Finally an update

Sorry for the very long delay in between posts. We have bee quite busy preparing for Christmas with a 3 year old around! As many of you may know a nasty ice storm hit this area a couple weeks ago. We were lucky that we just had a few large branches that fell down, no damage done. We only lost power for about 15 hours. Most of Mike's family lost power for much longer. His brother just got power back last Monday, so a week and a half after they lost it! How much we have come to rely on the comfort of electricity! You don't realize how much it affects your life until you don't have it.

On other notes, we are hoping to be able to get Rogue (now officially Forest King Upland Tsunami, we got her papers back) on some birds this winter so that we can start entering her in Junior Hunt tests in the spring. I think our biggest issue will be her trainability, as she very much has a mind of her own!

Here is a video of her today.

Holy cow! This was the first real bird work that we have done with her. I was shocked at how nice her points were and how long she held them. It was the first time she has pointed a "real" bird. She has always shown a tremendous interest in birds, but hasn't had much of an opportunity to point them yet.

Then here she is pointing a Chukar. We were trying to get a good flying bird that wasn't tied by a string, so she will learn that they fly away and don't always land where she can see them. Sadly, for whatever reason, this Chukar could only seem to get about 3 feet off the ground. Not really what we had in mind...She was as intense as she looks in this photo. She holds her points really nicely.

If you look closely at this photo you can see the pigeon on the string. We had Rogue on a cord as well, so that we could control her to a certain extent. Our fenced training area also has some fence down due to the storm, so we don't want her to run through it to the road.

Cedar and Kyler are doing well. Cedar's foot is healing very well! It will probably always look a bit funny, but overall it really is healing as well as can be expected. His new brace from Ortho Pets arrived 2 days before Christmas, and we are slowly acclimating him to it. It should hopefully allow him to have a mostly normal working life. It is a bit cumbersome for him, and he is still getting used to it. He still gets the toe part caught on the stairs when he is going up. Ortho Pets makes all sorts of braces/orthotics and prostetics for dogs and cats who have injuries. They can even be used by a dog with a torn cruciate who is not a good candidate for surgery, to make them more comfortable. The owners of the company are very nice and helpful. I highly recommend them if you have a dog that could use some extra support.

As far as the holidays are concerned, here is Jaida enjoying getting ready to decorate our tree. It has been a tradition in our house to listen to the Muppets Christmas album with John Denver every Christmas. (I had it growing up and decided to continue the tradition with Jaida) It is still one of my favorites.

Happy Holidays to all and I hope that you all have a Happy New Year!

Introducing....!!!!

And once again we introduce something new!

Widdershins Flyin Kyler SH !!!!!

Kyler, today, in a fantastic show of talent, finished her Senior hunter title! Mike handled her to her final leg of her title. She was probably at her best today, with scores of 9,9,9,9,9,7. The seven was for honoring, which is still a work in progress. It was a fairly cool (30 degrees when she ran) breezy day, but not as bad as Saturday. She didn't want her picture taken after, she was chilly standing still. The judges and the gunners had nothing but great things to say about her. They were very impressed!

We are so proud of our girl! We hope to fine tune some things this winter and perhaps start entering her in Master hunter next spring! We have her entered in a field trial in 2 weeks and hope that we will do well in that. She has been running huge lately, which is what she needs to do to compete in the field trial world.

Here was our support team today. Jaida braved the cold and let me wrap her all up to be able to walk the brace with Mike and Kyler.
Here is Rogue last week in our training field, the above is her on one of the rocks in the field, below is a video. She was being quite the nut tearing around the field.

The season goes on

So hunting season continues here at Forest King. (the above picture is from Halloween day, we shot our limit easily) Kyler has had a very successful season so far, finding well over 50 birds! We have lost track at this point. We usually keep a tally on the fridge, this year it has been impossible with the number of birds she is finding.

Kyler's last puppy left for his new home last Friday night! A very nice family in Boxford has given him a new home. I will put pictures of the puppies in their new homes as I get them.

Here he is a few days before he left. What a handsome guy!! I really wish we could have kept him, he will be a spectacular dog!

Here he is leaving for his home with his 2 kids! He even has his first "own" squeeky toy. He doesn't have to share this with his littermates!Rogue has been out with us hunting on days where the risk of running into a lot of people is slim. She is enjoying being able to run with her mother and check out all the fun spots to find birds. She has yet to find a pheasant on her own, but we aren't expecting much at this point.

Here she is cuddling with her uncle Cedar, who is learning to tolerate her well. He doesn't like her near him if he is chewing a bone or eating, but we can't really blame him for that.I found Jaida and Rogue like this one day while cleaning. She said they were "relaxing"!

Anyway, I hope to be able to post more soon!

And we're back...

It has been a while since I posted. I apologize for the delay, it has been a rough couple of weeks here at Forest King.

For starters on opening day of pheasant season Cedar had a terrible accident that could have easily taken his life. I won't get in to much for details, but suffice to say that he is recovering well. His bird season this year is over and he will be in a splint for several months, but we are blessed to have him here with us!

That being said, along with the rest of life!

The puppies are doing very well, yes, notice I said "puppies". Rogue is here to stay, of course, but for whatever reason we still have one male and one female puppy available. For various reasons, nothing has worked out with all the people who were going to take them. It is extremely frustrating, as they are now 12 weeks old and very much ready to go to a family where they will get individual attention! I have been searching far and wide for a family that is looking for an extremely well bred field dog. We have had lots of interest, but nothing has panned out. I am even willing at this point to have them go to a "non-hunting" home, as long as they are kept very active. (the red girl really would be best in a hunting home, but the male could certainly do fine in a home that does agility, or something similar) I really think that the economy is messing with people's minds, and for whatever reason people seem to think that spring is the only time to get a puppy. By spring these puppies will be housebroken and ready to start their debut in the field trial world! If anyone out their in blog land is looking for a well bred Vizsla please let me know!

Here is the future of hunting for Forest King! This was our first day back after Cedar's accident, I put an orange sweatshirt on Jaida as well as my hat. At one point on the walk (Mike was hunting, I was just walking with Jaida) she sat down and made this perfect photo op!
Here is Rogue on another hunt, checking out near the corn! She already knows where to find the birds!
She also knows where to go to relax after a long hike! She is the spitting image of her mother, it is really neat to see!Here are the puppies playing in our side field with a rooster Mike had gotten a couple hours earlier. They were all crazy about it!
Here they are after all that fun! And, yes, that is a splint on the boys leg( we call him Kinko, as that was his nickname as a newborn puppy)...A few days prior to Cedar being injured, while I was away at a veterinary conference, He hurt his leg. Luckily it is nothing major, and will not cause him any problems in the future. He just needed to wear a splint for 2 weeks. (I told you it had been a rough couple of weeks!)

Introducing...!

So here we go, the big moment! Introducing our new Vizsla!

Forest King Upland Tsunami

(pending)

Proudly known as "Rogue". We have thought long and hard about her name and wanted something that was appropriate for what we know she will turn out to be! Tsunami described her perfectly (she is a wave of mass destruction!) and a tsunami could certainly be considered a rogue wave! Hence the name.

She is formerly known as "pink". We have spent many weeks trying to decide which puppy would be the right one for us. She fits the bill. She is sweet and a bit crazy, not much fazes her. She is happiest running and exploring, just like most Vizsla puppies! The above picture is of her and her first live quail. As soon as she realized what we were doing she was out of her mind! She already has the Vizsla hunting tail that most Vizsla people would recognize, a certain way of wagging when they are on the scent. She found this quail several times with just her nose! Most puppies go by sight, not these guys! She then happily carried it around our field until we had to take it away to hide it again for her. The other 2 puppies did exactly the same thing. I have never seen puppies be so birdy before!

Here is Rogue just going out to our training field, before even seeing any birds. She was heading towards the bag and slammed on the brakes as soon as she smelled it.

Here she is going by with the bird, I shot the picture a 1/2 second too late.

Our little trainer/helper!

Here is red and then below, the blue boy.

Before spending some time with the puppies we went to Red Apple Farm in Phillipston, MA to do some apple picking with Mike's mom and family. Jaida loved climbing the trees!Jaida getting a better view of the top of the trees! Yikes!

Pulling the morning's earnings back to the car. The silly cart had an extra rental fee...But we had 3 bags full of apples to carry, so in the end it was worth it! Thanks to Sue for renting it! (Mike's aunt)

Jaida and cousin Kiley at the end of the morning.

Close, but no cigar!

We spent this past weekend down at Flaherty Field in CT for the CVVC fall hunt tests. It was overall a nice weather weekend, it was fairly cool, so we didn't have to worry about the dogs getting too hot.

We brought the puppies with us so they could get some socialization with other bird dog people. Plus it is always a good opportunity to expose them to some birds! They were in bird dog heaven! Both pictures of the puppy with the bird are of the red female.

This is Kyler and I during our brace on Saturday. She went on point just as we came into the bird field. This ended up being an unproductive point, as there was a big pile of feathers, but no bird. Looks nice though! We ended up with 2 more finds, the first one we were not able to shoot as it flew over my head and the gallery following me would have been in danger of being shot. Finally we found another Chukar and were able to get the required retrieve. Kyler did a very nice job all around. Her honor was pretty decent, considering that it has been our biggest obstacle.

This was the result on Saturday! We had an average of 8.5. This was Kyler's 3rd leg of her SH, so just one to go.

Sunday didn't go quite as well. While she hunted like a fiend (a little too much so, she was running like a field trial dog) She held some nice points, but there were other areas that we lacked in that gave us the lovely "NQ"-no qualify. Alas, that means we need to find another test at some point to finish her title up. I am probably going to start field trialing her, as she has the potential to be a fabulously competetive dog in that area!

Happily, Momo, Andrew's dog (and Kyler's cousin) finished up his SH title on Saturday. Well done Andrew and Momo! You can see his version of the day here.

Kyler is having a grand time with the puppies lately, she really enjoys playing with them, she is more like a friend now, no longer a mom! Here she is with the pink girl, who is a great wrestler!

How time flies!

So the puppies turn 8 weeks old today! I can't believe how time flies! They are all crazy! All of the puppies show intense interest in the wing on a string and love to chase it. They all began pointing it a couple weeks ago, their points are now staunching up nicely! For an 8 week old puppy to hold point for any period of time is impressive. These guys sometimes hold for 10 seconds!

This is Coti, the light blue/green boy. He left for his new home on Friday! He had become the mellow guy in the group and wanted to play and then just be held and kiss you on the chin! These are his new parents below, Brian and Stephanie.

Jaida's green chair is a favorite place of the puppies to play. Here is Kyler crushing the pink girl, one of her favorite pastimes. Kyler seems to spend more time playing with her than any other puppy.

Playing with Kyler's bear. Which really is just skin with no stuffing anymore.The blue boy destroying the earth! He even has devil eyes! No, just kidding, it is just a camera effect!I love this picture of the pink girl, she looks like she has some skin to grow into!

Playing tug o war with the earth ball.Kyler is in the background here wanting to get attention from Mike. Note the green hunting collar that she has on. That is because, for the second time in a year, she went in to a corn field and came out without her collar. Argh! Luckily, the last time she lost her collar, I bought 2 just in case. So, I happen to have another. It does mean, however, that I have to buy her a new nametag again...(this is the one and only place I will ever get name tags!) Once we decide on a name for the new puppy, I will order them both at the same time.Red girl watching over the planet...I am sure she has world domination on her mind!

Here is Coti the first night in his new home. Lucky guy, he has all new toys!With his new dad, Brian. I think he had a long day!He loves his little stuffed beaver!With his new mom, Stephanie, getting cuddled in the kitchen!Then. lastly, on Saturday night we traveled to eastern MA for the wedding reception of a good friend. My friend from high school, Rachel got married to her fiance' Chris. The wedding was a great time. It had a Jaws theme, as that is Rachel's favorite movie. It was a relaxed affair with good food and good times!

Here is the cake, Jaida was obsessed with it and kept looking at it until they took it away to cut it!

Here is a picture of Rachel and Chris doing their first dance. This was taken above the heads of the crowd. They danced to the theme song from "Shrek" as their first dance! That's the way to get the croud thumping! Congratulations to them, and may they have a lifetime of dances together! Love you!

Of course, we had to tape Jaida dancing to the Cha-Cha slide song. She had a great time, even though she didn't know the song! It is a bit dark, but you get the idea!

Half way there!

So, Kyler and I headed up to Sharpe's Farm in Hopkington, NH for the Northern New England Brittany Club hunt test. This was Kyler's first SH test in a while and I wasn't sure how we would do. We ended up with a qualifying run! Her honor left something to be desired, which I am fine with, as that is what we have been working on in training. Otherwise she had a great performance and actually stayed steady to wing, shot and fall!. She didn't move until I told her to retrieve! I was extremely happy with her performance.

Here she is after we realized (or I, for that matter) did well enough to receive a qualifying ribbon. So, now she is half way there, we need 2 more legs to finish her SH title. We will head back up tomorrow to try again. Often times, however, things the second day don't go as well as the first. They know the game and tend to be a bit hotter the second day, we'll see!

Yesterday while the puppies were out playing in the yard, the red girl decided that our chickens were very fun to chase. She loved when she jumped at them and it made them fly in the air.

She finally gave up when they went into the front yard.

Mike picking berries and a few of the babies helping!Seeing the chicken coop for the first time! Wohoo, these things are fun! This is the green (formerly light blue) boy. He is huge!The chickens weren't quite as happy about the whole situation as the puppies were. This is the red girl, pink girl, and yellow girl missing her collar. The blue boy was just leaving the scene as I took the picture. The yellow girl points the wing on a string like a pro already!

Pink streak of lightning!After the hunt test this morning we spent the day at a kids fest at Wachusett Mountain. There were all sorts of free samples and fun things for kids to do. Here is Jaida going down the biggest slide she has ever seen!

Then she got to go for a pony ride on a nice grey Arabian mare.

Waving like the ham that she is!

So, we'll see how things go tomorrow with Kyler. All I can ask of her is for her to continue to behave like I know she can!