Forest King Vizslas

Babies, babies everywhere!!

2011-05-17T21:08:00.004-04:00

We have babies coming out our ears here at Forest King! Rogue's babies are now 3 1/2 weeks old and are doing very well! Kyler gave birth to a wonderful litter of 6 babies on Mother's day! 3 boys and 3 girls, just like her daughter!

Kyler going above and beyond by trying to give Rogue a break with feeding the babies for a bit! Rogue doesn't seem to mind too much!

We think all 12 babies have their families eagerly awaiting their homecoming in a few weeks! We are really looking forward to having all these babies grow up. With Rogue's babies being Kyler's grandbabies, it is pretty exciting!!

Babies are here!

2011-04-23T18:49:00.005-04:00

We have babies again here at Forest King! Rogue whelped a litter of 3 girls and 3 boys this morning! She was nice enough even to wait until daylight to have them! So far all are doing well and mom is very content!

Proud girl, Jaida with her new babies!Here is grandma Kyler and great uncle Cedar waiting impatiently for the arrivals!

Our only dilemna now is that we have 4 reservations for girls and 2 for boys, so we have to make some adjustments somewhere!

More Puppies!

2011-04-09T20:33:00.002-04:00

So, it's official! We have 2 litters on the way here at Forest King! We will have a wild spring, but it should be a lot of fun! We have an extensive waiting list for all these babies, we are hoping all are born happy and healthy! Rogue is getting very large and still has 2 weeks to go. Kyler is just beginning to get slightly thick in the middle. Hopefully as soon as I find my camera battery I will be able to post some pictures! Next blog will likely be when we have babies on the ground, yeah!! Stay tuned!

Puppies on the way!!

2011-03-16T09:24:00.003-04:00

Well, we have exciting news here at Forest King!! Rogue is indeed expecting puppies! She is due April 25th and it looks like we have at least 6 puppies, possibly more! Rogue was bred to Widdershins Upwind Jozsi, owned by Andrew Campbell and Meg Riordan of The Regal Vizsla. Jozsi is a well bred and handsome field trial dog from Wendy Russell and Lisa Deforest's breeding.

These puppies should be some fabulous dogs both on the field and in the home! We are very excited to see how they turn out!

Below are 3 ultrasound pictures we took yesterday while confirming Rogue's pregnacy! How cute!!

Puppies-hopefully!

2011-03-10T21:02:00.002-05:00

It has been a super long time since I have had any time to update my blog! Life with 2 kids and 3 dogs, plus a full time job hasn't allowed me to have any time to sit and type!

I am excited to announce the breeding of both Kyler and Rogue for spring puppies! Kyler has been bred to DC Fieldstone's Remington Ammo MH, from Huntmore Vizslas. She is due May 6th, we will confirm by ultrasound in early April. We have several really great families waiting for these puppies and I really hope that things work out well!
Rogue has also been bred and is due April 25th. We will confirm her pregnancy by ultrasound at the end of March.

Both these litters will make phenomenal field trial, hunt test, hunting and family dogs and we can't wait to see how everything turns out!

While things will be busy here this spring if we actually have 2 litters in the long run the timing will work out better for everyone involved! We plan to put our house on the market (after the puppies leave, of course) so that we can hopefully sell and build our dream house on our new 11 acre lot down the road! At the new location the dogs and us will have a lot more space to spread out and a lot more privacy!

As things progress hopefully I will be able to post pictures here for all to see!

Pictures!!

2010-02-09T21:50:00.007-05:00

Ok, so I have been too busy to do much with anything besides puppies, work and kids...I aplogize! So, here are a few pictures of the babies! Jaida is loving having them here!

Finally, PUPPIES!!

2010-01-22T09:57:00.004-05:00

So, we finally have puppies here at Forest King! Kyler whelped a beautiful litter of 4 girls on January 13th! All 4 are spoken for. 3 of the puppies are going to nice family hunting homes and the 4th is going to the dad's (Duke) owner, Carrie Syczylo's owner. Carrie will be campaigning this puppy on the field trial circuit, so hopefully we will be able to see her on occasion if we are out at trials! Here is Kyler with 2 day old puppies. "Mom, would you stop taking pictures of me, please!?"The red and white (or now more like, tan) puppies sleeping. Red puppy was actually nursing in her sleep, it was quite adorable!

Here are all the babies eating! This was taken at about 5 days old or so. They are much bigger now!

So far the yellow and white puppies are the tanks of the litter. They both surpass the biggest male puppy from the last litter we had (of the same breeding) They are little piggies! The pink puppy gained the pink collar as this was Rogue's collar last year and this puppy reminded us of her when she was born! She came out screaming! As I was helping Kyler to get the sac off of her head and clear her mouth and nose she was already yelling about it. She was basically still attached and was letting us know she was here! Time will tell if she becomes the next Rogue. The red puppy is quiet and peaceful so far. She is about the same size as the pink puppy. Even though smaller than their sisters by a few ounces, they are still bigger than the girls from last years litter, so I guess they are doing alright!

Rogue is doing well in New Mexico from what I hear. Chuck and Diane have started some ground work with her in preperation for her to be broke this summer. It apparantly took a little bit, but she is starting to get it. (she doesn't like to sit still!) She has been on a bunch of wild birds and apparantly also found a jack rabbit! Vizslas were bred to hunt fir and feather! So, the plan for her is to continue to train and then compete at the National Vizsla Association national field trial in Missouri in mid-March. We aren't sure yet if we are going to make the drive down or not. 21 hours each way with a 4 year old and a 5 month old might be tricky! We'll see!

Puppies!!

2009-12-11T16:27:00.003-05:00

We found out this week that we are expecting puppies!! Kyler was bred to Duke, Rogue's dad in early November and we found out on Wednesday that we will be expecting at least 4 puppies, possibly 1 or 2 more. We will find out a more accurate number when I take a radiograph in a couple weeks.
Hopefully I will be able to post her radiograph pictures after we take them!!

Stay tuned for more info!

When does God sleep?

2009-11-12T10:51:00.005-05:00

The title was a question that Jaida, our 4 year old asked me yesterday...My answer, "um, I don't know honey, good question." I thought it was too cute not to mention.

So, we are back from Virginia and the VCA National field trial! We had a wonderful time and met some very nice people. We finally got to see Rogue and had a great time watching her run! She ran big and bold and I swear she had a smile on her face the whole time! I was not able to get any pictures of her run, as I was on horseback for the first time in several years and needed to concentrate on what I was doing! I had also never ridden a gaited horse before, it was an odd an interesting ride!

Our campsite at Nationals...We had a view of the breakaway and a bunch of the property! Sweet!

Sadly, Rogue had 2 false points, which I have never seen happen with her before. Carrie Syczylo of Durite Vizslas, where Rogue has been for the last several weeks, was handling her. She was confused by the false points as she had never seen Rogue do that either. Well, it might have been explained the next day when Rogue came into heat(females coming into season will often do wacky things outside of character)..So, due to that, no placements. (she also had a bracemate that tagged and bumped her about half the brace, annoying) People who saw the brace though, said it was the most interesting one of the day!

Jaida on her first "real" horse ride. Carrie took her out for an entire brace, so Jaida rode for 45 minutes! She is now trying to convince Daddy to get some horses!

We didn't get to do anything outside of the trial as we had initially hoped, we had truck trouble on the way down and our Suburban spent 2 days at the shop being looked at. The mechanic was unable to find the problem, so now, yet again, our truck sits at the repair shop nearby. On the way home we did have a lovely dinner with my cousin, Amanda, whom I haven't seen in several years and who had never met Jaida. It was quite nice to see her, she only lived 20 minutes from where we were all week!

While in Virginia Kyler decided that it was time to be bred, as opposed to the week before, as originally planned with a more local stud dog. So, we ended up breeding her to Duke, Rogue's dad, who we had originally planned to breed Kyler to this summer for one last litter. Carrie likes Rogue so much she is hoping to reproduce a similar dog from a repeat breeding! If this breeding took she will be due in early January. We have a list of people anxiously awaiting the news of their future puppy!

So, today, Mike took Rogue out for her first "real" hunting trip. We weren't sure if it would go well at all since she is essentially a trial dog and bred and trained to run from horseback, not foot. However, our little red girl surprised us with a great morning! She ran big, but manageable, per Mike. (we had the Garmin Astro GPS collar on her, of course!) She had 2 pheasant finds, one that she was just narrowing down when it flushed and a second one that she pointed solidly and held until Mike flushed it. He was able to shoot it and Rogue ran out to retrieve the bird. This was the first official bird that Rogue has had shot for her. We have done retrieving practice in the yard with a frozen bird, but never the "real" thing. She did just what was expected of her! She ran around for a minute with the rooster, extremely excited about it all, then nicely brought it to Mike's hand and went on her way. Couldn't ask more from a young dog and her first bird! She now sleeps nicely on the couch! Yeah!

Here is Rogue with her rooster in the yard. Mike had put it down on the porch to unload some things and Rogue found it.

Pretty decent size rooster for her!

The new addition!

2009-10-26T10:11:00.004-04:00

So, after a long and trying summer, finally on October 17th, our daughter was born! Kalyn Ann Barry decided to come into this world at 12:53am on opening day of bird season here in Massachusetts. After all the threats of her coming early, she waited until just 23 hours before her due date to arrive. She is happy and healthy at a whopping 8# 12oz. Let me tell you that no one was expecting such a large baby! Even the midwives were shocked at how big she was!

Big sister, Jaida is enjoying holding Kalyn and so far really likes being a big sister! Of course, she hasn't had to share anything yet with her, so we'll see how long that continues!

After being out of work for so long with the complications of pregnancy I have to return to work full time after only 6 weeks. My maternity leave is up then and having had to have used all my vacation time before my "disability" payments could kick in, it will be necessary financially. So, as of now I plan to return to work for December 1st. I have missed work a lot, so I am hoping it will be a good thing to go back! Since I started working at age 15, I have never had so much time off in my life...Sadly, because I was on bedrest all summer I didn't even get to enjoy it!

In other news, Rogue has been out in Indiana with Durite Vizslas for the past 2 months. After her first derby run this fall they made an offer we couldn't refuse. Carrie (the mom of Durite) offered to take Rogue for a couple months and train several days a week off horseback and run her in several trials. While it was a hard decision emotionally, there couldn't have been a better situation for Rogue at this point in time. With us very busy preparing for the baby and Rogue at the point in her puppyhood where some more serious training would be beneficial, we decided to send her out. So, Rogue got to experience her first plane ride! (I was a nervous wreck, as I personally don't really care for flying) She arrived fine and began training with Carrie's other dogs several days a week.

After being out there for a week and a half she was entered in the Midwest Shooting Dog Championship. She ended up taking 2nd runner up in the Derby Classic! Not bad for only having been out there for a very short time! Then the weekend of Oct 10/11 they traveled to Ohio for the Miami Valley Vizsla Club trial. Rogue was entered in both Open Puppy and Open Derby. She ended up winning both stakes! The judges made comments that she was the most mature puppy they had ever seen and another judge was quoted as saying "she gave me goosebumps"! What wonderful comments on our girl! We are so proud!! There was even a paragraph in the Vizslak Sentinel about her!

Now she is off to the VCA National Field Trial next week to run in the Derby Classic. We will be making our way down to Virginia to see her run and pick her up from Carrie. We are very excited since it has been a while since we saw her last.

Hopefully the next time I post it will be with the results of the National competition. There are some big name dogs and bloodlines running in all stakes, so Rogue will have some tough competition! We're keeping our fingers crossed for our girl!

Weekend of Glory!

2009-09-14T11:22:00.002-04:00

Well, no photos to post, sadly, but...

Kyler took her 2nd Master hunter leg at the VCCNE hunt test on Sunday! She hunted well and had 2 retrieves on course with a nice honor...Mike has been working on her retrieve at home diligantly the past week and it paid off. She returned the quail to hand beautifully!

Rogue also was entered in Junior hunter and she passed the final leg for her Junior title with flying colors! She can now officially be known as Forest King Upland Tsunami JH! (well, once the AKC receives the paperwork)!

Cedar had a good showing as well in his Senior hunter test. Unfortunately, for whatever reason the judges were expecting more of a Master hunter level dog in a senior test, so they didn't pass him. He had a perfect retrieve and one nice honor, which they made turn into 3 honors...Finally 45 minutes into what was supposed to be a 30 minute brace, he decided he had enough and stole the point on the other dog's bird...Oh well... He has still come a long way!

On the home front, I have now made it past 35 weeks of pregnancy! I told the midwives that I was leaving the couch next week, once I hit 36 weeks...We have a "limited" time frame of when this baby would ideally be born, silly as it is! My sister is in Greece for the next 10 days, then about a week and a half after that my parents are out of town for 10 days...So, ideally, somewhere in between this baby can come so my family can be there! (I might have to push a truck up a hill to get it that way, but if that is what it takes then perhaps I will do that!) :)

Summer update!

2009-08-25T10:16:00.004-04:00

(Jaida on a boat ride, July 4th)

So, after a long hiatus I think I finally have some time to update things here! It has been a rough summer since my last post. After being pulled out of work at the beginning of June things apparantly took a turn for the worse and I have now been hospitalized three times for pre-term labor issues...I have spent a total of 18 days in the high risk labor and delivery ward at Baystate Hospital's Wesson Women's Center. I have been on strict bed rest since the beginning of July. I am "allowed" one shower per day and can get up to use the bathroom, nothing else.

Mike has been busy taking care of all the animals here at Forest King, from the dogs to the chickens and tortoises. On top of that he is working full time and taking care of all the shopping, housework plus Jaida and I. He has been extremely busy!

Dogs are starting to grasp the concept that mommy doesn't feed them right now and have finally gotten the idea that Mommy doesn't take them for hikes right now. Rogue is finally getting to the age where she is beginning to settle down, luckily!

We are looking forward to the fall field trial and hunting season. With me being essentially out of commission until this baby decides it is officially time to come, I am not able to compete with any of the dogs. So, lucky for us, Andrew has kindly offered to run Rogue, the little nut-ball, in several field trials this fall. Since Mike doesn't ride and the majority of trials that Rogue will be running in will be from horseback, we need her to be handled by someone that is comfortable on a horse. I am hoping to get into the saddle perhaps by late fall. Time will tell!

Hopefully soon I will have more pictures to post soon, with staying at home all the time the camera hasn't gotten much use!

The joy's of a 3 year old!

2009-06-29T15:36:00.007-04:00

Well, almost 4 year old. If you ask Jaida yourself how old she is, she will say 3 1/2. Her birthday is next month. Now that school has ended we are faced with the task of keeping her entertained for the whole summer. The first weekend off she had a birthday party for one of her friends. They had a huge slip n' slide that she spent about 2 hours going around and around.

Here is a video of her and her friends going down. (it takes a little bit to see her go down)

This is only a tiny bit of the mud she got on herself by the end of the party! The inside of her bathing suit was black!

The tortoise in our family, Wonka, has had a change of habitat, which is very exciting! She has finally been moved into a more appropriate house for her size. She now resides in what is called a Tortoise Table. Basically it just gives her a lot more room to move around and get some exercise. I am hoping that it will allow her to have the space for a friend or 2...

Then, on Saturday night we had the opportunity to go see the PBR (professional bull riders) in Manchester, NH. My brother-in-law happened to get 4 tickets for their company owned suite for free! This was Jaida's first time going to this type of event and she was very excited! She wore my cowboy hat and loved it!

I have never had the chance to be in a suite at any type of event...Wow, how nice it was! I don't know if I ever want to do it without the suite again! Spoiled!
Here is Jaida dancing prior to the riders coming out. They were playing a lot of good music andshe was obviously enjoying herself...

For anyone who worries that bulls used in bull riding are treated poorly....Think of it this way...The bulls that they use on these circuits are sometimes worth over $100,000. Would you treat something badly if it was worth that much money? Didn't think so! Here is a link to a PBR site on the bull's welfare: http://www.pbrnow.com/about/sportinfo/bulls.cfm
We have been to several PBR events, it was a yearly tradition for a while to make it to the event in Worcester, MA. The bull's always seem quite content and have always been in excellent shape.

Excellence among us!

2009-06-13T18:35:00.006-04:00

We just returned from a day down at the Flaherty field trial grounds in East Windsor, CT. The CVVC was holding their annual Hunting Dog Stake, which consisted of 2 different stakes: Huntind Dog Exellent and Hunting Dog. The difference between the 2 being the level of the dogs training. The excellent stake has dogs who have had a lot more experience and actually have to retrieve a shot bird. It is very similar to a senior hunter test, other than an honor, if not presented, is not required. (meaning, if the opportunity arises, the dog must honor) The regular stake is more like a junior hunting test where the dogs go and find birds and blank guns are shot over them. No birds are actually shot for this stake.

I am happy to say that our very own Widdershins Flyin Kyler SH CC FC took first place! Kyler had the first brace of the morning, on what was to be a very humid, dead air type of day. She had a couple nice finds in the back course and shortly before getting to the bird field had a stop to flush. However, when Mike got up to her at that moment, not only had she had a stop to flush, but she was also on point on another bird! Mike blanked that one and on they went into the bird field. Kyler went on point on a Chukar in the bird field, which Mike initially couldn't find. After kicking around for a bit he relocated her and she moved foward only a tiny bit. At this point Kyler was looking almost straight down and to her side. Right next to her foot was the bird! Mike tried to kick around to get the bird to move, but it was apparantly very, very asleep. Mike finally opted to pick it up and try to get it to wake up and fly. Once in his hand he realized that the birds beak was actually stuck in it's wing somehow and was actually unable to fly that way. Mike opted to throw the bird for the gunners, even though that type of scenario can cause some dogs to come unglued and break. Kyler held firm through the throwing of the bird and through the shot until Mike asked her to "fetch". While she didn't bring the bird entirely to hand, it was to 2 steps in front of Mike, which is allowed in this stake. She did a phenomenal job!!

Cedar got to run a few braces later. While he only had one bird find, it counted, as it was in the bird field and he was allowed to retrieve the bird. Considering that 6 months ago we didn't know if he would ever hunt again, he did really, really well! He didn't place but boy did he have fun and showed how tough of a dog he is for coming back from such a bad injury. (What I previously didn't mention is that he had his first hunt test in several years last weekend and took his first SH leg! How's that for a middle age guy after a long break in training!)

Here is Cedar getting ready to go out on his run (he is actually standing behind the judge on the left. On the right is Sparky, Joan Heimbach's 12 year old dog, who she enters just so she can go and have fun! Nice job Joan and Sparky!

Rogue ran the last brace of the day in the Hunting Dog Stake. As she came into season last week she has to go last. In a hunt test they are not allowed to run while in heat, so it was great to get to compete with her in this event! She had a nice break away and ran like a champ for the entire 30 minute brace. She had one find in the woods where the judges weren't able to see her on point, but it was obvious that she had found a bird. Then her bracemate bumped a bird and she chased it, catching it and carrying it for a bit. While she wasn't really steady enough for this stake (they are supposed to be steady until the flush), it was a great training run and the judges were quite impresses, especially considering that she is only 10 months old! They showed their approval by giving her a Judges Award of Merit. Which basically means that they couldn't place her, but really liked what they saw!

Here she is just before she went out on her brace!And during her run! Thanks to Amanda for toting my camera along to capture the Roguester!

Leaping for joy! Check out the ears on her!

So proud of all our guys! On top of all this Jaida had a blast playing with Grampy (my dad) who came to help us out with child care for the event! As some of you may know, I am 5 1/2 months pregnant. Due to some issues my doctors have instructed me to sit as much as I can, so I am not "allowed" to chase the dogs or Jaida around. I was actually instructed to not work anymore, until a safer date at least, due to the risk of pre-term labor. So, sadly, I have been staying home a lot lately and spending a lot of time sitting on the couch!

Here is Jaida wearing Grampy's glasses and baseball hat, she is so silly!

And a cool find where Rogue was going to run, a big slimy frog! She loved it!This is what the dogs got to enjoy once we got back to Northfield! All 3 had a nice vanilla soft serve cone! (kiddie size-of course!) I didn't get a picture of Cedar, as he was the first one, and I didn't think to grab the camera...Rogue had never had ice cream before so I think she was a bit surprised that I was letting her eat something like that! She's hooked now!

Rogue's first cone!

Then, in addition to that...The Regal Vizsla's Momo (you can see his version of the blog at that link) took an Award of Merit in the Hunting Dog Excellent stake! From the sounds of it he had a really nice brace with Geena, another one of the placements in the stake. So, the VCCNE crew really did quite well! The VCCNE crew has a history of doing very well at this event. Andrew's dog, Jozsi took the Hunting Dog Stake last year. The prior year, Stephanie and Manny's dog, Baron, took the first place in the Excellent division. 2 years before that it was won by Ivan and Marlena's dog Fruska, also a VCCNE member! All of these dogs are from similar bloodlines, tracing back to Widdershins Farm's Hollywood lines! Goes to show you what good hunting bloodlines can do! Way to go Widdershins dogs!!!

Little Stinker!

2009-05-09T08:30:00.005-04:00

Well, all is well here. No real big news to report.

We spent the first weekend of May down on the Cape at Crane Wildlife Management Area. The Mayflower GSP club was holding their spring hunt test. I was actually scheduled to judge junior hunter on Sunday, but the entries were such that they decided to cancel half of the judges. It was fine with me, as I had been really sick for the past 2 weeks and actually looked forward to just running the dogs and recovering.

On Saturday Mike ran Rogue and I ran Kyler. Rogue ran well and passed her 2nd JH leg. Kyler was having a great run when she went on point in the back course. Unfortunately, her bracemate, who is obviously not ready for the Master Hunter scene, screwed her up. He came running up to her and basically ran circles around her, not honoring at all. Kyler moved and one of them bumped the bird, they both jumped at it. I called whoa to Kyler, who stopped instantly, but it was too late. We both got picked up. Kyler should have stayed steady, but I can't really blame her for moving...The other dog was just being an idiot.

On Sunday Mike and I changed roles and he ran Kyler and I ran Rogue. Rogue remembered the deal from Saturday and went off like a shot from the break-away. She hit the back tree edge and was barely a spot on my radar. Yikes, that is a field trial dog for you!

She came around nice and went into the bird field with one find on the back course. We were braced with Jen and Dennis' puppy, Raven, who made an excellent bracemate! Neither of them had any interest in playing and were obviously out to work. Rogue ran like a little nut-ball and was basically on the other side of the field from me most of the time. She hunted like a pro. The one thing she didn't do was pay any attention to me! She was out for herself and had not a care in the world that I was there. At one point she had a nice point on a quail, which was completely buried in the grass. When I went to flush it, it could only fly up about a foot due to the grass. Rogue was able to grab it and spend the next 5 minutes running around with it in her mouth. She would not bring it to me no matter what I said. She finally dropped it because she thought she had found another bird.

In the end we did pass with all 9's except for trainability (which we got a 7). I actually thought that the judges might give us a 5, which would just pass us. One of the judges came up to me after with some funny comments. She said that someoneelse would have failed us due to how everything went. She actually said that I should have yelled at Rogue when she wouldn't listen to me. I found that a bit funny because had I yelled at her, she still wouldn't have listened to me, and I think it would have looked worse.

Here she is with a really nice point, even if you can barely see her in the grass! All of these pictures are compliments of Jen, who was out on the brace with us.

Then, when we were done running the dogs, this guy showed up! He is well known in the area for coming to take away some of the game birds for his bird to eat. Jaida was quite facinated by Sarah the red tailed hawk. She was intimidating and kept flapping around, which was a bit scary for Jaida!

2 phenomenal weekends!!

2009-04-12T18:41:00.003-04:00

I haven't had much chance to write lately, we have just been too busy! Some of you may have gotten some updates from Andrew's blog, the Regal Vizsla. He nicely has updated people for us when I am slacking on the blog front!

For starters Rogue spent last weekend competing in East Windsor, CT at the Nutmeg GSP club field trial. She placed 3rd both days, the second day being Open puppy. It was a horseback stake, but I walked the brace instead of riding.

While Rogue was running in the field trial, Kyler was entered up in Springfield for a 3 day show. Happily, on Friday, she took a 3 point major! This means that now she has 10 points towards her show championship. You need a total of 15 points with 2 majors (a win of 3-5 points, basically they have to win out of a certain number of dogs at once). So, she needs a major and a total of 5 points. She is being handled by Alessandra Folz, who is probably one of the top show handlers in the country. She does a great job and makes Kyler look amazing! (which I know she is, but it is nice for other people to see too) When I am able to get the picture scanned into the computer I will post it here!

Then, this weekend we were planning to be in Belchertown at the Swift River Sportsman's Club for the Central New England Brittany Club hunt test. I was judging Sunday but entered both girls in tests. Kyler was to compete in her first Master Hunter test and Rogue in her first Junior Hunter test. I am happy to report that Kyler passed her very first MH with flying colors! We are so proud! Sadly, this is the best picture that I could get as it was cold and rainy, both of which Kyler hates! She hunted like a pro and had a somewhat decent honor, which is the most difficult part for her, I think. When she went on point in the bird field it took them a few minutes to set up for a proper shot just based on how the bird was located. Mike had to move around so that the bird wouldn't fly right over the trucks of the gunners and the gallery. They flushed the bird (or Mike did, as the dog has to stay steady) the bird flew and flew, probably a total of 6 shots were fired. Apparantly the bird finally went down at the far end of the bird field. When I say the far end of the field, I mean the complete opposite end of the bird field just about into the woods. The judges told Mike to send her to retrieve despite the distance. Kyler shot out on command to find the bird. She went most of the way to the bird and searched very hard for it. She started to come back after a minute of not finding it, Mike told her to go out, hoping she would travel a bit further. Kyler went back out and cast a bit further this time. She came across the scent and began to track the bird. She found it within a matter of seconds this time. The obstacle now was that it was injured and running in circles cackling. Kyler, being the phenomenal dog she is, eventually was able to grab the bird and shot back to Mike with lightning speed to put the bird directly into his hand!! She was the talk of the weekend between the spectators and the gunners. It has been called the "most amazing retrieve we have ever seen"! That's our girl!!

Rogue had a decent day as well. She passed her first Junior Hunter test, despite going missing for a full minute on the back course. (I think she was on a bird deep in the woods) She had several finds, probably about 10 from what I can gather. She had nice stylish points and held for an appropriate amount of time for a dog her age. Her lowest score was in trainability, since she completely ignored me for most of the brace! She got very good hunting, pointing and bird finding scores.

She isn't quite as miserable as her mother in this picture, but still not happy because of the rain.

On Easter Sunday I was scheduled to judge my first Junior Hunter tests. Rogue was entered in a field trial with Andrew handling her. It was her first time being handled from horseback. While she didn't place she was apparantly quite good considering her human was on top of a horse for the first time! Kyler did compete in another test on Sunday but due to a very tempting situation she broke on the shot of the other dogs bird. On her behalf, however, she honored on her own from extremely far away, which was a first for her! Mike hadn't made it up to her side yet when the other gun went off and she broke. Oh well! Can't be perfect all the time!

Next weekend we are off to Connecticut again for the Connecticut Valley Vizsla Club's field trial. We plan to spend the weekend camping and having fun with good friends!

Spring is finally here!

2009-03-21T16:12:00.007-04:00

Spring finally appears to be arriving here at Forest King! Some of the snow is melting and we actually have large patches of grass/dirt showing in the yard. This, of course, also means that 4 months of accumulated dog poop needs to be picked up. Yuck...That was a fun project...

We have had several things going on over the past month...

At the beginning of the month Zealand's owners visited. Zea is Kyler's puppy and Rogue's sister. She was the "red" puppy from the last litter. It was great to see her and to meet her new owners, Kelly and Jason, since they picked up Zea from Widdershins in Maine, we hadn't actually met them yet.

Zea is a tiny bit bigger than Rogue, but almost not noticeable. She is slightly taller, but Rogue has a bit more bone than she does.

Here she is looking for her first bird!

And here she is after finding her first bird! Mike is just out of the picture holding the pigeon up. Can you tell she wants to get it!? It was great to see her figure it out and start to work our little field like a pro!

Then, last weekend our wonderful friend, Andrew, offered to take Rogue down to Virginia for the Conestoga Vizsla club field trial. It sadly rained all weekend (when it was sunny and 50 degrees here) and soaked Andrew to the bone. Despite the rain however, Rogue put in a great performance and placed third in Open puppy! This picture was taken shortly after her run, you can't quite tell how hard it had been raining. I was surprised to hear how well she ran, especially knowing how much she hates the rain. I guess her knowing that there might be birds involved made her not care.

We have a few events coming up in the next couple of months. The second weekend of April is both a hunt test as well as a field trial. I am supposed to be juding one day at the hunt test(which is in Belchertown at the Swift River Sportsmans Club), but not only have they not sent me any paperwork, but the premium isn't out yet. Seems a little close, since it is 3 weeks away. The same day of the test is also a field trial down at Flaherty field, put on by the TarTan Gordon Setter Club. I may enter Rogue in the puppy stakes there, as Andrew plans to go and has offered to run her. Then 2 weeks later is the CVVC field trial where Rogue and Kyler are both entered. We have been enjoying the field trial thing so far, it is still new, so we will see how it goes!

Hopefully we will have more news soon with results of some of the events!

Finally time to post!

2009-03-01T18:03:00.004-05:00

Thank you for all your patience in between this long off time from blogging! Things in life have been quite busy and I just haven't had time to sit down and type and download pictures!

We spent last weekend down in New Jersey with a great group of friends. We had driven down for the Eastern GSP club's walking field trial. Kyler was slated to run in Amateur Gun Dog, but she had come into season a week before and had to be pulled. Females in heat are not allowed to run in most field trials and hunt tests. They are technically not even supposed to be "on the grounds". Rogue was entered in 2 stakes, amateur and open puppy.

Here she is on the second day breaking away. You can tell by her leap that she was ready to go! Despite not really knowing what she was there for, she ran like a champ. She broke away and went to the end of the straight away right from the begining. She went to the edges of all the fields (which is what a field trial dog is supposed to do) She didn't find find any birds, but she sure looked like she knew what she was doing. All the pictures taken are courtesy of Andrew at Regal Vizsla. Luckily he has a sweet camera that takes amazing pictures! The first day was sunny and bright, day 2 we weren't so lucky. It had rained earlier in the day, then snowed, then rained again. Not long before we ran, which was close to 5pm, the rain stopped. It was cold and breezy, hence my cold weather gear! I looked a bit silly, but at least I was warm!

Here she is streaking through one of the fields towards the end of the course. The puppy stakes are only 15 minutes, so she still had plenty of energy left at the end of her run! She ran like this the entire brace, both days. The first day she had an insane GSP bird finding machine as her brace mate. I was actually glad about that, as he had no interest in her what so ever, and I was hoping that she wouldn't play with him. Being only 6 months old I was prepared for her to try and play. She didn't even think about it! On day 2 she had a young inexperienced pointer as a bracemate who continually tried to play with her. She stopped a few times and thought about it, but I told her to get on her way and she did with no problems. I was extremely proud, it was a difficult situation for a young puppy. The pointer was very sweet, but to a huge fault. He continually jumped on me, while I was on the course, which was extremely annoying to say the least. All I could do was to keep walking and when he jumped on me tell him off and keep walking. For obvious reasons you are not supposed to touch the other dog in the brace.Me catching her at the end of the brace. It has been helpful for me to have some yummy treats on hand to convince her that coming to me is a good thing! If you could zoom in very far you could see that her face is all contorted as she grabs the treats quickly, as she had not stopped moving yet! She had come zooming around the hedgerow behind me and ran 3 circles around me before slowing down. Her eyes were glazed over and she was clearly having the time of her life. I was happy that I got her to come to me at all! This was also her first experience with horses. Even though it was a "walking trial", the judges are still on horseback. After a close call on her first run on Saturday, she stayed away from them. (she ran a bit too close to one's front feet at the beginning of the brace, talk about a mini-heart attack on mommy's part!)

This is how Jaida followed the brace on the second day. She rallied just enough energy to come out and cheer on Rogue. Poor girl had been sick since early (like, 2am) Saturday morning. She spent the day resting in Mike's arms on Sunday.

While I don't have pictures of it, our friends Jen and Dennis came down with their 3 GSP's Sally, Tucker and Raven. Sally placed both days in her stakes as did Tucker in the puppy stakes! Nice work guys!

We had decided that since we were traveling all the way to NJ to stay with Andrew and his clan for Sunday night. We made plans to head up to TMT preserve about an hour and a half from his place in the Bronx. What a beautiful place! It consists of 235 acres of varying types of fields and woods. We put down Kyler and Momo first to do some honoring training, as we are preparing them both for their Master hunter tests this spring. I have to say, the team of these 2 is awesome to watch! They work seamlessly together. In a very short period of time they had cleared the first 3 fields with a total of 8 finds! It was a good opportunity to get them out and working. There were actually 2 occasions where they had separate bird finds at the same time, causing each of them to have to hold point for several minutes each for both safety and training reasons. In this picture Kyler is on point and Momo is honoring her.The highlight of Mondays trip is this picture below. The closest dog is Rogue, who had her first "real" hunting trip and found several Chukar on her own. She had her first bird shot for her and ran around with it like a nut for a while. In the background of this picture is our super dog, Cedar. Cedar has been layed up after a terrible hunting accident earlier in the fall. We were not sure if he would ever want to hunt again, or if he would ever be able to hunt again. He was not to be underestimated! This shot was actually his 3rd or 4th bird that he had found. (yes, he found it, and then Rogue happened to stumble into the situation) He looked ecstatic as he swept the field looking for birds (I swear he was saying why haven't you let me do this in so long?!). He found the remaining Chukar in the field plus one bonus pheasant, left over from someone else's hunt. My eyes actually welled up when I saw him retrieving his first bird. He was a bit sore after all the exercise as we are still dealing with his initialy injury. His bones are healed, but he is nowhere near 100% and may never be. He is still 3 legged a bit at this point, it depends on the minute...Nevertheless, it made for an amazing end to a great weekend! We are lucky to have such good friends to hunt with and train with! Thanks a million!! Really looking forward to doing it again soon!

Ready, set, trial!

2009-02-13T18:49:00.005-05:00

With field trial season coming up quickly I am mentally trying to prepare myself for having very few weekends available for much else.

Our first trial of the year is next weekend down in Medford, NJ. We have Rogue entered in 2 stakes, both Amateur and Open Puppy. In puppy stakes they often don't even put birds down for them to find. Personally, I am hoping that she can at least think that there are birds there, it will help her run much better! Kyler was entered as well in the Amateur Gun Dog stake, unfortunately, she came into heat this morning, so she will not be allowed to run. I am pretty sad about the whole thing, I was really hoping that she would wait another week and a half! Never the less, we will head down there just for the pure experience for Rogue!

Tonight we spent the last few minutes before dark letting her find a pigeon a few times. She had a blast! She holds her points so beautifully! The line on her not only prevents her from eating the bird (which is on a harness because they were not born here and will fly away without it-we will hopefully have some born here in the spring which we can have fly free) but also keeps her from running out of the field. The combination of the neighbors dogs and the snow have pushed it down in many places.

On the kiddo front:

Here is Jaida "walking through the forest" (her words exactly!) on a walk with the dogs last week. Funny, since we live in the woods...How cute!Here she is having a "girls night" with mommy and friends! We went to the fabulous Goten restaurant in Sunderland, MA. It is a Japanese place where they cook the food right in front of you. I could eat there every day. We had a blast!While writing out Valentines I had Jaida try to write her own name. I hadn't seen her do it before, apparantly she can do just fine!

It's so hard to be wittle...

2009-01-25T09:10:00.004-05:00

This was a quote from Jaida when we were hiking/sledding/snowshoing last weekend with Kyler and Rogue. Kids really do say the funniest things sometimes...Just makes me want to pick her up an squeeze her!I have actually gotten to use my snowshoes several times this year. I have always loved to go for a walk with the doggers and be able to get some good exercise myself! I haven't used my snowshoes much in the last few years, it has just been too hard with Jaida walking with me. Now that she is in school for a couple hours 4 days a week I actually can get out for me time. I am off on Mondays and Fridays so I usually drop her off at school and go for a hike if it isn't too nasty out. The dogs enjoy it!

Here she is jumping off a rock on our hike. I just couldn't get the timing quite right to get her in the air...She isn't afraid of much!We went out to Fitchburg yesterday to go sledding with Mike's brother, Chris and his family. Their daughter, Rainie, is 5 years old. She is a great kid, she helped take care of Jaida and Jordan (Mike's sisters 2 1/2 year old). The girls had a fabulous time on the track that Chris made. A short walk throught the woods near their house is this perfect sledding hill. They have spent time over the last couple of years perfecting it and cleaning it up. The ice storm this year put a damper on it as it took quite a while to clear the path and the track itself of all the downed trees. It has become the neighborhood hangout spot. Kids and their families come to hang out for the day sledding and enjoying the fire pit and some frosty beverages!

Jaida enjoyed going down the hill by herself, which from a mommy point of view was nerve wracking at first. Seeing her first born go flying down this hill and around the corners all by herself! After seeing how well she did the first time, however, it was clear that she was quite comfortable in her tube and the track is built for safety. After this picture was taken Chris and the other guys there finished adding more safety snow fence on the corners as extra protection from going over the sides.

And, finally, a Friday afternoon nap...Awhhhh!

Great weekend!

2009-01-04T18:20:00.008-05:00

We had a really fun weekend here at Forest King! My truck has died twice due to random things, so it has been interesting trying to get around with my small car and the dogs. The first time, on Christmas eve it died at work. As it turns out a bunch of rodents had eaten the wires leading to my fuel pump and cut the power to it. I got that repaired and then Friday I went to park it in my driveway and it wouldn't shift into park...Something in the steering column broke. So now I have to have it towed again tomorrow morning to fix that. I had to put the emergency brake on because the truck is stuck in drive, so it tries to roll away with out it! Yikes...Oh well...

Friday I took the dogs for a short run (only 45 minutes or so). Cedar actually got to go! It was his first "real" outing since his accident, so I was a bit nervous about how things would go. I strapped on his orthotic to help protect his foot. We still have to adjust it a bit, I have to send it back to the manufacterer. There are 3 adjustments included in the first 3 months for free. (not including shipping, of course!) He isn't using it as much as I would like, he tends to walk on the back of the orthotic, as opposed to flat footed on the bottom. Other than that it seems to fit fairly well. For the run I tried to cover his toes, as the snow will pack into the foot portion of the orthotic, which I imagine could be uncomfortable. He looks a bit silly in the pictures as I wrapped his foot with vetwrap, but of course, the section I put on the toe portion fell off! The only benefit I see to allowing snow build up is that since he is running in the snow it could be helpful in preventing swelling, just like an ice pack.

His toes are still undergoing a lot of healing, and one of them is fairly swollen. I think he might be developing a seroma (fluid filled pocket, slight blood tinge to it) due to the foreign material in his foot. He had another small pocket developing in between 2 other toes and it was obviously bothering him. On Saturday I noticed that it was open and a little oozy...I looked at it closely and noticed something sticking out of a hole in the middle of the swelling. I pulled out a small bone fragment from the lump! It was originally part of one of his toes that were shattered. Hopefully at least that one spot will heal up quickly now that the piece of bone isn't irritating it anymore.

The very beginning of the video is a bit shaky, sorry, I was walking in the snow and it wasn't a flat trail!

On Sunday we got together with a group of people to run the dogs. The group consisted of us with Kyler and Rogue, Stephanie and Manny (who own Baron, Roxy and Benny), Sam and Frank (who own Timber and Muki) Dave Nelson (who owns Chya), and 2 groups of other friends that each had 2 dogs. It was quite the group of dogs running and playing. All with 10 people plus Jaida. The dogs really had a great time! We hiked for close to 2 hours and then hung out to have dinner and beers. You don't see Kyler and Rogue much in these pictures because they were both off hunting and were very far from the rest of the pack. They played initially, then decided that hunting was what they wanted to do.

So, a big thanks for Stephanie for inviting us for this great day! Thanks also to Dave for allowing us to warm up in his house and then to Sam and Frank for letting us all hang out in their living room, dogs included! Rogue is actually sleeping on the couch as I am writing this, which is a very difficult thing to accomplish!

Also, thanks to Stephanie for finding an interesting beer that I am looking forward to trying. As a Christmas present she gave me a bottle of beer named "Rogue", how fitting!

Then, I received a couple pictures of Kyler's puppies at the end of the week. Briar, and Zealand. They are so darn cute and it sounds like they and their families are very happy! The first 2 are of Briar and the 3rd is of Zealand, cuddling with her stuffed pheasant, how appropriate! Briar was the male that we had for an extra few weeks, who had a minor fracture of his leg. He is doing well other than being a bumbly male puppy. I am looking forward to meeting Zea's family, as she was the red puppy who Wendy sold for us, so I never met her owners. It seems that we have the same taste in beer, so I am sure it will be a great time when we do finally get to meet!

Finally an update

2008-12-27T17:28:00.006-05:00

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....!!!!

2008-11-23T19:03:00.007-05:00

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

2008-11-14T17:17:00.008-05:00

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...

2008-10-31T10:55:00.005-04:00

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...!

2008-10-11T15:36:00.008-04:00

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!

2008-10-06T19:05:00.008-04:00

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!

2008-09-28T10:14:00.012-04:00

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!

2008-09-20T18:46:00.011-04:00

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!

Finally some time to post!

2008-09-19T10:23:00.008-04:00

Sorry for the delay in posting for those waiting! It has been a busy time with the babies! We also spent last weekend down at the Crane Wildlife Management Area for the VCCNE hunt test. I was apprentice judging the junior hunt test levels so I can officially begin to judge at hunt tests. The paperwork is all done, now I just need to wait for the official word that I am a judge!

We had a great time on the Cape, despite the rain. Kyler had to stay home with the babies since they are not vaccinated yet, it was just too risky to take her or them with us. We were able to work Cedar on some birds after the event, which was very helpful with some issues we have had with him lately. I think we made some progress.

The puppies are now almost 7 weeks old! I can't believe they will be leaving next weekend! I will miss them as they have come quite a part of daily life here. They are spending time daily outside in their ex-pen as well as being able to run around the house while we clean their box.

Here they are asleep in the corner of their box.Outside chewing on their first turkey neck, which is great for teething! The one missing the collar is the yellow girl, she, or someone else that is, keeps pulling it off and I find it on the floor in their box.Yellow girl digging in. The boys, learning how to share.Can't I just have a tiny bite?
Red in the house this morning. I was trying to get some nice pictures this morning, but they wouldn't leave me alone, so I had a difficult time.Hmm, check cord, tasty! This is the pink girl and the green boy (formerly light blue), he also managed to get his collar off. Luckily they are all old enough that I can tell the difference between them all even without their collars.Dark blue testing out his teeth on the check cord.Hopefully over the next few days I will be able to get some better pictures.

I am heading up to Sharpe's farm in Hopkington, NH both Saturday morning and Sunday morning to run Kyler in 2 SH tests. It is still slightly risky because the babies are still not vaccinated, but I am running first in the brace and will put her up in the truck as soon as we are done running. I plan to wipe her down with Chlorhexiderm after as an extra precaution for the babies. We'll see how things go, her honor still needs some work. She has yet to honor another dog other than a Vizsla...We are braced with a GSP tomorrow and a Brittany on Sunday. I am hopeful that working with our friends GSP tonight that we can lay the groundwork for that. Fingers crossed!

A great weekend

2008-09-07T19:45:00.009-04:00

My weekends start early now that I have a set schedule at work. At least until further notice I currently work Tu/Wed/Thur from 7am to 7pm. That gives me a 4 day weekend every week! It may change in the near future, as the hospital I work for wants the surgeon to be there on Mondays instead of Wednesdays.

The puppies continue to grow and get cuter every day. They are starting to develop their own personalities now.

This is the red girl playing with Kyler, she, in particular likes to play with mom. This was the puppies first time being allowed to run free in the house to explore.

The light blue boy picked up one of Mike's socks and carried it around for about 5 minutes. I didn't want to take it away as he was enjoying carrying it and since he wasn't hurting anything I decided to let him carry it for a while.The first time being allowed outside their pen in the yard. The pink girl checking out the transport cages for quail.

She got it! The red girl was able to grab the wing while Jaida was dragging it around.This is what happened after I brought them back inside after the romp. Excuse the stain on the pee pad!

The love to tackle mom!The boys checking out the world outside of the box.Pink loves to play! She seems to be the bounciest of the group.

Puppy pile!Red girl watching the action.Red girl chewing on her first marrow bone.This is how we found the navy boy after romping with mom.

Kyler is a fantastic mom, I keep trying to tell her that she can wean them now...She doesn't nurse them often, but still does a few times a day. It can't go on much longer, their teeth are sharp! (Note: Their collars changed again...They outgrew the medium size ones. The only real change is that light blue boy is now neon green, and the yellow girl, who was originally white, is more of a neon yellow)Jaida holding the big boy.We also took Cedar and Kyler for a hike on Saturday to Laughton's tree farm. Which, incidently, is not really a tree farm anymore, it is owned by the state. Mike had done some work there a few years ago cutting trees to create habitat friendlier to grouse, which are not very common in Massachusetts. Just as we came to a corner where we turned down this road, the dogs put up a small covey of 3 grouse! They were ecstatic after that and hunted hard for a good 1/2 hour realizing that there may be more birds there. We didn't find any, but it was a nice experience for all, as you just don't see grouse all that often where we are.This is one of the roads leading to our house. On the way back from our hike we ran into these guys, a flock of about 30 turkeys. Strangely, we took this picture right after running into about 10 turkeys justs a few hundred feet behind us.
Jaida had fun on Friday after school with finger paint!Then, Sunday, we visited the Franklin County Fair, where Jaida likes to sit on the tractors. Note that she is wearing appropriate clothing for the particular brand of tractor she is "driving".Of course, it wouldn't be a complete fair with out petting a calf! She also had a great time on a roller coaster and a mini pirate ship ride! I was quite suprised at how much fun she had on the "scary" rides!

And more babies...

2008-09-01T14:42:00.009-04:00

The puppies are loving being outside! They run around chasing each other and pouncing on the grass, then after 5-10 minutes, crash hard. They sleep for 1/2 hour, and they are ready to go again. The whelping box has now grown to a weaning pen. It is basically the Taj Mahal of sleeping quarters. All we did was add 2 more walls to make it twice the size, and what a difference it makes! The puppies now are able to have their sleep area and their potty area be seperate. They seem to be figuring it all out pretty quickly. In on corner they have a crate to sleep in, as well as their food and water dishes. At the other end they have their washable pee-pads to make life easier for me to clean up. Here is Cedar checking out the new digs. Kyler at least lets him look in now without threatening to bite him!

They are just starting to show some interest in the pheasant wing. They don't seem to always see it yet, but they are starting to carry it around and try to chase it a bit. The next few weeks should be interesting to see their reactions.

Andrew, from The Regal Vizsla, came up for a day of training in Bernardston on Sunday. We had a fairly successful time, after Mike and I were finally able to find out where each one had gone and meet up for the training. Cedar has had some issues lately where he is lunging at the bird when it flushes. I think this stems from too many poorly flying birds and him realizing that he can just catch them out of the air. We spent his time with a collar and check cord on to try and get him back to where he used to be. His previous problems had just been with honoring, so we are trying to work on that as well as his newly developed bad habit!

For Kyler, I really wanted to get some honoring out of her, as that is the main thing stopping her from completing her SH title. I am hoping, after the puppies are weaned, to finish it before the year is up.

Andrew got to meet the puppies for the first time, and they certainly received him well! The navy blue boy thought Andrew was there just so he could lick him and chew on his ear. He is the sweetest boy (the puppy that is, Andrew is nice too, though) ;-)

As fall is fast approaching, we are trying to get the dogs back into shape after a summer off. Bird season is only about 6 weeks away, so the dogs need to be in top shape to be able to hunt effectively. We took the dogs for an hour hike in The Women's Federated Forest in Petersham. We spent most of the time going along the powerlines, as that is where all the blackberries were that Jaida loves to eat. The dog have come quite adept at finding their own trail snacks and pick their own berries whenever they feel the need. Kyler seems to enjoy her time away from the puppies, and she is slowly weaning them on her own. We usually use a skid plate to cover her underside, since it is a bit more sensitive than usual, but after using it yesterday it rubbed her raw in a couple of spots and we decided not to use it. Happy Trails! On the way home at last!

A day of firsts!

2008-08-30T10:13:00.009-04:00

Babies are getting big! There whelping bix will turn into a weaning pen this weekend. All it really means is the addition of 2 walls, basically most of our kitchen! They will be 4 weeks old on Sunday. It has gone by very quickly, I can't believe that they will be ready to go in another 4 weeks! This morning the light blue guy put his feet up on the doorway to the box, they hadn't been able to do that yet.

On Friday morning they had their first "real" meal. They seemed to enjoy it and didn't have any problems eating. As soon as I put the food down they all went to it and started eating. I think because I waited until they are closer to 4 weeks to feed them they take to it a little easier than if I had offered it to them a week before.

Then, they slept! Then, since it was a nice day yesterday, they also went outside for the first time! We have 2 ex-pens that we put together and make a nice size yard for them.

Then, after playing outside, they all crashed in the crate I put outside for them. This is the beginning of crate training.

Their mom took a nap while they were away.

And, lastly, Wonka enjoyed some sunshine, and continually tried to escape from the flower box! There is a brace in the lower left corner of the picture. She was actually standing on her hind legs at one point trying to pull herself up onto it so she could get out! It is probably 7 inches high! Russian tortoises are known for their climbing ability, so I watch her closely when she is outdoors. Someday soon hopefully I will be able to make her a real outdoor enclosure that is secure enough that I can leave her out for the day even when I am not here.

Week 2-3

2008-08-22T11:09:00.005-04:00

So, the puppies are doing well! They are all playing a bit more with each other since they can now see each other.

In this last picture, and future pictures, the white girl has become yellow, as I forgot we didn't have a larger white collar (a puppy ate it last year, yikes!) The other collars are basically the same, although the red is now more maroon then red...

On a sad note, Kyler's grandmother FC Obertakt Hollywood Wildthing JH VC, known as Wylie has passed away, she was almost 12 years old. I had met her a few times and Kyler looks a lot like her. I hear from Wendy that Kyler gets her springs (she can jump up to the top of our patio doors!) from Wylie, and that she acts a lot like her. Wylie has left her mark on the Vizsla world by producing some really nice dogs. She will be missed!

Lots of pictures

2008-08-15T11:54:00.021-04:00

Life here at Forest King has been busy! Puppies are doing very well, they are growing quickly. Their eyes began to open last night!

This is the light blue boy in a cute moment.

This is what we do every day with Jaida, several times per day. She loves to hold the puppies!

Could you be much cuter?

This is the pink girl This is the red girl

This is the white girl
This is the navy blue boy, his eyes are open the most.
Here is the gigantic light blue boy. He was a bit tough to get a picture of, as he is large to hold in one hand!

Beginning to play a tiny bit!

Last but not least, here is Wonka in a very temporary outdoor enclosure. (it is really an unfinished flower bed) She loves to be outside, if it would stop raining she could get out more!

Day 5

2008-08-08T12:46:00.010-04:00

Pictures from Day 4/5. The light blue and the navy blue are the boys, the other 3 (red, pink, white) are the girls.

The pack of five!

The pink girl resting comfortably!
The white girl seems to be the most mellow, she is perfectly happy to be held by Jaida and fall asleep in her arms.

Navy blue boy is the smallest of the group. He is always hungry!

Light blue boy is the tank of the group. He is also the loudest. He is the first to complain if mom is too far away.
A close up of the pink girl.

More pictures!

2008-08-06T20:23:00.013-04:00

Puppies are 3 days old now. Everyone is doing great! Today was a big day for them...They had to get their tails and dewclaws done. Yikes, I hate it...I feel so bad for them, if it wasn't breed standard I don't think I would do it. It didn't use to bother me, the thought of it, at least. Then I had to hold some puppies (not mine) to get them done, and boy, it was hard for me to deal with. The puppies scream and you know it has to hurt.

At least analagesia for the procedure is sometimes used now. I requested today that they have a lidocaine or bupivicaine block. These are 2 agents that we use as local anesthetics in some procedures. Luckily I work for the veterinarian that did the procedure today, he did some research and honored my request. He did seem to think that it made a difference for the puppies, so he plans to use it for all future procedures like this. The doctors at my full time job don't do such procedures, it is more of a "regular" vet thing, and none of the doctors I work with have done it in years...

So, this is what you really want, more pictures...The above picture is from yesterday. You can see the 2 boys in the front. There is a huge size difference between them. The light blue boy is significantly larger than the navy blue boy. The fish in the front is a toy Jaida bought for them for when they are "a little bit bigger". There isn't as much of a size difference between the girls.

So, that is all the photo's for now. More to be posted when I get a chance.

On another note, we finally received the bird launchers that we had pre-ordered in May. The guy who started this company was making them as a new project. We had to wait for them to be finished. They arrived today and so far they look really nice. He had some problems during production and some of the antenna's were not attached properly, leaving it basically antenna-less. Ours were 2 of the lucky few that had this problem, so we are trying to find a way to remedy it. We may have to send them back for a brief repair. They currently work great, but only if the remote is about a foot away from the receiver. You can check out more info on www.treadsandtracks.com Scott has been a very nice and honest person throughout the waiting period. We will see how it all works out!

They're Here!!!

2008-08-03T13:53:00.007-04:00

Puppies have arrived here at Forest King!! Kyler decided to show signs of labor last night around 10pm. (We had been at the VCCNE club versatility day for the whole day, I had friends checking on her during the day, just in case.) She nicely kept me awake all night needing to go out every hour or so and panting next to me on the bed. As much as I tried to convince her, she just wasn't going to go into the whelping box until absolutely necessary.

Here is Kyler right after delivering her first puppy, a female. The first puppy was born a little before 7am and the last puppy was born a little before 9am. There are a total of 5, as suspected. 3 girls and 2 boys. We lucked out, we have "reservations" for 3 girls, so we were really hoping that we would have enough. Just squeaked by. This next one is right after she delivered her 2nd puppy, another girl. Incidently the light in the corner looks like it is on, it is just the sun shining in a strange spot. The lamp is actually a ceramic bulb that does not emit any light, which is better for the puppies eyes.

Also, just as an aside. I believe in letting the mother do everything that mother nature intended her to do with taking care of her puppies. The only thing I will do is help to get the sac off the head initially if not already done, and I suck out their mouths with a bulb syringe. I do not believe in taking the puppy away to clean it, tieing the umbilical cord and packing it away in a warming box until the next one comes. I think this goes against everything that the dog does by nature. Also, taking the puppies away from mom does not allow them to nurse. Nursing releases Oxytocin, which aids in uterine contractions and furthers the birthing process.

These puppies are smaller then her first litter last year, but still appear very healthy. I think her poor appetite this year made for smaller puppies, which is fine, it made it easier for her to have them! Last year she had a few puppies that were a solid pound, with some just below a pound. This year she had one that was a pound, but most were significantly under that. The smallest was 9oz., which was the size her smallest puppy was last year. Hopefully all the puppies will continue to be healthy and happy! Here is Kyler with her whelping box all cleaned up and all the babies born. She is a content mom with her new babies!

"This is my first time eating a banana on a train!"

2008-07-26T20:13:00.016-04:00

It has been a while since I have been able to post so this one will cover all sorts of topics!

We took a brief a vacation for a long weekend up near the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We stayed at a very pet friendly campground, which can be hard to find. The Chocorua Camping Village (for some reason blogger keeps putting extra stuff in front of the real address, sorry I can't seem to get it to not put it there!) is located about 30 minutes from Conway, NH. They have a swimming hole just for dogs, as well as a fenced in dog park and offer dog daycare for a reasonable price. There are trails for hiking and mountain biking where the dogs are able to run off leash. If anyone is ever looking for a campground near there, I highly recommend it!

Kyler and Cedar had a good time, although Kyler has slown down so much we had to take it easy for her sake.

The caption for the heading above is a quote from Jaida while we were riding on her first train at the Conway Scenic Railroad. This is pretty much how she spent most of the ride, glued to the window, waving to everyone whenever there were people to wave at. For any of you who have kids....Yes, that is Thomas the Train in the background. It cost twice as much to ride that train, and the ride was half the length.

This is a field we drove by, I wish I had this view everyday!

Here she is with the moose outside the campground office as we were checking out to leave.

Then at the Polar Caves!

Then, the new addition to the family. "Wonka", is a Russian Tortoise. I have wanted a tortoise for a very long time and after a lot of serious thinking and research, the right situation came along and here she is! Thanks Heather!! We love her already!

Then, of course, Kyler. This picture is from today.

We took xrays a couple days ago to see about how many puppies there are. We see 5, I was hoping for a few more, but I am still just as excited! Here is her film:

Now we are preparing for Jaida's birthday party. She turns 3 years old on the 31st, so we are having her party tomorrow. I hope Kyler handles all the commotion well! Once everyone leaves it is time to set up the whelping box! (It should really be set up already, but with the party we would have had to take it down)

Pictures!

2008-07-13T11:35:00.015-04:00

My plan is to try to post pictures here following Kyler pregnancy so that everyone can see how things are progressing. She is getting bigger by the day. She has 3 1/2 weeks to go and her belly is starting to get in the way, especially after a meal. When she sits after eating her knees stick out because her belly pushes them out.

This picture is from about a week ago, for those that don't know her she may not look all that different, but for those who do, you can see her waist has grown considerably. It was a hot day and she was not comfortable, these were the best pictures I could get of her that day.

These next pictures are from Friday, so she had 3 1/2 weeks to go (that is when the most growth takes place)

We have raspberry bushes in our yard in several places. One of the bushes is on the edge of the dogs yard, both dogs enjoy picking their berries when they would like a little snack. We then spent Sunday morning outside enjoying the nice weather. (we had spent all of Saturday painting the house) Cedar loves to pop bubbles so I did my best to snap him biting them.

Then, finally, I have received requests from several friends for a picture of one of our chickens, known as "miracle chicken". Our chickens don't really have names, but this one is special. Miracle chicken has survived several attacks by various creatures. She first became known by that name after being attacked in the middle of the night by what I assume is a weasel. Two of her coop-mates were killed and she was badly injured. We almost put her out of her misery, and then at the last minute I decided to try and save her. I figured either she would live or die, I could at least give it a try. After 2 months of intense care, she pulled through. (yes, perhaps it was a bit crazy for a chicken, but after I started I couldn't stop since she was still alive) She required tube feeding because her head was so swollen she couldn't see to eat, plus her beak was in bad shape, it was cracked all along the bottom. Her beak fell off (she now has what looks like lips) and she is blind in one eye, but other than that she is fine. She looks a bit funny, ut she has become a pet chicken. She follows me everywhere, including to the mailbox, I have to sneak out of the house otherwise she comes with me everywhere in the yard. She has since survived 2 attacks, one by a dog, and another by a fox when I forgot to close the coop at night. The fox actually pinned her down and pulled all the feathers off the back of her neck, leaving a little nick. We got outside just in time to keep her from being carried away. We heard the commotion and ran outside. Phew, close call. The chickens now have a new coop with a fenced in area so I don't have to worry about forgetting to shut it at night anymore!

So, here she is, "Miracle Chicken".

Field days and fun days!

2008-07-03T14:47:00.012-04:00

So, we spent last Sunday down in Connecticut at the Flaherty field trial grounds. It was ridiculously hot, a day that no normal dog handler/bird hunter would ever really hit the field. By noon it was certainly well into the 90's. Kyler was the second brace out in the excellent division, the division for the dogs with a bit more experience. With her being pregnant, I wasn't sure if I should really enter her, but the closing date for the day was before we knew and I decided that she would like to run either way.

She had a decent run, the grass on the side we ran on was so high that it was over my head in many places, and at least up to my waist everwhere. This made both scenting conditions, as well as conditions for seeing her very difficult. I hadn't put her bell on her collar, as I used to do, as it can also hint to a judge if they are moving. After seeing the cover I realized that I should have put the bell on her. Almost right from the begining I had a difficult time keeping track of her, she is a small Vizsla and the heavy air kept me from hearing much of anything subtle.

She didn't listen as well as I would have liked her to, but I was giving her slack considering her "condition". The highlight of the run for me was once we found a bird. She went on point from when I was several hundred feet back with one of the judges. They let me know and I ran up the dirt road to find her. There she was, locked up with her bracemate honoring her. I looked and looked for the bird in the waist high grass but I was having a hard time. During the initial 2 minute or so search she didn't move a muscle! Perfect! The judges wanted me to relocate her, which I did. She went right back to the same area and locked up on point again in the tall brush. I couldn't actually see her from the road. I went in, saw her and began to walk by her to where I hoped the bird would be. I saw some feathers and stepped around for a second. The chukar flushed suddenly without me actually seeing exactly where it was. The gunners shot, the bird went down, I turned to Kyler and she was still rock solid on point! This was the first time in a "real" (meaning, non-training) situation, that she had stayed steady. She didn't move until I released her for the retrieve. After taking a few seconds to find it and pick it up, she brought it to right in front of me and handed it over. At that point the judges had decided that they had seen enough, and it was too hot to continue. They had me collar her up.

Oddly enough, we didn't place, or even get an honorable mention, but the best part of the day for me anyway, was Kyler holding her point as long as she did both before the find and after the fall! I couldn't really have asked anything more of her...Team V-Bronx Chapter, however, has a different ending! Jozsi beat out an impressive bunch of dogs to win the title of Hunting Dog! Congratulations to Jozsi! Andrew and Jozsi are showing people just how great Vizslas, in particular, Widdershins and Upwind lines can be in the field! Check out his write-up and pictures on his blog: http://regalvizsla.blogspot.com/

So, we are trying to keep Kyler as active as she can be without overdoing it...We have a short hike 1/4 mile up the road from us that gives us an awesome view. It is only a 10 minute up hike (well, without the kid going slow, that is...) Kyler still seems to be just as agile, although, she is slowing down for sure. She is sleeping harder after any exercise.

Since doing her ultrasound a week ago today she has changed a lot. When she is laying on her back, particularly, you can really tell that she is pregnant.

Jaida is showing more and more of mommies love for animals. These pictures are from last week when we went to a local petting zoo. The chickens and the goats are by far her favorite! We ended the day by making a batch of brownies, which she loves! Whenever we make them there seems to be a common theme...See below...

On one last random bit...I am starting to gather ideas for call names for the puppy we plan to keep from Kyler's litter. We are looking for something different, but not completely wacky and it mush be catchy !....We plan to keep a female, pending that she has at least one girl! Please send any suggestions through the comments section! I would love to hear any ideas that people have! The more the better!!!

Puppies!!

2008-06-27T09:48:00.002-04:00

So, Kyler is indeed expecting puppies!! We did a quick ultrasound at work yesterday and saw several puppies!! We will know about how many when I take an x-ray after day 40 of her pregnancy.
You really cannot tell accurately with an ultrasound how many puppies there are, as you can sometimes double count and the puppies can hide behind things, such as stool. (which was Kyler's problem, she had to go..) The best way to know is by taking an x-ray after day 40 because then you can actually see the spines and skulls and count them for a fairly accurate count.
Kyler has been pickier than usual when it came to her food, so I had a suspicion that she was pregnant, but it was great to get the confirmation and actually see the little babies and their umbilical cords! Now we wait! She is due around August 4th, so we will be busy building our whelping box between now and then!

My glamorous job and other stuff...

2008-06-16T10:21:00.008-04:00

Just thought I would post a small blurb about how glamorous my job is...Just kidding really...Last weekend was an interesting time for me at work...We had a hospital full of patients with all sorts of different illnesses.

The following list is just the ones I can remember: 2 dog in heart failure in oxygen, a cat who had been bitten on the butt by something, a dog who got into the trash and ate a combination of corn cobs and teriyaki sticks (for those who don't know, dogs can't digest corn cobs, please don't feed them unless you want to pay for surgery). We also had a couple of cats in kidney failure being diuresed, a dog hit by car with 2 broken back legs waiting for surgery. A dog with iatrogenic (meaning caused by treatment for something else) Addison's disease, a cat who had kittens and needed 2 blood transfusions, a weimeraner who ate 2 1/2 pounds of chocolate, and a dog who likes to eat socks and had horrific diarrhea.

I am sure there were more in the hospital, and that doesn't include the patients we saw that went home. Last weekend was much worse, however, we had 19 patients in 36 hours that were sick enough that the owners opted for euthanasia. I think that was the most I have had to deal with in that short period of time. That was a day that ended with a stiff drink.

The whole point of this rant was to show you this lovely picture I took of myself after getting home on Saturday night...We had a couple of dogs who had eaten rat poison and we had to give them activated charcoal to absorb the toxins. They didn't like it...

This doesn't show all the charcoal I had on my top and on my face...Luckily it washes off fairly easily.

Another thing you can't see in this picture is the splatter of diarrhea that I had on me as well. The dog who liked to eat socks was a very happy dog and liked to wag her tail when you went near her, whether she had diarrhea on her tail or not...YUCK!! She luckily seemed to pass the sock (which almost never happens) and didn't need surgery. ( I didn't mention that this same dog had a socked removed from her intestines 4 months before)

My new job as a surgical nurse hopefully will be starting July 1st, at least from what they tell me. I am looking forward to this greatly, as I am on overnights this week, and I won't have to do overnights anymore with the new job. I was supposed to start June 1st, but they didn't find someone to replace me in the ICU until now.

An update on a previous blog. A few blogs ago I spoke of 2 dogs that had gotten into something bad and one dog made it and the other dog didn't. We finally got the tox screen back this week. (we just found out that this test existed when this happend, previously there were no tests for animals that we knew of) As I had suspected, and was concerned about...

The 2 dogs had eaten euthanasia solution. It can last in tissue for a long time, so potentially they had eaten an animal that was euthanized a while ago. None of their neighbors knew anything about such a situation. It was either that or someone did something very very bad! (Euthanasia solution isn't easy to come by, you need a DEA license to purchase it) The police were involved in the case from the beginning, we aren't sure if there will be an investigation or not.

No new news about Kyler yet, it is going to be a couple more weeks until we can do an ultrasound to check for pregnancy. I am hopeful, as she is acting piggy when it comes to food (my food, at least). Her last pregnancy, I woke up in the morning to find that she had eaten an entire apple pie that I had made the night before! I was very sad about that, as I was really looking forward to eating it myself!

On another note...

Here is a recent picture of Lucie who lives in VT and is learning to hunt with falcons!

So, I am heading to a judging seminar this Saturday so I can learn about becoming a judge for hunt tests. Hopefully it will give me a new perspective on the whole thing. We'll see how it goes...Then Sunday I am heading to my parents, as it is my dad's 60th birthday! He doesn't look 60!

The picture on the left is of Skyla, Kyler's another one of Kyler's puppies from last year, in this picture she looks a bit like her dad, although up close you can tell that she is Kyler's baby! (at least I can, anyway!)

Then the weekend of the 28th we are probably heading down to Flaherty field in CT for a training day then a Vizsla hunting stake on Sunday. There is also a brew fest in Springfield on Saturday night, I think Mike will go with his friends and I will be the lovely DD. I would love to participate, but someone has to be the responsible one!

She's home!

2008-06-11T13:13:00.002-04:00

Kyler is finally home! We got back about an hour ago from the airport. Other than being thirsty and needing a bath, she is great!
Now we wait...Hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will know for sure that she is expecting puppies!

Finally!

2008-06-04T10:18:00.002-04:00

So, after days of trying...Kyler has finally been bred! Thanks to the determination of Carrie of Durite Vizslas, and Duke, the stud dog, we can finally hope to have puppies! Kyler is very difficult when it comes to the whole breeding thing. I feel kind of bad, she is a big tease and only wants so much of the whole deal. But, anyway, her first due date will be August 4th. I think I will be taking that week off.
With her litter last year, the girl who was going to be able to cover for me, wasn't able to, so I worked a 12 hour shift, then whelped 6 puppies until 6am, then left for work to work another 12 hour shift. They couldn't find anyone to cover for me. So I was awake for well over 36 hours by the time I got home. I will never do that again! Then I had to go to bed that night and do it all over again the next day. Zoinkers!

Fun Day!

2008-06-02T10:59:00.011-04:00

So, the VCCNE had its annual fun day on Saturday. It was a huge success, despite the rain. Luckily it rained hard, then it would be clear for an hour, then it would rain for another 10 minutes, then be clear again. It wasn't great weather for the quail, but we dealt with it as we could! We now have a quail infirmiry here in Northfield for the birds that were caught by the dogs and taken away. So far we have a good number of birds that have survived a few days after, which gives me hope that they will be alright.

We got to see many, many Vizslas try their noses at bird finding. Many owners who were new to the whole bird deal got to see their pups do what they were bred for. Everyone seemed to have a very good time watching their pals sniff out the quail. Due to the rain the birds didn't fly very well at all, but most of the dogs were very beginners, so we just really wanted them to find birds and be excited about them anyway...

We also got to see one of Kyler's puppies from last year, Skyla, who is just the cutest thing on 4 legs! Above is a picture of her when she was younger. I have a couple other pictures that I haven't downloaded yet. She has always loved the water her parents said. She must get that from her mother...

Kyler is still out in Indiana to be bred. She is currently playing hard to get, but I think it has been a bit early for her, she is a late one when it comes to being ready for breeding...Most dogs ovulate somewhere around day 12, Kyler is day 18 or later. I just got off the phone with them, she is doing well despite being difficult to breed. They have said, don't worry, they will get it done, she will come back pregnant. I am keeping my fingers crossed!

I also got some recent pictures from another of Kyler's puppies. Lucie, from VT. Her face is the spitting image of her mother, except for the cowlick on her nose! She is learning to hunt with falcons on the VT/Canadian border. Falconers use falcons, instead of guns to catch their prey. It must be fun to watch, I have never seen it myself!

I am off to work tonight. I was hoping that a few weeks ago was going to be my last overnight, but they haven't found anyone to replace me in the ICU yet so I can move to my new position as a surgical nurse. Until they do I have to continue to work a rotating schedule of overnights, days, and weekends. Hopefully soon I will be a normal person!

Safe!

2008-05-28T20:49:00.003-04:00

So, Kyler has arrived safely in Indiana! After lots of thinking, researching and speaking with the stud dog owner, we just decided to fly her there instead. We used Northwest Airlines and we ended up getting a very good price. We just had to look for the deals! A non-stop flight right to Indianapolis ended up costing us only $194, instead of the website quoting $350. Phew! Duke's owners, the Syczylo's from Durite Vizslas, just called to say that she got there safe and sound! She was settling in nicely. The flight ended up only being 2 1/2 hours, so really not too bad.

It is me that was afraid to fly her, she didn't know any different from a bumpy car ride! I just tend to get nervous on flights and would rather keep my feet on the ground!

Hopefully she will be back in a week or so after she is bred. We'll see how it all works out!

In other news, the VCCNE's fun day is this Saturday, May 31st, in Berwick, ME. I have planned and organized this event for the last few years. This year we are having a canine first aid seminar, intro to birds, agility, rally, obedience, and flyball. I am hoping that it will be a successful day and that we will have many dogs show up! It is usually one of the better attended events of the year for the club. Hopefully I will be able to post some nice pictures of the event after we get home!

Finally!

2008-05-19T18:15:00.003-04:00

So, as of this weekend, Kyler is finally in season! So, depending on how plans work out she will either be flying on a plane to Indiana next Wednesday (the 28th) or will be going with a private carrier via UShip. This is a company that puts the type of transportation you need out to bid to private companies. I just discovered this company yesterday, but I am feeling a bit more comfortable with her being in a comfy truck then in a cargo hold of a plane. I researched this company yesterday after finding out that with airline prices these days it will cost me $350 each way to fly Kyler from Massachusetts to Indiana. Yikes! I try to pay less than that for myself to fly roundtrip!

So, anyway, as it seems, I have someone locally who would be willing to drive her directly to Indiana for $200. Not sure if he can take her back or not, it all depends on the timing. He will be going out there to transport either cars or boats or horses

If all works out as planned then her puppies will be due August 6th, if she is similar in timing to her last litter. She is being bred to FC AFC Point Blanc's Rusty Miracle. He also recently won the NVA (National Vizsla Association) national amateur field trial! Nice dog! Here is his picture.

He is a handsome fellow! Now, hopefully we will be able to keep up with the puppies!

Overnights and weird S---

2008-05-16T15:55:00.003-04:00

So, if you don't know, I work as and ICU nurse in a busy emergency veterinary hospital. This past week was my dreaded overnight week. I worked Fri/Sat/Sun day, then Tue/Wed/Thurs night. My shifts are 7-7, but never leave on time, so basically I work 13 hour shifts on my feet. Yikes...So, I am typing here after coming of my last overnight of the month. I can only sleep 3 hours on the last morning, because I have to go back to bed tonight to have a normal schedule again. It sucks, but I guess I am used to it at this point, not that I like it...
It was a busy week, and we were understaffed, which is a chronic problem in veterinary emergency hospitals. People just aren't signing up for OT anymore, we are all just too tired to work anymore hours then required.
So, anyway...Strange case of the year occured Wednesday night. We had a dog come in (before I got to work) who was just referred over from their regular vet. He had been acting a bit drunk (which is the first sign of antifreeze toxicity) so they sent him right over. He was walking at 4pm, within the course of an hour he was non-responsive. His antifreeze test was negative. We gave him Naloxone, (which is basically what they give people that OD on drugs), to reverse any possible narcotics, and pumped his stomach. We have him activated charcoal to absorb any other possible toxins. By the time I got to work he was no longer blinking and had lost his gag reflex, which is one of the last things to go. He was in a coma.
This was a first for me, I have seen many dogs with many neurologic problems, brain injuries, but never actually seen a dog in a coma.
A few hours later we had another dog come in with strange neurologic signs. She was acting as if she was having mild seizures, and appeared blind. (this happens with seizures, so we weren't all that suprised) There was something strange about the case though, she didn't seem the typical seizure dog. That was when the receptionist noticed that they lived on the same street as the dog in the coma. As we found out, they actually shared a driveway with the other dog. Yikes!! We bolted into action to hopefully stop the horrible cascade of events that had unfolded on the other dog. We immediatly lavaged her stomach to get any contents out and gave her the activated charcoal. She acted completely drunk for several hours, not really able to move much except to swim around her cage, which was better then the other dog. We gave her several doses of charcoal and gave her a high dose of fluids. Over the course of the night she improved somewhat. I fed her at 3am and she was ravenous, in a strange way. Dogs that are given anti seizure medications (barbituates) are extremely hungry and thirsty much of the time. This dog was acting just like that! (they have a very classic way of eating/looking for food)]
By morning the second dog was vastly improved and ended up going home later that day. Sadly, the first dog stopped breathing at 5am and was euthanized.

It was a sad night, it is one thing to lose a patient, it is part of my job to deal with that, it is another to lose a patient and not know why.

On another strange note...For any of you who may have Gorilla Glue (graphic link) in your house...If you have dogs, please throw it out, or at least keep it under lock and key. For some reason, dogs love the stuff. As soon as it is ingested it begins to foam inside the stomach. It almost instantly becomes a large, hard foam ball. If a dog eats this glue you cannot make your dog vomit! Once ingested it is too late! They need immediate surgery! No ifs ands or buts! We have seen a few cases of this type of thing. The dog ends up having a 10# foam ball removed from their stomach!

Check out this link for other strange things dogs eat!

Nutrition blurb

2008-05-08T09:15:00.016-04:00

Nothing spectacular going on here, so I thought I would write about a couple things on my mind and in the news lately. There is an increasing concern for pets fed Nutro pet food. There appears to be a surge in the last several months of consumer complaints about vomiting, diarrhea and lethargy in pets fed this brand of food.

I have personally never been a big fan of Nutro I feel like they try to get a piece of the natural pet food market, but still use cheap fillers and poor quality ingredients in most of their lines of pet food. Their Ultra food is probably the best of the lot, but even it uses a lot of rice fillers, essentially making the food more rice product than anything else. If you feed Nutro, it would be wise to switch to something else, at least until they get this all figured out!

I am a stickler for dog nutrition and have studied it for 6 years, my bookshelf is all nutrition books, basically! (suprisingly, hehe, the interest in it all started around the same time we got Cedar)

(Cedar and Bozeman waiting for Cedar's 1 year birthday cake, It was his, and my birthday, so Mike and I were headed out somewhere, hence the wet hair from the shower! This was obviously before Cedar was neutered!)

I have gone through several phases in the last several years concerning my dogs food. My first "own" dog I fed Californial Natural only. This was after a salesperson at the grain store told me about it, it was really my introduction to the world of "natural" dog food.

Previously, being in the veterinary field, I would only feed Science Diet. This is now a food I detest and never recommend to anyone. Same goes for Iams, Eukanuba (I call it yuckanuba), and all the other commonly pushed brands of pet food. Many people don't realize that these foods are given out free in veterinary school, so this is what the future veterinarian knows of. Many hospitals are actually given money to carry only their food. Yes, a lot of research goes into those foods, but so do crappy ingredients. Did you know that you can make a "balanced" diet from chicken beaks and shavings? If you actually read the ingredients list on these foods you may be appalled. Anything unspecific such as poultry or meat, can be almost anything. Your dog could be eating horse if it says meat. This allows for them to change from one batch to the other to whatever is cheapest at the time. They use cheap fractions of grains instead of the whole grain.

Anyway, back to the tour of my journey through dog nutrition.

(Here is Cedar the night we got him at the airport)

When we first got Cedar things with his gut just weren't quite right, at least in my opinion. I had him eating the California Natural for a short time, and then switched to Wellness, trying to get things on track. When that didn't seem to make too much difference I jumped into the whole BARF idea. This actually worked great for a couple years, I even raised Kyler on a raw diet until she was 1 1/2. I read a lot of books before jumping into it, but I was fairly happy with the results. I was hesitant about the bone part at first, but seeing Kyler devour an entire chicken leg quarter safely was actually quite fun to watch. Their teeth were fabulous! It did get a bit expensive after a while, as they were eating grain free, so basically meat and some supplementation. We also had Bozeman, our Rottweiler, who ate raw as well (although, I have to say the V's ate way more than he did)

Here is Bozeman taking a nap. We didn't spoil him at all! :)

When Jaida came along I decided to make a change for her safety. I was always worried about the bacteria in the raw food, since she would surely be touching their bowls, and they would lick her. So, I changed back to commercial food, but I did still experiment. Bozeman, who only had 3 legs, and had OCD leading to arthritis in his other back leg, did better without grains in his food. Grains seemed to irritate his arthritis. He did very well on The Honest Kitchen, we used the grain free, less calorie option. I did feed the puppy version to the V's for a while, it just got to be ridiculously expensive. I think it would have cost me $200 just to feed the V's, waaaaay to much with only working part time due to the kid!

(Jaida a day old, she was even cute then!)

So, back to dry food for the V's. I did, however, always give them canned food too. Why should they hate what they eat? Might as well make it tasty. It is old school veterinary medicine to say "they should only eat dry food". Canned food is actually much better protein, less fillers than dry food. If I could afford to feed just canned food, I would do it. Now I don't mean canned food like Alpo, you might as well just scoop up some random crap off the ground and feed them if you are going to do that. Here is a list of some of my favorite foods to feed, this is not all inclusive, there are some other great foods out there, I just can't list them all.

Canidae, Merrick, Nature's Variety, ByNature Organics. Really this is only a very small amount of the good quality foods that are out there now. Check the ingredient list, meat should be at least the first ingredient and maybe even more if your dog can tolerate muliple protein sources.

(Kyler and Bozeman caught in the moment)

I always give the V's a higher protein and fat food in the fall during hunting season, they need the energy and the higher protein for muscle repair.

I currently home cook for the dogs. It all began when our local deer butcher gave us a couple hundred pounds of left over deer scraps. It was good quality and free! This allowed me to cook for the dogs for less than it cost to buy commercial dry food! They love it, and Kyler, who is very picky, actually eats her food. There are some days where they eat commercial food, when I am running out of home cooked meals, but they always get canned food with it to make it taste a little better. You would be amazed at how the dogs look. Their coats are better than ever before, their teeth are still great, and I can actually recognize what they are eating. I am in middle of an online class on creating home diets for dogs. Until I am done with that I am comfortable using Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. He is well known in the natural animal health world. There are a lot of books out there written by people who don't know anything, and just write opinion. That is dangerous, if you are going to be feeding your pet based on what they say!

Anyway, hopefully this little blurb of mine will peak your interest in dog nutrition if you don't already pay close attention to what your canine friend eats!

(Then, Bozeman trying to catch his own dinner. Just kidding, he was a very sweet boy, although this little poodle was very annoying to him!) FYI: Bozeman is no longer with us, he passed away on June 30, 2006. He was the sweetest Rottie ever and I still wish for another Rottie just like him, which would be nearly impossible. Perhaps someday he will come back in another Rottie form and cross my path. I can only hope!

All Clear!

2008-05-06T14:25:00.002-04:00

I just got the phone call from the surgeon that did Cedar's resection on his toe...No evidence of cancer at all! Phew! So, the original mass removal did the trick. No spread of cancer, so he is cured!
That is a huge relief!

Cinco De Mayo

2008-05-05T15:54:00.007-04:00

We have been spending our time here doing typical spring cleaning stuff...Mike finally finished building our new quail pen. It originally started out as a pen for the pigeons we plan to get for training, but it just ended up being perfect for the quail. We are going to update the old quail pen to be useful for the new pigeons.

Here it is! The board in the front is blocking the recall hole, just to try to keep predators out. The quail really love their new view of the training field. They can sit up on the ledge in the pen and get lots of fresh air.

This is a big upgrade from their former pen,which was thrown together quickly when these quail were given to us unexpectantly. They used to live in a pen made up of old patio doors with one open side for ventilation. Nothing like living in a glass house! We only have 6 quail left currently, hopefully we will get some more shortly!

Jaida has been spending lots of time outdoors lately, thank goodness! She had previously been terrified of our chickens, for some reason. She always yelled at them if they followed her somewhere, and got nervous whenever they came anywhere near her. Well, I was trying to get her over this chicken fear-thing. So I showed her how to hold a chicken properly, thinking maybe she wouldn't be so afraid if she saw Mommy picking them up and she was allowed to pet them.

Well, that was a mistake...

All that Jaida wants to do now is pick up the chickens, constantly...From the moment she wakes up until the moment she goes to bed. "Mommy, can I pick up the chickens?" She will spend hours following them around trying to catch them and carry them around the yard. I came around the corner of the house one afternoon to see her halfway up the ladder to her slide, with a chicken in her arms. Yes, she was planning on giving the chicken a ride on her slide...

Somehow, the chickens are very forgiving to her for chasing them around all the time.

Kyler update: Now known as MHP, short for Missy Hotty Pants. Still nothing on the in heat front...I am waiting impatiently for her to come into season. Her soon to be boyfriend, Duke, is patiently waiting in Indiana for her to come visit. I am getting concerned that if she waits much longer that we will not be able to fly her out there, due to airline restrictions because of the heat. Let it be noted that I loathe the idea of flying her, especially without me. I hate to fly myself. The thought of her flying just gives me the heebee-geebees. But, with gas prices the way they are, it will cost a significant amount more in gas money to drive there and back, twice. (once to drop her off, the other to pick her up, as she will likely stay there for 2 weeks)

On another note, Cedar finally had his toe resected last Tuesday. If you recall, he had a tiny skin tag removed from his toe a few weeks ago that ended up being Hemangiosarcoma. To be on the extra safe side, we (meaning the surgeon, the internist, and me) decided to make a wider margin to ensure that the cancer was completely gone. He is now recovering. We ended up having to bandage his foot yesterday after the incision broke open. A toe is a hard place to have and incision, there is a lot of tension on the suture material. I was not surprised that it opened up. He now seems much more comfortable with a nice bandage on his toe. It is making things interesting, though. We have to put a bag on his foot anytime he goes outside to keep the bandage dry. This means that we have to have the dog door closed, which Kyler is rather ticked about. We actually have to think about letting the dogs out for a few days, which if you have a dog door, and haven't thought about letting them out for a bit, is a weird thing.

Here he is sitting on the couch, taking a nap with his little bandaged piggy foot...

He will be out of commission for a few weeks while the big hole in the top of his toe heals up...

Miss Hotty Pants

2008-04-29T14:24:00.004-04:00

So, we spent the weekend in Bristol, CT at the Southern New England Brittany hunt test. It was much nicer weather-wise this past weekend then the weekend before. Much cooler...
Kyler and I were the only Senior hunter brace on Saturday. We actually needed a bye dog, which means another dog who is not actually competing with you, the judges choose who they want. For us they chose a nice Wirehair pointer named Jack. He was a tank of a dog who had just finished his Master hunter the brace before ours.
So the back course of this test was all through the woods, with lots of prickers, just what you need when you have a crazy bird dog! They are required to have some birds on the back course, so I was expecting to encounter some. Kyler went on point about 10 minutes into the run in the middle of some brambles. I spent several tense minutes trying to find the bird in amongst the prickers. I finally located it tucked under some roots, buried underneath a pile of leaves, nice find, Kyler! The darn bird was tucked in so tight that there was no way this bird was going to fly anywhere. So, I had to pick up the bird and throw it. That was our downfall right there...Kyler broke on the flush, throwing a bird is such an unnatural thing to do in a hunting situation. Miss Kyler decided then and there that she was going to be bird insane for the rest of the test. She seemed oblivious to the wirehair on point, I guess we have to work on honoring other dogs other than Momo!
After the failure to honor Kyler found 2 or 3 more birds that I had to flush out, luckily for us, it was just a training session at that point, since she broke, so I could handle her how I needed to. We finally made it into the bird field quite a while later, the wirehair had already entered the field and had his bird shot for him. He was being led away when we finally entered. The judges graciously let me try to finish out the brace. Kyler had one find about 30 seconds into the field that ended up being a stop to flush (the bird flushed wild and she had to hold her ground and not chase), which ended our session. At least we ended on a good note!
At the end of it all the judges said, "wow, you have a nice dog there, she is just a bit too hot today! She has what it takes!" At least they liked my crazy dog! I basically got the idea from them that she would be a great field trial dog, which we have thought about, but don't know enough to pursue quite yet, perhaps next year!
Sunday was a better day for Kyler, but still no "Q". She just wouldn't honor her bracemate, everything else was fabulous! In her favor, the poor bracemate dog was so old that he basically sat down when he went on point. I couldn't even tell that he was pointing. He was a 13 year old Brittany, a Field Champion and Amateur Field Champion. He basically walked the whole course because he was just too old to do much else. He almost didn't make it into the bird field. While it was kind of nice to see the old guy still enjoying working birds, it was almost to the point of cruelty because he just couldn't handle the distance he had to walk to run the course. They had to set up a bird for him to point so Kyler could try to honor and so he could retrieve it. He did a great job, but it made everything for us much harder.
The judges kept staying back with him on the back course, while I was desperately trying to get Kyler through the back course without finding any birds on which to screw up on. She found 3 and worked them all very well. I had to keep stopping and waiting for them to catch up, and in the end they said I needed to slow down and that then Kyler would slow down. (I didn't tell them that I was purposely trying to get out of the back course!)
Oh well, one for experience anyway, perhaps after a few more training sessions Kyler will honor a breed other than another Vizsla!

No pictures, as I was handling the dog and I couldn't deal with a camera at the same time!

On the way!

2008-04-20T20:10:00.008-04:00

So, we got up at 4:45am on Saturday (I don't even get up that early for work!) to head to the Mayflower GSP hunt test at the Crane Wildlife Management area in Falmouth, MA. We had entered Kyler in the senior hunter level. In this level they have to find a bird, point it, stay steady until the gun goes off, retrieve within a step of it's handler, and honor another dogs point. (this means they have to point the dog, not steal the point from the other dog)

It was a warm day, even warmer in the actual bird field, it was a hot day for the dogs to be running. We were braced with Momo, Andrew's dog from The Regal Vizsla . This was a bonus for us I felt, as we had trained with Andrew the weekend before and the dogs worked well together. Momo had made a great dog for Kyler to honor, as that was the thing I was most worried about. We haven't trained much on her honor...

Kyler broke away from the start with an impressive speed and began to quarter in front of us. She was ready to go! We were moving so fast that the judges had to ask us to slow down for a bit before we got to the bird field, we were not using enough time. We stopped and watered the dogs several times, I wet Kyler's underside several times throughout the test.

When we entered the bird field it did not take Kyler long to find a bird, I was a bit suprised as the ground and air was so dry the scenting could not have been very good. I came around her right side, where she could see me so I wouldn't spook her. She held her point nicely while I flushed the bird. The gunners shot and Kyler broke shortly after the bird went down. She is steady to shot at home, but not yet in competition. After taking a second to find the bird, and trying to pick it up while it was still moving, she brought it to hand! A great piece of bird work on her part.

After finding a bird in the upper testing levels you should be trying to carefully not find any more birds, it just gives you more chanced to screw up. So, with this in mind I attempted to get Kyler to search where we had already been, so we could just get in an honor and go home! Of course, my bird finding fiend went on point a few minutes later. This bird was right next to a nasty hedgerow. The bird ran back and forth for several minutes, and Kyler relocated, which I wasn't sure was "allowed". I finally got the bird to flush and she stayed steady to wing and shot. She had a nice heal away from the find and then within a few minutes Momo was on point so Kyler could come up and honor him. As soon as she saw him she stopped dead, a perfect honor. In seniors you are asked to collar your dog (hold them by the collar) so that they do not interfere with the other dogs retrieve. Good thing I did, because as soon as Momo's bird went down, Kyler jumped about 3 feet in the air wanting to get to the bird before him!

This ended the test, thank goodness, both dogs were very hot and tired, and I didn't want to risk finding another bird!

At the end the judges really liked Kyler's performance and she ended up with a qualify and excellent scores, 9,9,8,7,9. The lowest score was for trainability, basically how well she listens to me. I called Kyler a few times to come near me and she either didn't hear me, or was to busy doing other things. In this case I should have kept my mouth shut and her score would have been higher. Oh well, I will remember better for next time!

Here is the end of the day photo with Kyler, Jozsi, and Momo, everyone passed their tests for the day! Jozsi ended up with an impressive 10,10,10,10 score, almost unheard of!

Kyler is due in season at any point, so we don't know if we will be able to make any more hunt tests this season or not... I would love to get her SH title done before her litter comes, but that is unlikely to happen, since she needs 3 more legs to finish. If not, we will continue in the fall and finish the title up.

In ending, I thought I would include a picture of Kyler relaxing in our house after a training session last week.

A medical scare!

2008-04-18T08:40:00.002-04:00

So, Cedar went to work with me on my last overnight last week. He has had this little skin tag on his toe that I wanted taken off so that I could stop thinking and worrying about it. He nicely dontated a unit of blood at the same time. (We have a blood donor program at work) We did regular bloodwork at the same time, including a vaccination titer for distemper and parvovirus. We sent the little tag from his toe off to the pathologist, just to make sure. My boss thought by the looks of it that it was a viral papilloma, nothing to worry about.
I went into work this week and the histopathology report finally came back (it takes about 5 days). On the report I saw words that every veterinary proffessional dreads, Hemangiosarcoma.
This type of cancer when on the organs, the most common place, kills many, many dogs every year. I see it several times a week at least, usually in Labradors and Golden Retrievers (another reason to never own one of these breeds!) It is usually found on the spleen or the heart. Dogs who have this sadly can bleed to death quickly when the tumor ruptures. Most owners don't know that their pet has it until they collapse from blood loss.
I had never heard of this type of cancer being on the skin, some of my veterinary co-workers had not heard of this either, apparantly it is caused by the sun and it is rare. Just my luck, to have a rare diagnosis. Just an FYI, people who work in the veterinary field tend to have animals that get rare diseases. For some reason we just seem to end up with animals that get medical issues, maybe in some cosmic way it is meant to happen...I had a dog, Aspen, a Rottie Lab mix who at 4 1/2 was diagnosed with nasal adenocarcinoma. Nasal cancer accounts for less than 1% of all canine cancers, and it is almost never seen in dogs under age 9. Just my luck...Poor Aspen passed away right before his 5th birthday.
Anyway, back to Cedar...So, luckily, with this type of Hemangiosarcoma, as long as it hasn't spread, the prognosis is excellent with a full resection of the tumor. The margins on Cedar's tumor were clear, which is great, but we are going to resect a bit more of the skin on his toe just to make sure we don't miss anything. Small price to pay for him to stay alive! Initially we thought we were going to have to take his toe off, Ouch! Luckily the research shows that is not necessary...Phew...
So, being caused by the sun, the recommendations are to use sunblock and wear sunblock clothing (these tumors are usually found on lighter colored skin on the abdomen). The surgeon and I laughed at that one, my Vizsla with sunblock on his toes and SPF 50+clothing on! Let me tell you, he would love it! Maybe I will get him some Doggles too, to protect his eyes!
So, if you see a large pasty white Vizsla with a lovely Luau type shirt, pants and a sweet set of glasses, it is probably Cedar!

Pictures from Paradise

2008-04-08T10:57:00.018-04:00

So I was finally able to get some of the pictures from the trip downloaded...Here they are!

Our 3rd day of the trip we were in Dominica, which is mostly jungle, it was beautiful!

Here is the view we had when we first arrived. It was overall a pretty cloudy day, warm luckily...

The picture below was me about to do my first zip line on the canopy challenge we did. Yikes it was high! After the first drop off the platform the rest weren't quite so hard.

This is a picture of George, my brother in law, about to drop off this platform with a swinging rope. It dropped about 10 feet then you had to swing across and grab a rope net and climb up to make it. This was the most difficult obstacle on the course and there was an alternate route for those who didn't want to try it. They said you had to have a lot of upper body strength to do this one. I skipped it...

Then George after jumping off (no he is not kicking the tree as it looks like). Shortly after this picture was taken he hit the net, grabbed it, lost it and then did a flip and was upside down for a bit. He swung back and was able to grab it the next time. Mike was taking the picture so there are no pictures of him doing this part. I can say, however, that he screamed louder than I have heard him scream in a while when he jumped off!

Our day ended with this cute towel elephant on our bed after our formal dinner that evening. They did a different animal every night, it was really fun to see which animal we would get next!

On Antigua we ran into this fellow who made me, or rather sold me, a basket made of palm fronds with some other animals on sticks also made of palm fronds. I didn't catch his name, but he had been making these things for 28 years...30 seconds after this picture was taken it downpoured for about 5 minutes, then it was sunny and beautiful again.

Then onto St. Kitts, we had a nice garden tour, then a hike through the jungle to learn all sorts of cool things about all the plants and trees on the island. This is my favorite picture from that day. This is a bell tower at what was a plantation, they would ring the bell to start and stop work for the day.

Then, after dinner, we returned to this cute monkey swinging in our room.

Our last day on the cruise was in St. Maarten. It was our first "real" beach day, as we had been so busy on excursions previously that we hadn't had time to just sit on the beach and do nothing. We made the day of it and sat under our umbrellas, went swimming, then rented jet ski's for a 1/2 hour, it was wonderful!

Then, last night we worked with the dogs on a few quail, just to get their minds going again. We planted 2 quail each for them and they worked them well. Cedar had 2 beautiful points, but I dind't have the camera out in time for them. After I ran and got it I got one shot of him in the woods in our training field. It is a bit dark, but Cedar had pointed a bird that jammed itself under the roots of this tree. Mike was not able to get it out. He had a nice heel away from his point to continue hunting other birds.

Then we took out Kyler who started out a bit slow, but once she found a bird she turned on the gas. Her points are very steady, not the most stylish I would say, but she doesn't move a muscle. Here she is while Mike is looking for the bird she pointed, then on another bird after the

flush. So intense!!

We're Back-Sadly

2008-04-07T09:46:00.002-04:00

So, we are back from vacation, having flown into Logan airport, in Boston last night. All I can say is Brrr...We were really hoping that the snow would have melted a bit more while we were gone, but I guess it is New England!

We had a fabulous time, we visited 6 different islands (St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, Antigua, St. Kitts and St. Maarten) We had some wonderful adventures on most of them, including a canopy challenge on Dominica (pronouced Dom-in-eeka). This involved being 30+ feet off the ground in an obstacle course of logs and cables, with a few zip lines. The toughest one for me invloved about 20- 5 inch diameter logs hanging on end by some rope and having to walk across this 30 foot bridge. For obvious reasons the logs swayed every which way, it was a tough one!
I will post some pictures from our new camera as soon as I can get them off of Mike's computer.
We traveled with my sister, Michelle, and her husband, George. We get along wonderfully, and Mike and George have a lot in common, this made for a great trip! As always, there are talks of pipe dream moves to one of these places to operate a jet ski business, but alas...Where would the dogs play with birds!? It is not meant to be!

The dogs stayed at a friends house down the road and were spoiled by hiking a mountain every day with their 2 dogs. They also got to play with cats at the house, which they haven't seen in a while. Apparantly they did fine and didn't try to eat them, luckily!

Jaida stayed at Grandma's house and was spoiled for a whole week, I was actually suprised that she wanted to come home!

Some hope for the injured!

2008-03-28T10:17:00.003-04:00

Well, I just received an email from Christine Zink, DVM, the noted doggie sports veterinarian. I had emailed her about Kyler's injury asking if she had any advice. She replied that knowing what type of groin injury would determine her long term outlook. Apparantly if it is a iliopsoas strain, then it will need intensive physical therapy, but the outlook is good overall. Without physical therapy the injury will continue to crop up here and there...

This gives me some hope that perhaps Kyler will still be able to be the normal hunting dog she loves to be! I am going to investigate this further and see if we can determine what type of groin injury she has.

We leave in 2 days for our cruise, thank goodness!! I have been working a lot of overtime to pay for it and I need a break!

So, I will be away from blogland likely for a bit over a week, to return hopefully refreshed with some cool photos of all the places we will see! I am most looking forward to a jungle climb in Dominica that ends with a zip line!

P.S. That stinkin' cute puppy picture is of Kyler's first born, now named Max. He is so handsome! He was the mellowist puppy in the litter, he would rather think about things than jump into stuff!

A Tough Case

2008-03-24T09:54:00.007-04:00

So I am just getting off a long week at work, I worked 2 extra 13 hour days...Yuck...We had the worst chocolate toxicity I have ever seen...He was a small, 20 poundish lab mix who had eaten 3 times his toxic dose of dark chocolate. He had been to his regular vet and vomited the chocolate and was given activated charcoal (which helps to bind the toxins) He came in a little agitated and just got worse by the minute. His temperature, which had been normal at 101.5, suddenly went up to 105. He was trembling so hard we couldn't get an iv catheter in him. We gave some valium iv quickly twice with no effects. We then gave him a couple other medications intramusclularly because he was trembling so hard we almost couldn't touch him. (these type of toxicities cause extreme sensitivity to sound/touch) This poor dog was just getting worse despite what we did. We finally had to set up the gas anesthesia to mask him to sleep because he was so out of control. When he finally fell asleep enough to really touch him, his temperature had skyrocketed to 107! Danger territory! When a temperature climbs this high they are at real risk of some serious problems. They can basically cook their insides, including their brain...Which obviously, can lead to death. We hoped that wouldn't be this dog...

The toxic effects from chocolate can last for a bit, so we needed to keep him sedated long enough for it to work through his system. We tried several iv medications to try and keep him just sleepy enough to not tremble, nothing was working...He was either awake and trembling, or not breathing. Neither option was really a good one! We had to intubate and ventilate him for a while.

Our criticalist finally came in to help with the case, as it was an extremely frustrating case. We ended up putting him on light gas anethesia to keep him out plus a Valium and a Fentanyl CRI. (continuous rate infusion) This dog ended up being on a ventilator for several hours and fully sedated for about 14 hours before they could take him off the gas anesthesia completely. a nurse had to sit with him all night. (obviously you can't leave a sedated dog alone) Then over the course of the next 12 hours they slowly weaned him off of his CRI's to wake him up. When I went into work yesterday afternoon, he was just on oxygen, and doing much better.

WOW...We really didn't know if he would make it he was so sick. He could have had long term damage from the fever...He visited with his owners and acted like his normal self. He was going home this morning...To a tune of $3000, now that was one expensive Easter bunny!

On another note, we are leaving for our vacation in less than a week! Mike and I are going on our first cruise! We will be visiting the islands of St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten. It took a lot of convincing on my part for Mike to agree to go, but I think even he is looking forward to it!

In closing, I thought I would add some cute pictures of Kyler's 2007 litter of puppies, looking at them is getting me excited about her litter this summer! I can't wait!

This picture of Kyler and the pups was taken when they were 10 days old. The other picture is of the light blue boy, now named Roscoe, who lives in New York. He decided that watching TV was a grand plan while the other puppies played in the living room. He was watching Dragon Tales, which is one of Jaida's favorite PBS shows...

Sunday March 16, 2008

2008-03-16T20:07:00.002-04:00

So we returned from the specialty show with not much to show for it. We weren't expecting much, as the show scene is so political. Sad to say, unless you hire a proffessional handler at $75 per day at a minimum, there isn't a whole lot of chance to win.
Kyler's chances drop dramatically due to an old injury she sustained as a 3 month old puppy.
At the time, no one was able to figure out what she did to herself, a few incidents happened within a short period of time and she was 3 legged lame for a couple months. After seeing several veterinarians and going to Tufts University, we still didn't have an answer. Radiographs showed nothing, medication didn't help at all, anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, etc, did not make a dent in her lameness. My final hope was a veterinary accupuncturist/chiropractor. We still didn't know what was wrong, but after a couple weeks she was dramatically better.

She became sound and had been fine for several years, (although I continue occasional chiropractic) until the end of this last bird season. The last week of season she came home fine, slept, and got up holding her hind leg in a funny angle, one that I hadn't seen before even in my daily work. I massaged her, rested her and she was fine the next morning. We took it easy for a bit, and she seemed mostly ok. She didn't appear to have any problems in the field. Her lameness only showed up after resting.
After a discussion with the surgeon at work we believe we have the answer for her original injury that seems to be coming back to haunt her, a groin pull. One of the incidents with her as a puppy, was being squashed frog leg style into the ground by another Vizsla, who happened to weigh 70#. This is a typical way for groin injuries to occur.
Groin injuries are not very common in dogs, but when they happen, they are usually severe, and can be a career ending injury. There is little that can be done to help, except accupuncture. We are hoping that by finding the right accupuncturist, that we will be able to allow Kyler to have as normal a hunting dog life as possible. Only time will tell...

Her life in the show ring, however, is likely done, as this injury affects her movement. I don't care that she doesn't have a CH in front of her name, I was hoping to get it just to add one more to her bloodlines, but it doesn't affect anything here. Her conformation is still excellent, her field ability is still the same, her personality is still the same and I love her just as much as I ever could have. It breaks my heart though, to know that she may not be able to do the same things that she has always enjoyed doing, without causing potentially painful consequences...

We hope to start seeing the new accupuncturist in May, as that is when she is accepting new clients, and we'll go from there!

Friday, March 14th

2008-03-14T11:51:00.007-04:00

Day 2 in blogland....

So, as you all know, we have gotten back into agility over the last couple of months. We are having a blast! the dogs are doing the weave poles almost straight up and are starting to master the teeter (seesaw). We planned to compete in our first trial next month, but it filled up before we could send in the entry form.

An interesting topic has come up for discussion at work relating to agility dogs and dewclaws. As a field person I was always taught that dewclaws should be taken off at birth because of the risk of injury to them. There are studies now showing that dogs actually do use their dewclaws to grip the ground when turning. Christine Zink, DVM, who is a noted sporting dog veterinarian, says that she has never seen a dog with "normal" dewclaws (not the dangling, double dewclaws), with an injury to them. She has seen, however, many injuries related to the lack of dewclaws, most notably wrist injuries. Apparantly, without the dogs "thumb" there to lean on the ground, they put a lot of strain on the tendons and ligaments in their wrists, which can lead to injury. She sees dogs with arthritis in these joints that may be preventable if their dewclaws were left intact. Thinking back to my veterinary career, I have never seen a dog with injured dewclaws, and the majority of dogs have their dewclaws still intact. I have been in the field for 15+ years...

This leads me to wonder, with Kyler's pending breeding, how I feel about this whole thing? Being back into agility, and hoping to continue, concerns me for the future of my puppies and their dewclaws...Since we plan to keep a puppy from this litter, do we leave the dewclaws on the litter? It is not as if we can pick our puppy before day 3 when they typically have their dewclaws removed. I think I will discuss it with Wendy at Widdershins and see how she feels about it, since she is also keeping a puppy.

Any thoughts from you bloggers?

On another note, we are off to the VCCNE's specialty show in Fitchburg, MA tomorrow. Kyler is entered in Open Bitch and the Hunting Dog class. We are not expecting anything, as there are 59 Vizslas entered, but it will be good to see everyone! Up at the top is a picture of Kyler from the last show we did early last fall. I can't seem to get it to paste anywhere but at the top...How do you put pictures further down in the posting?

My first blog!

2008-03-10T13:09:00.004-04:00

So, here we go...After realizing that I am apparantly missing out on some fun here, I decided to try the whole blogging thing...
We'll see how much I can actually write with having a full time job and a website to keep up to date!

Here is a picture of the 2 V's resting on the futon. Kyler somehow curled herself up under Cedar. I am not sure who was there first!

So, as this is the "off" season for bird dogs, at least around here, we have started back up with agility with the dogs. We are going to Breeze Thru Agility in Vermont. We are siging up for our first competition now, it will be in April. It is a CPE (canine performance events) I am still quite confused about all the different levels and "games" that it offers, I have to speak to the instructor this week to ask her about it.

Kyler is performing quite well during class, we haven't done any agility since I was 9 months pregnant with Jaida, so she is doing well seeing as it has been a 2 1/2 year hiatus...Cedar is his usual silly self. He does really well sometimes, then acts like a goofball and just wants to run around jumping on top of the tunnels, not through them. He still seems to enjoy himself, even if Mike is shaking his head about it all.