We arrived in Kentucky late Saturday afternoon as it was getting dark. Got the dogs settled into their new digs before getting on the ground Sunday. The team here in Kentucky is all young dogs Dottie and Spot are this year’s puppies and Dillie is just a little over a year old. Brandy, Glo, and Sam are all derbies so it should be a fun winter. Dillie just joined us on the way south but the other five were all hunted at home this fall and even the two puppies had birds shot over them. Dillie will be on check cord duty for a little bit until we get to know each other. She’s from the heart of Hampshire Kennels breeding program (Elhew Sea Man X Hampshire’s Maddie) and as you can see from the picture today is nicely put together. I’ve only had her on a check cord a few times but I really like her attitude and the fact that she looks to me for direction.
Today I took the whole team over to the Miller-Welch WMA which is where they hold many of the field trials here in Kentucky and ran dogs. Spot got to run by himself and this was the first time he’d ever seen a big open space. Needless to say he and most of the other dogs kept diving into the woods looking for birds. Unfortunately there weren’t any today. There are usually a few resident woodcock around in another part of the WMA I’ll try to find them later. The farm where I’m keeping the dogs isn’t manicured the way the trial grounds are but I already found one covey of wild birds and I assume there are others. I’m not sure we’ll be competitive with the walking dogs that are used to running edges but it will be good to get the dogs some experience in this type of trial before we head north for the spring quail trials in New England. It’s hard to get a good shot of dogs on the move but here’s a few from today.
Brandy
Dottie
Spot