAVHDA Bluestem’s Carolina Briar Thicket
Here is our foundation female Sue:
Sweetgrass Sandhill Sioux “Sue” our first female Griffon
Looking at Ruth and Obi, you never would have imagined that they would produce a pup with that coat, but it happened. Genetics are an interesting thing. Sue is Briar’s Great-Great Grandmother.
It is time to get on with the day, I will be sure to keep you posted with the breeding developments and any new hunting adventures that come about. Happy hunting to everyone out there in the fields!
Bluestem Kennels 