An annual Montana hunting trip

The vistas in north central Montana are spectacular—and the dog work can be, too. Royce had no trouble adapting to the different terrain. Photo by Jeff Decker.

My annual hunting trip to Montana is a highlight of the fall. As usual, I met Bill Heig, of Bowen Lodge in Deer River, Minn., in eastern Montana. We stayed in that area for a few days and then hunted our way west to our final destination in the central part of the state. We rendezvoused with two friends from Denver, Colo., for several days of bird hunting.

For a grouse hunter used to dense woods and listening to a bell, the open country of Montana is especially alluring. Comet can be seen hundreds of yards out—whether hunting, working a bird or on point. Photo by Jeff Decker.

Puppies have a blast and can learn so much on a big hunting trip. Tally retrieves a sharptail with gusto.

My string was a little light on experience this year; three of our females were back at the kennel in various stages of getting bred. Even so, I had a strong group of dogs: Northwoods Grits (10 yrs.), Northwoods Rolls Royce (8 yrs.), Northwoods Leon (3 yrs.), Northwoods Comet (2 yrs.), Northwoods Gale (1 yr.) and puppies Northwoods Redbreast (7 mos.) and Northwoods Talisker (4 mos.). All dogs did well but watching the younger dogs develop their skills in the expansive terrain was a fun and gratifying.

Royce had a beautiful find on a steep hillside and young Robin backed. But when the bird flushed, she chased. Photo by Jeff Decker.

The ongoing drought had a severe impact; sparse vegetation and warm temperatures made for some challenging hunts. But bird numbers were good—and after all, that’s the most important part.

It’s always fascinating to imagine the story behind an abandoned homestead. This one is in eastern Montana.

Portraits of puppies in their first hunting season

Juniper (CH True Confidence x Northwoods Comet, 2021) retrieves a big, fat rooster. Juniper is owned by Joey Paxman and Amanda Allpress of Montana.

Jerry and I consider the first hunting season of a puppy’s life to be a crucial element in its development. A puppy’s mind is like a sponge, eager to absorb anything and everything.

For the owner of the puppy, that first fall can be a blast. There’s no pressure. Very little handling is necessary and definitely no “Whoa” command is involved. Just take the puppy onto the prairie and into the woods and expose it to as many wild birds as possible.

Even though Nemadji (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Stardust, 2021) has one sharp-tailed grouse in her mouth, she’s eyeing others on the ground in front. Madji is owned by Ron and Lora Nielsen of Minnesota.

The puppy can really do no wrong. Use its nose to hunt for birds. Find the bird. Flush it. Loose the scent entirely. It doesn’t matter. The puppy is learning with every exposure.

Eventually, the proverbial lightbulb goes on and the puppy gets it. The puppy points, perhaps momentarily, but it does stop.

After a successful hunt, Rickey (CH True Confidence x Northwoods Comet, 2021) looks cool and calm. Rickey is owned by Jake and Nicole Beveridge of Minnesota.

Puppies from our pointer litter out of Comet by True Confidence and our two setter litters, Grits x Stardust and Rolls Royce x Minerva, had ample opportunity.

Kudos to the owners for taking their puppy hunting. And the scenery is pretty nice, too.

Lupin (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Stardust, 2021) is learning so much during her first season on the prairie. Lupin is owned by Tom and Tammy Beauchamp of Indiana.

A fine hunting trip to the North Dakota prairie

A picturesque North Dakota morning. A majestic point by Northwoods Rolls Royce (Blue Shaquille x Houston’s Belle’s Choice, 2013). Not too shabby.

September seems to be when a good number of our clients who live in the Midwest head to North Dakota and Montana. Judging by the reports and the accompanying photos, both owners and dogs had fun.

Jerry, too, headed west. He loaded up our trailer with seven bird dogs—five adults and two puppies.

• Northwoods Grits (Northwoods Blue Ox x Northwoods Chablis, 2011)
• Northwoods Rolls Royce (Blue Shaquille x Houston’s Belle’s Choice, 2013)
• Northwoods Comet (CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen, 2018)
• Northwoods Stardust (RU-CH Erin’s Prometheus x Northwoods Carly Simon, 2019) call name Dusty
• Northwoods Gale (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Minerva, 2020), call name Windy
• Northwoods Redbreast (Northwoods Rolls Royce x Northwoods Minerva, 2021), call name Robin
• Northwoods Talisker (Swift Rock Jetson x Swift Rock Granny, 2021), call name Tally

The dogs Jerry chose for this hunting trip are (front to back): Grits, Windy, Dusty, Royce, Comet, Robin and Tally.

His first stop was a visit with my brother, Jake, who owns a nice piece of property in east central North Dakota. Jake is a passionate waterfowl hunter but was tickled to take a walk for sharptails with Jerry and a couple setters.

Jerry then headed farther west and teamed up with Minnesota friends Ian Mactavish and Frankie Kartch. Besides the good hunting, they ate well. One tradition is always sharptail kabobs, grilled over charcoal.

Two clients who met Jerry in western North Dakota for a couple days of hunting are Tom Beauchamp with his two tricolor setters Lupin (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Stardust, 2021) and Ellie (Northwoods Grits x CH I’m Blue Gert, 2014); and Frank Ilijanic with his black-and-white pointers out of CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen, Jade in 2015 and Jax in 2018.

Later, he hunted with Frank Ilijanic and Tom Beauchamp, clients from Michigan and Indiana, respectively. The idea was first hatched this summer when Frank and Tom picked up their eight-week-old setter puppies out of the Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Stardust litter.

Frank’s young pointer Jax (CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen, 2018) bounds across the prairie, happily retrieving a sharptail.

Frank deserves an award of some kind for not only was that setter his second puppy this year—his first a pointer female out of Northwoods Comet by CH True Confidence—but these puppies join two other Northwoods dogs. In 2015, Frank bought Jade, a pointer female out of CH Rock Acre Blackhawk x Northwoods Vixen. He was on our list for a repeat of that breeding in 2018 when he chose a male, Jax.

In addition to Tom’s 2021 puppy, he brought Ellie, his first Northwoods dog, a seven-year-old female setter out of CH I’m Blue Gert by Northwoods Grits.

Inducing emesis in dogs

The only items you need to induce emesis in a dog is a bottle 3% hydrogen peroxide and either a large syringe (no needle) or a turkey baster.

Some rudimentary medical knowledge can be very helpful when caring for a bird dog. In some circumstances, that knowledge can be vital to the dog’s life.

Inducing emesis, i.e., vomiting or throwing up, is one of those pieces of information.

Jerry and I have induced emesis several times. Once was when actual tick collars were still common and one dog ate the tick collar off its playmate in the exercise pen. Another time a dog ate an entire hard plastic chew toy that was rated for “Serious Chewers.” (We could actually piece the toy together afterward—not a bad way to ensure all the pieces are accounted for.)

Here’s a list of potentially dangerous items.
• chewed material from collars, chew toys and and other small items
• cleaning products
• human medications and pain relievers
• toxic foods like chocolate, grapes and raisins
• poison from garden and yard chemicals
• mouse, rat and insect poisons
• poisonous plants

Inducing emesis is an easy solution. The crucial element is time. The procedure must be done when the contents are still in stomach, which means within about 2 hours.

The only medication you need is a bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide. The only tool you need is a big syringe (140cc with no needle) or a turkey baster.

Use 1 teaspoon hydrogen peroxide for every 10 lbs. of dog weight. (For example: use 4 teaspoons for a 40-lb. dog.) Squirt into the dog’s throat, behind the tongue. Wait for 10 – 15 minutes. It’s always worked on that first dose for us but, if necessary, repeat once more.

If your dog is showing signs of an adverse reaction or you’re at all unsure, call your vet and/or contact a poison hotline.

Do NOT induce emesis if the ingested item could be:
• glass, other sharp/hard object, batteries
• chemicals like bleach, oven cleaners, drain cleaners
• petroleum products such as gas, kerosene, motor oil

Possibilities of problems with those dangerous items are ingested include further damage to the esophagus or the possibility of the substance getting inhaled into the lungs.

Northwoods Jones

Northwoods Jones (Northwoods Grits x Houston’s Nelly Bly, 2020)

Northwoods Jones is one of seven tricolor puppies whelped out of our 2020 breeding of proven sire Northwoods Grits to first-time-but-oh-so-worthy dam, Houston’s Nelly Bly.

Jones is a perfect male model for that litter as he has the handsome, blocky head and muzzle spots of his sire and the warm, expressive eyes of his dam. Most essential, from both parents he inherited prowess in the field—bird finding, confidence, style—and an ideal temperament for the home.

Jones is owned by Kali Parmley of Utah. Kali is the editor in chief of Gun Dog and Backcountry Hunter magazines. What a perfect fit for Jones.

Northwoods Charles wins prestigious national award

5X CH / 5X RU-CH Northwoods Charles (CH Ridge Creek Cody x Northwoods Chardonnay, 2013)

5X Champion / 5X Runner-up Champion Northwoods Charles is the recipient of the 2020-2021 Elwin G. Smith English Setter Shooting Dog Award. This accolade is bestowed on the nation’s winningest English setter in open shooting dog horseback field trials, based on wins during the previous trial season.

Charles, call name Charlie, is owned by Bill Owen of Santa Barbara, Calif. As an amateur, it’s even more impressive that Bill won this award handling Charlie in open stakes.

Charlie was whelped in 2013 by CH Ridge Creek Cody x Northwoods Chardonnay. Cody (CH Can’t Go Wrong x CH Houston’s Belle, 2008), a famous dog in his own right, was co-bred by Paul Hauge and Northwoods Bird Dogs and is likely the most prominent sire of winning setters of the past 20 years. Chardonnay was a blue hen producer of many field trial winners and top-flight hunting dogs.

Charlie’s field trial achievements exhibit his versatility; he has won on the West coast, on the Canadian prairies and in the piney woods of the southeast. He has won on several species of wild, released and planted game birds.

On a training run in Saskatchewan, Northwoods Charles is backed by Northwoods Rolls Royce (Blue Shaquille x Houston’s Belle’s Choice, 2013).

This award is one of the annual English Setter Fund Awards. They were created to promote the breeding and campaigning of English setters in All Age, Shooting Dog and Cover Dog categories. There are also awards for Derby-aged dogs in each category. Each award is named after a prominent setter devotee of the past.

This is the fourth time a Northwoods-bred setter has been honored. Betsy and I won the 2002 Michael Seminatore Cover Dog Award with our 4X CH / 4X RU-CH Blue Streak. Cody won twice: the 2009 Bill Conlin Derby Award and, in 2012, the Elwin G. Smith Award, the same award as Charlie.

Like fine wine, English setters tend to get better with age. Just-turned-eight, Charlie should have many more wins in his future.

Congratulations to Bill and Charlie!

Developing puppies with marker training

Northwoods Redbreast (Northwoods Rolls Royce x Northwoods Minerva, 2021) happily complies with the “place” command using marker training.

I’m continually looking for new ways to enhance the development of our puppies.

For many years, we used the “treat” only technique to teach our puppies the kennel and recall commands. We used treats to lure the them into the desired behavior; such as tossing a treat into the dog crate for kennel or letting them see I had a treat in my hand for recall. With that technique, the puppies didn’t have to think about what they were doing; they automatically followed the food.

But then I found Gary Wilkes.

Gary is a professional dog trainer in Phoenix, Ariz., who got his start in the late 1980s. His resume is impressive, including experience training guide dogs, service dogs and military special operations dogs. An innovative person, he has developed techniques that dogs understand intuitively and respond to quickly.

One of Gary’s methods to teach new behaviors to dogs is called marker training. Initially used for training marine animals, marker training is now mainstream for training dogs. The concept is simple: wait for the desired behavior to occur and then “mark” it with a click and a treat. With this technique, the puppy has to think about what it has to do to get its reward.

And for me, a thinking dog is a better dog. It is more adaptable, more effective in the field and more interesting to be around.

Here is a video of 10-week-old Northwoods Redbreast (Northwoods Rolls Royce x Northwoods Minerva, 2021) working on the three behaviors I taught her:  kennel, sit and place.

For more information about marker training and many insightful tips on dog training, check out Gary’s website at clickandtreat.com.

CH Satin From Silk: April 2006 – May 2021

CH Satin From Silk (I’m Houston’s Image x Blue Silk, 2006)

CH Satin From Silk was knock-out pretty. Her perfectly conformed body was mostly white with a spot or two of orange around her dark eyes and on her ears and tail. Beneath that beautiful exterior, though, beat the heart of a champion—fierce in her focus, determination and application.

Satin From Silk was owned by Greg and Diane Gress of Minnesota. Her registered name honored her dam, Blue Silk (out of our 4X CH / 4X RU-CH Blue Streak), by I’m Houston’s Image, handsome male straight out of Paul Hauge’s favorite setter, Houston. Greg and Diane called her Peggy.

Betsy and I have many fond memories of Peggy.

Peggy and her seven littermates were born on Easter Sunday in 2006 in our rental home. It was, in general, a fine place to live, kennel our dogs and raise puppies. But one day as Jerry and I worked in the kennel, a big “boom” blew the wooden well cover off the floor, ignited some dog hair and dust and shot a ball of flames down the hallway of the kennel until it ran out of fuel.

With the exception of singed eyebrows on Silk, no dogs or puppies were harmed and nothing was damaged. (We did honor the occasion by naming one of the male puppies Boomer.)

CH Satin From Silk, on right, is backed by her dam, Blue Silk (CH First Rate x CH Blue Streak, 1999), on a training run in Oklahoma.

Greg and Diane entrusted us for Peggy’s early training. Highlights include late summer weeks at our prairie camp in North Dakota and a memorable winter in Oklahoma. We watched her develop from an energetic puppy into a national-caliber, field trial competitor. Like her dam, Peggy had the mental toughness and independence to be great but, at times, it could also be her downfall.

Peggy won the 2009 Wisconsin Cover Dog Championship. Still today, her performance ranks as an amazing display of the highest bird dog ability. And I had a front row seat; I was braced with Greg and Peggy, handling her litter sister, CH I’m Blue Gert, owned by Dave and Rochel Moore.

Greg and I broke away on the infamous “crash” course at the Chippewa Valley Grouse Dog Association’s grounds near Augusta, Wis. Peggy’s nose dragged her around the course—and she dragged Greg. Peggy went from grouse to grouse to grouse to grouse. Greg caught up in time to flush each bird and shoot, and then Peggy was quickly off to her next bird before he could even holster his pistol.

Peggy was never an easy handling, close-working dog and this hour she pushed—and beyond at times—the limits of the bell. When Greg finally put the lead on Peggy at the end of the hour, all who had witnessed her performance knew we were running for second place.

RIP, dear Peggy. We will always remember.

Northwoods Queen Anne’s Lace

Northwoods Queen Anne’s Lace (Northwoods Grits x Northwoods Minerva, 2020)
Photo by Eukanuba Sporting Dog

On a quintessential summer day last July, Zenas Hutcheson and his wife, Susanne, from Minnesota, chose a pretty, orange-and-white female puppy from the litter of mostly tricolors.

The puppy—call name Lacey—matured over the winter months into a strong, beautifully conformed dog. This spring, Zenas and Lacey attended a woodcock banding certification session at Pineridge Grouse Camp in Remer, Minn. A Eukanuba photo shoot was also taking place and Lacey was chosen to be photographed.

Even though Lacey is still young, Zenas reported that she did “very well on all but one test. Next spring she will be ready.”

What do puppies dream about?

Twelve-day-old puppies out of Northwoods Stardust by Northwoods Grits snuggle in their nest.

Jerry and I never tire of watching puppies of any age. There is something especially endearing, though, about tiny, vulnerable puppies when they’re sleeping. Not only do they always snuggle together in some conglomeration of bodies and limbs but they seem to dream.

What do puppies dream about?