Pictured above is Mike Flewelling, John Stolgitis, and Eli Richardson all of whom have handled the dog they are posed with, Chasehill Little Bud, on his way to amassing a record of 30 plus championship placements ranging from the alder thickets of New Brunswick to the piney woods of Georgia. Bud’s record is one that will likely never be exceeded and once he’s dead should give him serious consideration for election to the Field Trial Hall of Fame. Getting elected will be a hard row to hoe for a dog that is really not a part of the bird dog establishment. He’s been run by his owner Stolgitis who has turned pro along the way in so many different venues and types of trials on foot and on horseback that the dog’s reputation is some what scattered. Plus the election to the Hall of Fame usually requires a production record as well as the individual accomplishments of the dog.
Wild Apple Spot On in the bird field late last summer.
Every time one of Bud’s progeny garners a placement in an American Field sanctioned event, that placement is added to Bud’s production record. As most of you know, last summer we had three of Bud’s puppies here at the kennel. One was sold as a hunting dog and spent his fall being hunted from Wisconsin across the prairies to Washington state. Another went back to the breeder, Derek Caudill, and is currently with Scott Chaffee who expects he’ll do well next fall in the wild bird derby stakes in Michigan. The third one I kept and named Wild Apple Spot On. Spot had a good hunting season last fall and we ran him a couple times in the fall as a puppy and derby but he wasn’t quite ready yet. This winter in Kentucky he started coming into his own with four first in four puppy stakes and two seconds and a third in derby stakes. I was really looking forward to running him in the Kentucky Derby Classic which was held on the WMA where we train in the winter which would have given Spot a bit of a home court advantage. But unfortunately he scratched his cornea rather severely and has been laid up for almost a month. He finally got the green light to go back to training last week and I entered him in the open puppy stake at the Northern New Hampshire Bird Dog Club which runs nearby. If he hadn’t just had a month off I would have put him in the derby as well but thought 30 minutes on a rather tight, thick course would be too much.
Friday they had run the first series of the Kilkenny Classic and an Open Shooting Dog qualifier stake on the same ground the puppies would be run on so there were birds on the course. Spot went out and shortly was on point, but it turned out to be where one of the quail from the day before had met an untimely end. He then went on to have two broke finds on other left over quail and a somewhat moderate race (for him) to grab second place. With two weeks before the Maine Bird Dog Club trial, I should have time to get his conditioning back close to where it was before the eye injury. But in the meantime, Spot just wanted to let his dad know he is doing his part to build up Bud’s numbers before his inevitable run for the Field Trial Hall of Fame.