Chug Hunting

A great picture of Chug doing some pheasant hunting in Montana.

Chug is from the Prime x Darbi litter of 2008.

What a good looking guy.

Pregnant!

Yup! Miikka is pregnant!!

Vet and I counted "at least" 7 pups on the ultrasound.

My experience has been that I always have one or two more pups that what we see on the ultrasound, so we will see if that holds true.

Can't wait!!!

Lili Hunting

Lili (Shaq x Miikka 2007) has had a great year hunting.

Miikka has an appointment on Thursday for an ultrasound to see if the repeat of the Shaq breeding is indeed happening.

Dog Gnomes

I sometimes feel that my dogs are like the famed world traveling garden gnomes. They are becoming seasoned travelers!

Since January of 2009, my girls have visited (in no particular order):

Alberta

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

Montana

Wyoming

Colorado

Nebraska

Oklahoma

Texas

Missouri

Delaware

Pennsylvania

Maryland

Iowa

Illinois

Kansas

Indiana

Ohio

New Jersey

West Virginia

In the past few days my girls have been:

1) To the famed covered bridges in Madison County, Iowa.

What a beautiful location and I saw some amazing bridges!

2) Sitting in front of a Nebraska corn field

3) And my favorite one of all!

Sitting on Little Round Top looking over the Devil's Den at the Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Time to head home

Here is a gorgeous picture of Miikka's boyfriend "Shaq". It was neat to see him in person again. What a great dog!

Amazingly, even though Miikka has had one litter by Shaq and another (fingers crossed) on the way...the two had never met. The wonders of modern reproductive technology.

I couldn't get a good picture of the two as Shaq only had eyes for the Peanut.

That's okay Shaq, I think she's cute too.

Alas, Arson's 2009 National is over today. He was dropped after a handle in the 6th series. It was an impressive showing for a young dog. Kenny and I now have the LONG drive back to Alberta.

Darbi at the National

Not very often can I get Darbi "she beats me" to put her ears up for a camera. I tricked her yesterday.

I pulled her off Kenny's truck after the 5 millionth flyer had been shot and she was raring to go run the trial.

So, here is Darbs at the 2009 US National. This might be as close as she ever gets to a US National.

For those who have been following Darbi's health problems this summer, it seems she is a 100% now. She ran a week of pre-National in New Jersey and Kenny said she was full of go and ran as good as anyone in the group. I truly think she hurt somewhere bad this summer, but I doubt we will ever find out the cause of her pain. I, to this day, think is was back pain of the soft tissue kind. I'm glad to see her back to herself these days though, and that is all that matters.

Sunset

I love this picture of Miikka in a Delaware cornfield at sunset.

Pre-National Training

I'm going to get around to posting some pics.

This is "Arson", who is Kenny's National competitor this year. He is a young dog at his first National and so far, so good!

Here is Arson on one day of pre-National training in Delaware. It was WET and Cold.

A pic of FC AFC Taylorlab Downtown Dusty Brown.

Bill Eckett with Kiss Of The Devil.

And finally, the "pros" setting up a test on a miserable day.

Delaware

So, I'm at the 2009 National Retriever Championships in Dover, Delaware.

It's been too rainy this week in pre-National training to pull my camera out.

Pics to come as soon as it dries up!!

Lili

Lili (Shaq x Miikka 2007) has had a great fall hunting and training.

Lili is the black dog says Captain Obvious.

Handsome

This is "Chug", from the Prime x Darbi litter.

Isn't he a handsome guy?

Super Singles

Congrats to "Emma" (Tiger x Darbi 2006) for winning her local retriever club Super Singles competition in Ohio!

She's running a Master Hunt Test this week-end and I wish her luck.