GREAT BIRD DOGS ARE BORN, NOT MADE

The qualities that make up a great bird dog are inherited from their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. Great bird dogs are the result of a quality long term breeding program.

We have been breeding German Wirehaired Pointers for over 25 years. Our pups are ready to hunt at a very early age. We had a litter of nine pups born on May 8th. I kept a male and named him Hunhaven Hondo. A friend Shane got a male and named him Hunhaven Drake.

Here are photos of their first upland bird hunt for sharptail grouse and Huns at 20 weeks of age. I have also included photos of Hondo’s first water retrieve of a dummy at 14 weeks.

Hondo (both photos)

Hondo (both photos)

Hondo tracking a pheasant (left); Hondo pointing a covey of sharptails (right)

Hondo (left); Drake on point (right)

Drake on point

I will keep adding photos of Hondo and Drake and others pups from the 2010 litter. Please check our site for more photos.

Hondo's Second Wild Bird Hunt

Jim Foster's pup Kenai

Jim Foster's female, Kenai, pointing Texas quail at 8 months.

Rowdy on Point

Jake is a male pup from our 2010 litter

The happy pup with his happy family.

A letter from the Riensche Family who took Jake home:

I have been waiting to give you a call when Jake turned 6 months old. In short, he is the most loved puppy this side of the the Rocky Mountains and an amazing four-legged hunting companion. Our children are knocking down ducks and Jake is fetching them up. In fact, last weekend "Mr. Jake", found, pointed and retrieved three pheasants to my hand. We ate the birds for dinner tonight and then discovered on your web-page that you are doing another breeding!! Please count us in! I mentioned to Blanche when we picked up "wonder puppy" that if you ever did another breeding we would be interested and we are sold.

We hope this note finds you happy and we look forward to your reply.

Sincerely yours,

David, Mary, Sarah, Daniel, Nathan and Rebekah Riensche

(left)Jake retrieving a pheasant. (right)Jake with Rebekah and Sarah. Jake retrieved 20 ducks and two geese this year.

Jake studying to be a good hunting dog.

Radar is a male pup from our 2010 litter

A letter from Ryan Anderson, who took home Radar:

Had Radar out for opening of pheasant hunting here in Alberta and he did great. He is just 6 months now and he pointed two birds and backed our 2-year-old on two others. He covered the ground well in a nice search pattern and wasn't scared to get into the hard cover including the thorn bushes and the thick cat tails. His coat is great and with a good shake the few burrs that do manage to stick to him go flying. I have maybe pulled three or four burrs from him in two days of hunting some nasty places. Favorite mental picture of the day was both him and my two year old on point with a pheasant cornered in the cattails. Both held point perfectly until our flush and after a little convincing a retrieve to hand. Two minutes later he was backing the two year old and didn't budge until the flush of the second bird. Birds aren't as plentiful this year and the dogs are having to work hard for them. With that good of points though we were 4 shots for 4 birds and everyone of them recovered.

Ryan D. Anderson LLB

Mattie, a pup from the 2009 litter

Mattie is a female from our 2009 litter. Mattie is owned by Harold “Bud” Hop from Oregon. Bud hunts chukars in Oregon, sharptail and Huns in Montana, and pheasants in North Dakota.

Here is a note to us this fall about Mattie:

“Sept 23, 2009

Chuck & Blanche,

Had an awesome trip to Montana. Shot a lot of birds and Miss Mattie did great. It’s so much fun watching her work. You can just tell she is having the time of her life and doesn’t realize she is still a young pup. Mattie’s stamina and drive is outstanding. We are shooting a lot of birds over her points and she is only five months old.

Best,

Bud Hop"

To read more about Bud and Mattie, see Chuck’s Versatile Hunting Dog column in the January/February 2010 issue of Pointing Dog Journal.

More great pictures of the 2009 litter

Rockie, a female

Coby, a male

Reba, from the 2009 litter

Here is another note we received regarding a pup from the 2009 litter:

"Chuck,

I just wanted to give you a little update on Reba, the GWP that I purchased from you. Her and I have been out 7 long days. I just got back from ND doing some hunting. The first three or four days were pretty frustrating on my end. Reba would mostly follow right behind me, she wouldn’t get in front of me and hunt or show any interest in any of it. The birds that I kicked up and did shoot she was very interested in eating the feathers and that was it. Needless to say I was frustrated, but was patient with her. I have never put an e collar on her while hunting. The first three days she seemed really lethargic or withdrawn. Usually she is a go getter and has the young dog enthusiasm in her. After thinking about it I think she was a little lost as our other dog that she is always with, Annie the basset hound, was at home and Megan had told me that Annie was the same way, almost like they were in depression being without each other.

We just got back from a three day hunt and what a world of difference she has been. She showed glimpses of improvement on the first day of this last hunt and you could see the confidence in her growing. I was ecstatic in seeing the major improvement.

Today she hunted past any expectations that I had for her at her age. At the beginning of the day she wouldn’t retrieve or search for downed birds and when I would walk her to the downed birds she would again just want to pluck the feathers off of the bird, after a couple times of that happening I decided to let her have her way with the bird to see if she would lose interest in doing that. The first bird today she flushed out and I shot it and I retrieved it. The second bird she pointed and I shot it and I retrieved it. The third bird got very interesting. She pointed it and I winged it. The bird landed on the frozen part of the river and Reba saw the entire thing, she was really unsure what to do. The bird got up after a few seconds and started running. I encouraged Reba to go get it and she took off. The bird ran about 100 yards down the bank into some cover. Reba was relentless in finding it, but she couldn’t seem to locate it. I had an idea where it was at and I kept hunting in that direction while Reba was sniffing around for it. As I got to the area Reba was locked on and I knew she was onto something. She wouldn’t budge. I was throwing mud clumps into the cover and nothing would move and Reba would barely flinch. I finally got Reba to release as I didn’t think anything was in there from all the mud clumps I was throwing in the cover…nothing would come out. We continued hunting and reached our turn around point and started to hunt back up the same bank and again she locked on and was staunch at this same clump of cover. This time I decided to go down the bank and kick the cover. As soon as I got down there Reba pushed her nose in and down and came out with a mouth full of feathers from the winged bird I had shot earlier. That bird had been there for a good 20 minutes or longer and was still alive. Again Reba wouldn’t pick it up. We continued hunting and she pointed the fourth bird and I shot it. This is the bird that I let her have her way with; I let her play with it and I didn’t retrieve the bird at all and I kept hunting along the river bank. She finally caught up to me and right away pointed another bird, I flushed the bird and downed it about fifty yards away. Reba saw the entire picture and went after the bird; lo and behold she played with the bird for about 5 seconds and she started to pick it up and bring it to me, along the way she would drop the bird and reposition it in her mouth. The entire time I was encouraging her and she brought the bird to me. I stopped everything and hugged her for a good five minutes. After this I figured I would go back to the downed bird that I never retrieved and had let her play with. She went straight to the bird and brought it to me. Out of the five birds we got she pointed four of em and she flushed the first one. After the third bird that she went after there were a few in there that I missed altogether but Reba had pointed them and flushed em and she knew the situation as far as going after them. I would miss the birds and she would go after these birds as if they were suppose to go down, but they wouldn’t go down and she would go after them until she would lose sight of them and she would be way out.

Its more enjoyable to me to see the development in her than me actually shooting the birds. I am thoroughly impressed with her and definitely didn’t want to come home today. I can’t wait until we can get back out, planning on going back out for another round in the near future.

She is definitely a family dog, sleeps with us, goes to work with me every day, she kennels when I tell her to. The confidence, maturing and development that I have seen in her the last month has been amazing.

JD Wetsit"

2009 Litter

3 Males, 3 Females

Past Litters

When the time comes for the pups to be born, we have a whelping box in our house. Both Blanche and I are there to assist the mother. We weigh each pup and note its markings. When the pups are three days old, we take them to the veterinarian to have their tails docked and dew claws removed. Within a few days of birth, we start taking the mother and pups to our office every day. We have a whelping box set up in the office. Our employees and their children come in to the office to pat and hold the pups and play with them as they grow. We have a fenced area attached to our office and the pups, when they are old enough to walk, spend time in the outside fenced area playing with each other as well as with any guests and the employees.

In the evenings at home we play with the pups, and each one gets lap time. When the pups are five weeks old, we take them out to various fields and have them run with the older dogs. We also introduce them to water and swimming at that time. After a few times in the water, all of the pups enthusiastically jump in the water and swim at each outing.

We also introduce them to birds. At six and seven weeks of age, the pups are going out into a bird field searching and pointing birds. During this time we also introduce them to the sound of guns.

When you come to pick up your pup, you are getting an eight-week-old pup that has been socialized with both humans (adults and children) and other dogs. The pup has also been exposed to hunting cover, birds, and the gun. Your dog will already have a great start in developing its natural hunting abilities: desire, nose, ability to search, love of water, and prey drive. We recommend that you start hunting your dog at sixteen weeks, letting the pup develop its natural hunting potential.