A good weekend with the pup.

[Tom H.]

 Last Saturday I took my 2 1/2 year old Wirehair, Duncan,  out for a mixed bag of ducks in a swamp in the morning and upland in the afternoon.  It's great when you get to watch them grow up and turn into what they are supposed to be.
Brought the ground stake along to keep him in one place.  It was nice to find out that after a while he was happy to stay just where he was, overlooking the decoys and my hunting partners.
 The first pair of Woodies came in and we dropped both.  He picked up the one in the decoys and I got the other. Last year he wanted to "help" with the decoys too .  This time just a bird to the hand.
We waited a bit longer.  Another pair came through and we took one more which he fished out of the duckweed.  Easy retrieves, but last year he wouldn't pick up a duck so this was good progress.

After picking up our gear and stopping for breakfast at 9, we hit another local spot that the state stocks with pheasants. It had been hunted fairly hard but at the very least it was a good place to work the dog.
  A half hour into wondering if the birds had just been pressured too much, he dropped into a beautiful point; left paw up, tail straight out.  A few feet in front, under a sticker bush, was a cockbird trying to become one with the ground.  I pushed it out, the dog put it up and a friend dropped it.  A retrieve would have been nice but it was in the clear and we were happy with the bird.
A bit later after some walking, we were thinking that the first bird was just unlucky,  but he locked up again about 30 yards out.
Another bird?  This was just too good.
Actually it was.
The bird popped and the large brown dog dove into the tangle after it.  As if I was upset with the lack of a retrieve on the last bird, he came out to present me with a partially alive (but fortunately intact) male pheasant.  I gave him the stern tone that he was probably expecting (because there was no gunshot).  He dropped the bird in my hand and I told him to sit.

One of my shooting partners had brought his young chocolate lab with him that morning so that it might get an intro to upland. I tossed the bird, he fired a shot, and his dog made the retrieve.
Duncan got the idea

After that, the lab got the idea and it started making game.  Maybe another flushing lab in progress.

By one we had finished for the day and I was left with a very tired pointer dog.
I couldn't have been happier.

Tom




Duncan with is first goose taken last year in Hempstead Harbor, Long Island NY

[oso45-70]

Tom.

Is duncan a D-D wirehair ?. I have some literature on the Deutsch Drahthaar and have been thinking about trying to get one, If all the claims are true they must be one heck of a good dog. My loyal hunting pardner passed away a short time ago after 13yrs of devoting her life as a loyal friend. Had her mother for 15yrs with the same devotion and loyalty and one fine Bird dog and true companion. There is a deep void in my heart for the loss. Anyway I am looking for another bird dog pup, Bitch if possible. I will be looking for your response.........Joe...........

[Don Fischer]

Beware of putting a flushing dog down at the same time with a pointing dog. The flushing dog can undo a whole lot of training with the pointing dog in one short day!

[Tom H.]

Don, you are so right.

I did that ONCE and I will never do it again.  This Lab was completely untrained in regards to upland work so it didn't cause any problems.  She just tagged along and acted surprised when an bird went up.

At the end of Sept, Duncan was steady to wing and shot which I really didn't want because it helps to have a dog that will put the bird up when you want them to in the heavy cover. What I didn't want is him chasing birds when I give him the "no bird".  I am having mixed results on that but overall he is working out well. The mixed results are probably my fault and not his

OSO, sorry to hear about your partner. I feel for your loss and I hope that I can help you to find another good dog.

He is a GWP and I picked him up from Mason Creek kennels in Wisconsin. On some advice from two people in the know,  got him sight unseen, last pup in the litter, and if he is this good, I can only imagine what the rest are like.
Not a dog for field trials (but probably could be) although bigger than breed standard (28" at the shoulder).
Very smart, soft mouth ( he picked up cork decoys and didn't leave a mark on them), have two cats and hasn't eaten them yet, excellent around kids, and gets tired after I do.
A bit stubborn, but usually when I am finished hunting and he isn't.
His nose is amazing.
Still having trouble with grouse but he hasn't learned to "herd" them yet. Working on that but he seems to be getting the idea down with running pheasants.

The only complaints are that he is too big for much of the thorny cover around here and even with his vest he gets cut up.
If it is over 60 he overheats pretty fast.  Today it was 50 and I went through a water bottle within an hour or so.  He can't swim as well as a lab because of the long legs, but I have had him in open water when it was in the teens and he did well.
He covers ground like a rocket but only ranges as far as I want him to. He isn't difficult to turn if I I see that he is getting too far out.

If you want any other specs let me know.

Good luck with your decision and I hope that I helped.

Tom

[oso45-70]

Tom.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my post, I appreciate it very much. I looks like it might be a long drawn out affair before i find another dog. There is a family in Albuquerque NM that has the D.D. dogs but i think the price may be out of my reach. I got the story out to several outlets so we will just wait and see. Thanks again Tom.
............Joe............

[Don Fischer]

I think that the D.D. and the wirehair are the same dog. the big difference is the way they are raised and trained. The Germans I knew were intorerant people and expected much of their dogs. Americans took the dogs and divided them up into two group's, field and show. Then the American people used the dogs mainly for bird hunting, the Germans hunt everything with their's and have very ridgid expections of them. I would guess that the best of the wirehairs here are equal to the best of the D.D's over there, IF they were trained the same way. I would suggest that you get a D.D and try to train it to pass the test in Germany, most of us here will fail at that, we have different needs. The problem we have here is that the show people advertise their dogs as hunting dogs, and a few actually are. But for the most part they are not! I think I would try the North American Versitle Hunting Dog Assoc. and find out what is here. Those people are driven to expect similar standards as the German people. In fact I think that it's founder, Bodo Winterheight (sp) came here from Germany.

The thing I've seen in German bred shorthairs is they are a very tuff dog that takes a firm hand to train. The American and Danish bred dogs can do all the same things IF trained the same way. What is important to know is what you really hunt with the dog. If you don't do the whole range of what they do in Germany, you don't really need that kind of dog, so we train different. Same dogs mostly just raised and trained differently.

I saw a photo of one of the first D.D's that was imported years ago. It came in with a muzzle on it. The caption refered to them as a fierce dog. I thing you will find in any breed individuals that have the same trait's. One other thing I recall about the test's over there is that to pass, the dog must track down and kill a cat. I'm not sure the value of that here but there I believe it's used to demonstrate the breeds fierceness. A cat can be a handfull for anydog.

I am not a fan of the wirehairs or D.D's, if you perfer, because I don't like the coats and their range is to restricted for me. But I think that you can find as good dogs here called wirehairs as you can D.D's. Like everything else, some better, some worse. A dog that fails in Germaany is called a cull and cannot be registered, it can still be hunted and trained. The thing to do is try to go and see at least one parent work and look for traits you want.

I went hunting some years ago with a German immagrent and he was appaled that I would not shoot rabbits for my English Pointers and German shorthairs. We have different needs!

[bucktales]

Check this site out. Lots of info on traditional D.D.s here in the states :

www.vdd-gna.org/

[Don Fischer]

http://www.navhda.org/

This is the web site for the North American Versitle Hunting Dog Assoc. Haven't looked at it but their goals are about the same as the Germans.