It's Winter This Year!

Winter is definately here this year. This is probably the coldest it's been in 3-4 years at least. The ground froze in December and has not thawed since and we got wacked with over 20" of snow before x-mas. Thankfully the day after X-mas it rained and was gone. But the cold stays and I'm betting its just a matter of time before the next significant snow event. With the winter we haven't done a whole lot but we did travel to VA this past weekend to run in the Nat Amt Walking Championship. We didn't expect much but wanted to enjoy getting out in the field in what was a cold but sunny weekend. Mickey didn't dissapoint and did what we expect of our dogs, run and show versatility on game. He finished with the highest bird score of the event (5) and not only had the only wild bird finds in the stake but had 2 woodcock finds on 4 woodcock and threw a well handled back in for good measure. Now we just have to spend the next weeks recuperating his torn pads as he wore them off on the frozen tundra from the 16 degree nights. Another plus of the trip was hearing from so many people in VA that watched and were impressed with his bird finding as well as the nice pups he sired that they had. We also recently got nice pictures of Chukc Wingard's litter as well as good reports from Bob Watts and Dick Breneman on the female that they kept and have done some winning with.

In our kennel the young Lacey - George pups are starting to mature and go. Still early to tell what sort of chasis they will sport but the positive signs are starting to show. Hopefully the winter is not too severe and we will be out soon to get ready for a few trials this spring if time allows.

A Thousand Words

I like this picture. One of those thousand word shots but is a good representation of the infatuation that draws us to bird dogs. Man’s infatuation with nature and awe struck admiration for a pointing dog’s senses and abilities, abilities that we can never experience, to conquer nature with that mesmerizing control over a pinned bird. OR...... Mike could just be looking at Ted thinking, “Man what the hell is the matter with you today!” 1,000 words you can fill in!

Runners!

Short on details at the moment, more updates later. But just returned from a few weeks in WI, MN and PA and the name of the game was runners! I don’t remember so many grouse on the run as we saw in front of the dogs, mine and others. Even had woodcock on the run, one in particular I saw running before chasing it up. The dogs did an excellent job even with the running birds handling and pointing birds all the way through in each state. I think the record runner was a grouse that ran on Lacey what seemed like a 100 yards even in thick WI cover (she ended up bumping it but it was my fault, I didn’t believe her after about the 5th relocation!). And I had a brood of grouse in one cover I worked for two days that ran like rats, they were unbelievable. Not sure if this is a sign of older birds (and a bad sign indicating a low hatch) or what but it was interesting. The PA birds were awfully touchy and had to be pointed from a distance, but not sure they were quite classable as runners. So far this year in working dogs in PA, NY, WI and MN it looks like we are averaging about 4-5 birds/hr over the dogs with both grouse and woodcock counted and they have been handling the birds flawlessly. It's been a great year. I'll look at numbers later.

Also, congrats to Mike Reeves in GA and ‘Chip’ Chiappini on winning the Wolverine Derby Classic with their Torq-Lacey male pup called Charlie with three broke finds on grouse and woodcock!