Merry Christmas!
Northwoods Brie (Northwoods Blue Ox x Houston’s Belle’s Choice, 2010)
Photo: Chris Mathan
From all of us in southwestern Georgia, wishing peace, love and joy to our bird dog friends this holiday season.
Good stuff about puppies
- A pointing dog’s first hunting season!
- Bird and gun introduction
- Early development of puppies
- How to correct a dog
- How to pet a dog
- How to pick a puppy
- Patience and puppies
- Picking puppies: the unimportance of picking order
- Puppies and fireworks
- Puppy buying mistakes
- Raising puppies at Northwoods Bird Dogs
- The pointing instinct
- Training puppies on a stakeout chain
Good stuff from previous posts
Finer points on…
- A brace of bird dogs
- Accuracy of location
- Bird finding
- How to flush grouse and woodcock
- Hunting pattern
- Range
- Running grouse
- Scenting ability
- Speed and scenting
- To point a bird, first a dog has to find it
- Trust your dog
- Using grouse dogs on pheasants
Training
- A bump or a knock
- Backing point
- Bird dog basics: hunt, handle, point birds
- Bumping grouse
- Electronic training collars…a little perspective
- How to correct a dog
- How to pet a dog
- Patience and puppies
- The pointing instinct
- Transition to wild birds
- Unproductive points
- WHOA and NO
Breeding
- Dogs, not averages, matter in breeding
- Evaluating litters
- Pointers of Northwoods Bird Dogs
- Proper conformation
- The tail of a bird dog
Health
Like father, like daughter
In the grouse woods, not many dogs are as fast, focused and unrelenting as Northwoods Grits (Northwoods Blue Ox x Northwoods Chablis, 2011). Back in the hunting cabin though, Grits’ style is altogether different. He is utterly at ease relaxing and snoozing—especially in the lap of his owner, Bob Senkler.
“Like father, like son” is the usual idiom but in the case of some of our setters, I prefer “Like father, like daughter.”
Northwoods Blue Q Tip (Quinny) was whelped in early April 2017 out of Northwoods Bismuth by Grits. Even though just a puppy, Quinny has had a stellar first season. Not only did she find plenty of grouse but she even pointed some.
In the evening after a long day in the woods, Quinny finds solace in precisely the same manner as Grits—sprawled in the lap of her owner, Brody Dietz.