Monday, July 30, 2012

First day working dogs on the prairie



Well, we were up at the crack of dawn to load and run bird dogs our first day on the prairie - we loaded up 7 braces and went to a nearby field to work the dogs.

Tio and Penny - This was a very good brace - both ran easy handling gun dog races. Tio had 2 broke finds, and 1 Non-productive. Penny had 3 backs with corrections, plus a find that she broke at the flush.

Primo and Cooper - Primo ran a very nice shooting dog race, handling easy. Cooper ran a short gun dog race - Primo had 3 broke finds with minor corrections, 2 broke finds without correction. Cooper had 5 backs with and without correction.

Fuzzy and Unna - These dogs were running hard shooting dog or all age races - our horses were well lathered trying to corral them - Unna had a very nice derby find on a rooster pheasant and Fuzzy backed with a minor correction - very good for a pair of green dogs on the first day of running.

Jessie and Jack - Jack ran a nice big gun dog race working objectives well, but had no finds. Jessie ran a very nice gun dog race, with one piece of broke bird work. Very nice brace

Deuce and Gunner - Pair of nice dogs ran well, no finds but ran over several birds and had a couple brief chases - about what I expected for their first day

Pete and Eleanor - Very nice pair of dogs - very good races, searching diligently and had no finds, but with experience should come up with more birds.

Dosa and Woody - Nice hard running pair of dogs and unfortunately did not come up with any bird work.

Diamond and Okie - Very good work from both dogs - searched objectives well and went to the right places - but no bird work was seen.

Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill

Friday, July 27, 2012

Working a little on the prairies now


We will start in ernest on Monday - but we have taken some pups and derbies out on the prairies and they are showing great progress and ability

Teeka - Little tricolor setter owned by Mark Wicks is pointing wild birds and backing - very attractive on the ground

Bright Eyes - Little tricolor setter - pointing wild birds (3 or 5 finds a outing) and backing very nice gait

Hondo - Finding birds - pointing and backing

Gus - Finding birds - but still needs work

Lucy - Great little irish setter - she is finding birds and backing and maintaining broke dog manners most of the time

Brunie - Doing very well, she needs some more work but progressing well

Rick - Nice dog - standing staunch on pen raised birds

Eleanor - Very nice shorthair female - standing broke on pen raised birds and ready for work on the prairie

Cooper - Doing well on pen raised birds, ready to work on the prairie

Okie - Awesome dog - ready for the big dog ranks

Taz - Awesome dog - need some more work on birds on the prairie but doing well

Diamond - Awesome little GSP - standing broke on pen raised birds - and almost ready for wild bird work

Woody - Doing well on pen raised birds - ready for bird work on the prairie

Fuzzy - Still needs work on pen raised birds - but making good progress

Penny - Broke on pen raised birds - ready for prairie work

Dosa - Doing well on pen raised birds - making good progress almost ready for wild bird work

Stubby - Work ethic is awesome very nice dog - bird work is very good

Unna - Doing well standing broke on pen raised birds and almost ready for bird work

Kona - Doing awesome wild bird work

Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill




Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Bird work progressing


Well, we took out some dogs and worked birds and steadiness training.

Cooper - Standing broke on the flush about 50% of the time and broke to shot 50% of the time - very good progress.

Preston - Standing his birds broke - soon to be running with the big dogs

Jack - Needs to work on his happy feet - moving on both flush and shot and corrections were made

Penny - Doing a super job - standing broke about 75% of the time

Dosa - Nice job standing broke to the shot about 25% of the time

Brunie - Nice staunch puppy work

Rick - Nice staunch puppy work

Deuce - Needs more work on "whoa" but off to a good start

Unna - Standing broke about 50% of the time - needs more work

Jack - Standing broke but not very stylish as confidence grows that should change

Diamond - Happy feet loves birds - gonna have to work on her steadiness

Eleanor - Standing broke 100 percent today - almost ready to run with the big dogs

Callie - Stood broke about 50 % of the time - very nice and stylish dog

Woody - Standing very staunch - almost ready to run with the big dogs

Fuzzy - Still a bit of happy feet going on - but progress is very good

Keith - Posting From Under the Rusty Windmill

Monday, July 23, 2012

Litter mates



Litter Mates and thoughts from an Old Dog Trainer;

Well, I have been asked a couple questions about litter mates lately. First some background. I have been training dogs since the 1980s and professionally since 1999 I have been the advisor to Whiterock Kennels in the breeding program since 2006 and because of this I have had the opportunity to train several littermates from different litters - too many to recall but I have 3 sets of littermates from different breedings here at camp and thought I would share some observations, as well as several pointers - but will stick to the llewellin setter littermates for now

Dolly and Stubby- These are 3 yr old littermates from Polly and Tanner. Both of these dogs are heavily marked tri colors - Dolly is a Chestnut tricolor and Stubby a black and white tricolor. These dogs have had roughly the same training and time on the
prairies. Stubby is a big going stylish and serious dog - and shows ability to just be around birds - While Dolly is not so big going, but has outstanding style, is considerably less serious than Stubby - both of these dogs would be rated as above average to excellent bird dogs and competitors. This is a repeat breeding that produced Diva and Knikki. I would call this a consistent and predictable breeding

Callie and Taz - These are approximately 2 yr old littermates from Polly and Jakey. Both are chestnut tricolors. These are long leggy dogs with extreme speed and range, Taz is more stylish of the two dogs but Callie has better endurance and speed. Style on point is above average and both have shown the ability to be around birds consistantly and have very good noses - However, Callie has more up side than Taz does I believe because she is just now truly hitting her stride and although Taz is well advanced of his littermate in training - she is fast becoming his equal and takes training well. This can be explained because Taz is owned by a person that consistently can get him into training and birds. Taz has a slight crouch in pointing stature while Callie doesn't. Taz has a ground beating gait while Callie floats over the ground.

Rick and Teeka - These are approximately 8 month old littermates from a breeding of Dolly and Jakey - Both have excellent noses, style is very good, both find birds, and have a sense of where to go to find birds - and have consistently found and pointed birds from a very young age (8 to 10 wks) Ricky is a chestnut tricolor and Teeka a black and white tricolor. These dogs have been pointing wild birds since a young age. Ricky has a very stand up style while Teeka is crouchy in style - Ricky hits his birds hard while Teeka feathers into a point - but at a much longer distance - in other words Teeka hits her birds farther out and points very well when she reaches her threshold of scent - while Ricky hits his birds closer but immediately points - indicating that Teeka has a much longer nose but has a less staunch point. Both have a long gait which leads them to being somewhat dead tailed and have less class running.

Brunie and Bright Eyes - These are approximately 8 month old littermates from a breeding of Mali and Mac (Whiterock Mac Windem) Brunie is a chestnut tricolor and Bright Eyes is a black and white tricolor . This is an amazing study - when we started working this pair of littermates - Brunie has a longer gait but Bright Eyes has a super attractive gait and class running - Brunie has more speed but Bright Eyes has more snap. Both have amazing bird sense and noses - Bright Eyes at first was less than impressive - but now after 4 wks of running wild on the prairies is an amazing dog and one to watch - in fact, probably the best of the bunch - I watched her point 5 different bunches of pheasants and sharptails today - some with other dogs but she was always in the mix - sometimes first impressions are not the correct ones

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Well what a few days it has been







Well, we are working dogs daily and we are gonna cut back the intensity of the training schedule it is too rigorous for some of the dogs.

Diamond - Doing well - transitioning to flank collar easily

Cooper - Doing well, transitioning to the flank collar now - progress is good

Unna - Very easy transition to flank collar

Dosa - Transitioning to the flank collar well now

Jack - Transitioning to flank collar very well now

Penny - Good progress on "Whoa" post transitioning slowly

Woody - Transitioning to flank collar almost complete

Preston - Transition to flank collar complete

Belle- Transition to flank collar progressing normally

Eleanor - Transition to flank collar nearly complete

Overall considering the weather pattern - excessive heat some days - thunder and lightning other days and rain - the yard work portion of the summer camp is going well.

Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Whoa Training going well

We are well into working the older dogs on Whoa and things are going well. Was very cool when we started this morning to work 14 dogs on "whoa" post


Callie - Taking the training very well.

Belle - A bit stubborn (but also hormonally challenged) and still not taking the training well

Rick - Doing good - he is a bit immature but based on what I am seeing I am optimistic

Dosa - Taking the training well

Unna - Taking the training very well

Woody - Almost ready to move into the next steps of training

Fuzzy - Doing very well and just a bit more time before moving to the next level of training

Penny - Taking all aspects of training very well

Jack - A bit slower in training than expected but making progress

Hondo - Ready to make the move to big dog/broke dog training

Taz - Also ready to work on big dog concepts - very good progress

Preston - Ready to make the next steps in training - doing great

Diamond - A bit slow to grasp the concepts of "whoa" but progress is good

Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill

Monday, July 16, 2012

Puppies doing well

Well, things are progressing with the puppies - some of the wheat field are being harvested and that has pushed birds into areas that the puppies are able to make contact with them.

All the youngsters are having multiple bird contacts per day and doing well.

Starting to work on "whoa" post with all the derbies and progress should be good judging from what we have done so far.

Keith -Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill

Friday, July 13, 2012

Evaluations and Introduction to Birds/Gun Fire going well



Well, the past week we have been concentrating on getting an idea of where the dogs are and what to do training to make it as best we can. We have been working on check cord and introduction to gun fire for the past week

Eleanor - Doing well, no issues

Cooper - Doing well, no issues - but a bit aggressive

Diamond - Doing really well, loves birds and quite a handful

Fuzzy - Getting better on his bird work

Woody - Doing really well with his birds and other work

Gunner - Nice little puppy -

Dosa - Pointing well, a bit low styled but nice other ways

Unna - Pointing well, no issues yet

Jack - Whiner - and he has really happy feet - might get better - but still hard to handle

Penny - Nice dog - working well - no issues

Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill


Monday, July 9, 2012

Evaluations going well

Well, we have spent the last two days evaluating the dogs to see where they are and evaluate what we must be doing to get the best out of the talent we have.

For simplicity we divided the dogs into two categories - setters and pointers

Pointers are obviously - Pointers, GSP's, GWP's and viszla's.

Setters are - llewellins, irish, english setters and one lone pudelpointer


Cooper - Will be working on "whoa" and pen raised birds.

Eleanor - Will be working more on birds - less on whoa

Okie - Graduated to the big dog string - will be run with our broke dogs

Pete - We are gonna work him on double set pigeons - flushing the far bird and firing while he is pointed focused on the the near bird - seems if the bird flushes close he lays down

Dosa - Whoa and pen raised birds

Unna - Whoa and pen raised birds

Jack - Whoa

Penny - Whoa and pen raised birds

Woody - Whoa and pen raised birds

Fuzzy - Running and letting him work birds


Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill

Saturday, July 7, 2012

1st Day working pen birds


Well, we had a pleasant visit from Brian Graebe and worked pups this morning on pen raised birds - evaluation and see where they are

We worked

Sid - coming 3 yr old broke dog that we need to transfer some commands too and get her to stop cat walking - wild birds in order and corrections - looks like a great young dog and I am very hopeful she will get the training she needs and be a serious competitor

Callie - Need to work on getting this fine young dog broke on her birds, really awesome looking dog

Ellie - Super nice dog from Rhonda Berg's kennels - may be the star of the summer puppy program

Taz - Super nice dog - still needs to work on broke dog manners - but wild birds will fix this I am confident

Rick - Very nice young dog that is going to be a star I think too - He is doing well

Teeka - Mark Wick's young dog - coming along super nice - go and great nose

Brunie - Angie Arnolds young bitch - super nice bird dog - will be something to watch this summer

Hondo - Super nice young coming derby - very pleased with this dog

Gus - Needs a summer on wild birds with no pressure at all

Gunner - Ray Coopers nice little viszla puppy - did a nice job on his first bird contacts

Keith - Posting from Under the Rusty Windmill

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

1st Day roading





We started roading today - with 8 dogs in the harnesses and 3 pups free running nearby.It was warm about 70F but the dogs did well, we had no problems with any dogs balking at the harness or getting scared of the ATV