Wrath at the Grapes

Location, location, location.  Indeed the reason why I bought this particular property back in early summer. The location is rural, private, away from any towns and a walk out the front - or back - door puts me and the dogs into grouse habitat.  With a garage, a barn, big mature trees and a couple of private acres of yard surrounded by woods it's a pretty nice place to have a pack of dogs.  First order of business was to have most of the back yard fenced in for the dogs as my pack enjoys spending good weather days out there doing, well, whatever it is that dogs do. Run. Dig. Lots of digging, motivated by mole trails through the yard which as a result has parts of the yard looking like Fort Grayling Camp did mine field practice here.  Bark. Lots of barking because for the first time in their lives my dogs can see a road from their yard and having grown up without seeing a road, they believe that any passing truck is actually in our driveway and therefore must be announced.  We're working on that. Also within the yard there is a lovely arbor with a swing beneath. I can picture the former owners sitting there in the cool evenings, enjoying the flower plantings that my dogs have been umm, shall we say re-arranging.  

The arbor has nice old grape vines woven onto it and friends stopping to see my new place frequently commented on how come autumn I would be seeing grouse flying in at dusk to dine on the grapes as well as to the apple trees further over.  It has been a wet summer and the vines took off and grew. And grew. They grew so much that I had visions of Jack and the Bean Stalk.  They completely covered the arbor, nearly blocking the swing from view and I wondered if the old arbor was strong enough to bear the weight. Part way through the summer I noticed grapes developing on the ends of the vines that were peeking out from the leaves.  It was around then that I also noticed some of the dogs spending a good amount of time around the arbor and suddenly it hit me: the dogs were eating the grapes.  

A voice in the back of my head shouted that grapes are toxic to dogs and sure enough, a quick Google study came up with a thousand pages warning of the toxicity of grapes for dogs and horror stories of dogs dying within days of consuming them.  All I could think was to block the dogs access to the vines so quickly disassembled a chainlink kennel in the garage and erected the panels to surround the arbor to block the dogs.  So now there was a somewhat bizarre looking chainlink stockade within the yard containing not dogs, but instead wild and wooly grape vines that grew and grew.  I decided that come spring I would build an attractive wood fence around the arbor to preserve the sweet little spot in the yard.

 

When the first heavy frosts hit this fall and the grape vine leaves dropped I was shocked to see that the arbor did not just have some grapes for the neighboring grouse, it held hundreds of pounds of ripened grapes.  They smelled delicious even from afar and the dogs were digging and doing their best to get at them.  A shout out to the community got no response from anyone perhaps interested in using them for jelly or wine.  I am pretty domestic in the kitchen but my interest in wine is limited to drinking it from a glass.  

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As the grapes ripened further they began to drop to the ground. Most stayed safely within the mini-compound but some would inevitably bounce out through the fence and I could see the dogs frequently shopping around, nose to the ground.  So began a several-times-a-day routine of doing a "grape check" around the arbor before I could let the dogs out.  It's a good thing for a private, rural location... nightgown, tousled hair, boots and jacket were my morning wardrobe and duty of the day with rake in hand.  

The grapes are now turning mushy and are dropping in large quantities.  Today's duties included getting inside of the grape hoosegow and beginning to hand strip the grapes from the vines in an effort to keep them contained.  As I moved around within the stockade and was squishing purple from beneath my rubber boots I had flashbacks to an old "I Love Lucy" episode where for some forgotten reason she and her friend were foot-stomping grapes. Only there was no laugh track for me, instead all I could hear was an oft heard mothers lament of "this is why we can't have nice things." 

The fanciful thoughts of pretty picket fencing around the arbor are gone. Replaced by vengeful fantasies of taking a chainsaw to the whole thing come spring to remove this doggie-biohazard from what was supposed to be a doggie sanctuary.  It will be sad to remove something that would bring pleasure to some others but this is my Grouse House and it is too much of a risk for my Firelight grouse dogs.  As an old friend always says.... darn dogs anyway.  

I ironically toast the day with a glass of wine....   Cheers.

Lynn Dee

Profit, Bird Dogs and My Dog Ate My Lottery Ticket

To anyone who actually hunts and breeds a few bird dogs, the first part of the title is obviously a joke that they fully get. But the second part of the title is unfortunately true. 

Yep.  I rarely buy a lottery ticket but for some reason, yesterday I did. Once home I tucked it under my laptop for safe keeping and in the hopes that I would remember to check the numbers since I have been known to buy tickets and for months forget to check them.  But this morning I carried my laptop into another room for some work, forgetting about the ticket until I noticed one of the dogs - okay, it was Flint, I am not going to protect the guilty - chewing on something. What I took from his mouth was just enough to tell me that he had just eaten my Powerball ticket. So if the news announces that the winning ticket was sold in northern Michigan and unclaimed, please don't tell me.

As far as making money on bird dogs, that is a serious topic which deserves its own post one of these days.  But the bottom line is that hunting and being a conscientious small breeder of bird dogs is a labor of love and is an expensive one: it certainly does not bring a profit.  Yes, a litter of pups a year brings in a short burst of money - thankfully - because the ledger hangs long and heavy on the expenses side IF you are raising bird dogs who are actually hunted and proven to have talent before they are bred. A breeder who just keeps a large number of dogs in kennels and always seems to have puppies available, make no mistake, that is a commercial kennel operated for profit, not bird dogs. 

If you are a serious hunter who wants a talented bird dog, please understand that the genetics of hunting talent are intangible and somewhat fragile. Even two outstanding parents might not pass the same level of talent on to their offspring. So why would you risk buying a pup whose parents have not been proven to have any talent at all? Whose only claim to fame is that somewhere back in the pedigree are the names of dogs and breeders who did indeed work hard to earn reputations of talent. If you are a wild bird hunter, the fact that a pup's parent was able to locate a chicken pen-raised bird in a training situation tells you nothing about talent. So, if you are a wild bird hunter, give yourself better odds than my Powerball ticket once gave me and buy a pup from parents who themselves have been proven talented on wild birds.

Dog Speed

I am test-driving a new camera right now and taking lots of awful photos with it. Wonderful new technology and equipment fail to overcome my shortcomings as a photographer. But I have fun any way. 

This photo caught my eye and made me laugh.  I am calling it: which speed of dog do you like?  On the surface it is just a poor quality but fun photo. But it is also a conversation starter. I have many discussions with hunters about how fast their bird dog covers the ground but find that since our dogs do not have speedometers on them, words such as fast, moderate or plodding have very different meanings to different people. GPS units report mph run by the dog but that is skewed somewhat by things such as terrain, did you leave it on as you drove between covers, how often the dog went on point or even how often the dog stopped to pee. Without actually seeing a dog hunt or a really good video of the dog, it is a difficult trait to measure. Yet footspeed is an important topic to hunters - and therefore breeders - and there is no right or wrong.  So, which flavor of speed would you choose from this silly photo?

Interview

I am a Founder and Breeder Member of RymanSetters.com, a group of hunter-breeders dedicated to the future of ryman-type setters.  We are non-profit, voluntary and peer-moderated: there are 3 criteria to be a Breeder Member. 1) Must hunt your breeding stock on wild birds. 2) Must do appropriate health testing such as OFA hips. and 3) Must be ethical and honest in dealings with other breeders and puppy buyers.  Participating in this group allows breeders spread across the country to get to know one another and each others dogs, discuss issues and education, and we even get together for a week every year to hunt and see the dogs at work.   So we can all get to know one another better, I am doing a series of Member Interviews.  When my turn came up for the Interview, writer and retired teacher Randy Lawrence stepped in to interview me so that, as he put it, "Lynn Dee didn't have to talk to herself any more than usual."  The following is a link to the interview as published on the RS site and on social media.

https://rymansetters.com/meet-breeder-member-firelight-setters-lynn-dee-galey/

It Took Nine Years

"How do you choose the sire for your litters?"   As a very small breeder, just one, maybe two litters a year from my personal gundogs and pets, I am often asked this question.  I wish I had a good answer.  Well, in my mind they are all good answers but in reality there  are about as many answers as I have litters.

Take, for example, my litter from last summer.  In January 2018 I attended the RymanSetters.com Breeder Gathering in Kansas.  The Gathering days are filled with daily hunts on wild quail with evenings of lively group dinners, discussions, and a lot of fun.  Breeders often get together for hunts for the collegiality but also the opportunity to see each others dogs hunting.  One day in particular that week I hunted with fellow RS breeders Bob Mele and Walt Lesser and we put down my Sally and Bob's two females, Lizzie and Abby.   Those 3 dogs were nearly indistinguishable as they skirted the edges of the cover, hot footin' it to hit likely spots on the horizon and weaving in and out of every pocket on the section.  Although that particular cover was not terribly productive for birds, I was highly impressed by Bobs dogs and discovered that they were aunt/niece.  Two days later I hunted with Doc, who was Abby's sire and Lizzie's brother, and as I watched him hunt and then at the end of the hunt, lie down and relax on the sunny hillside next to his owner, I knew that I had found the sire of my next litter from Mustang Sally.  My Annie is the product of that pairing and at only 12 months old that little spitfire gal has the world rolled up and waiting with red carpet.

My current litter was in the plans for a long time. Years.  The sire is a son of my favorite ryman (yes, I know we are not supposed to have favorites but Tweed was exceptional so I will make that exception) and when I met Parker and his owners for lunch 5 years ago at Parker Pie in Vermont for pizza (an absolute must stop each visit back east) I was taken aback at how Parker was his mother in male form: The look, the personality, the character, the bird dog, the quality.... unmistakable.  Plus, he is the brother to my outstanding bird dog, Storm. 

 I knew that day that I had to get a puppy from Parker.  Nearly 4 years ago I sent a photo of a 3 week old puppy to Parker's owner, Ken and said that I finally had the right female to breed to Parker so the boy had better keep himself prime.  That baby pup was my Kate and I knew from the beginning that she was a special keeper and that she was the right match for Parker.  The plans were set for 2017 but a family emergency suddenly made Ken and Parker unavailable when Kate was to be bred so I bred her to another lovely male and those pups have been precocious and oh so pleasing.  But I still wanted my Parker x Kate litter.  An accelerated sale and move from my house in Kansas this April had me stretched thin  and of course, that is when Kate came into heat.  So the movers and my household headed to a storage unit in Michigan while Kate, the rest of the pack and I headed to Cape Cod.  Our timing was perfect. We got two breedings, I filled up on fresh seafood and then we were headed back west, this time aiming for northern Michigan where I needed to shop for and buy a house in time to deliver the pups that I knew were coming.
                                  Kate                                                                         Parker

                       

I moved into the new Grouse House on a Saturday, built a whelping box that Monday and welcomed the 8  Kate x Parker puppies that weekend.  They are only 4 weeks old now - my favorite age - but already I can see that yes indeed, these pups are what I thought they would be.  It took me 9 years to get to you Parker buddy, but it looks like you sure made it worth the wait.

Grouse House or Fun House?

Relocating the Setters and myself into northern ruff country at times reminds me of the Fun House back at the amusement park that I went to as a kid.  Although the grounds look familiar and pretty straight forward at first glance, you never know what lies around the next corner.  And like the carnival mirrors which distort the most familiar of all images, your own body, sometimes even very familiar settings have all new dimensions and twists.  Take banking for instance.  My task today: open and establish a checking account in my new community and deposit some checks which finally found their way to me via the US Postal Service, although I am confident that the Pony Express would have been quicker.

Bank #1: Hello, I am moving into the area and would like to open a checking account as I have several checks that I need to deposit. "Sure! What is your name and address?"  Well, I have a contract on a house but have not yet closed on it, however I did open a PO Box here.  "Okay, well then I need your Michigan drivers license to open an account." Me: I am not yet able to get a MI drivers license because I do not yet have an address. "I'm sorry, I cannot open an account without an address, please come back when you get your drivers license or an address"

Bank #2: " There is a $xx monthly fee charged for a checking account, here is our list of fees."  Wait, what?  You would charge me to keep my money in your bank??

Bank #3: Two smartly dressed young tellers stood behind small podiums in this bank, no long counter barricading them away from the customers.  "Welcome! Our bank is very different in that we are very oriented to the individual customer.   May I make an appointment for you to open an account?"  Umm, I have the time now and in fact came into town specifically to open an checking account.  "Well, we want to get to know each of our customers individually so we will need to make an appointment for you. Would you like to set that appointment up now?" No, I would like to open an account now.  "I'm sorry, but we need to make an appointment."

I'm trying to remember what comes after the Fun House Hall of Mirrors. Meanwhile, we returned to our wonderful camp in the forest with only the breeze in the tree tops for noise.  And we will breathe. 

Lynn Dee Sightings

Hey all.  Contrary to some reports, I have not fallen off the edge of the world although I may have been driving along the rim a bit. In the past 2 weeks I moved from my house in Kansas and then drove to Cape Cod for some fresh seafood.

  

Well, okay, I didn't drive that far just for the seafood although it truly would have been worth it.  I went to accomplish a breeding of my Kate to a male from my 4th generation, a dog that I adore. He is a talented bird dog and handsome but it is his uncanny resemblance to his mother, my late Tweed who was perhaps my favorite ryman (I know, we're not supposed to have favorites) and he shares the same incredible personality.

 

My Kate's timing for her heat and the breeding went from a gamble to impeccable, with a breeding my first day there, timing confirmed by progesterone testing.  She's a good girl and somehow understood that I had planned this breeding since the day she was born 3 years ago.  This pic shows why I choose Kate as a little puppy: I saw her greatgrandmother Patch's eyes in her puppy face and knew she was the one. (Patch on the right)

An iconic hillside farm in Ohio has been my oasis this month. There I found warmth and support, laughs and pep talks, food and comfort, and a parking space for my travel trailer so that I didn't have to drag it out to the seacoast.  I even crossed paths there with friend from Idaho on his own travels east.  And importantly, in recent weeks the farm had been the nurturing safe harbor for a dog very much in need, a rescued boy of my breeding whose story will be told in another writing but who joyfully has now re-joined my pack.

I am now in northern LP Michigan and in search of the new home for my pack and myself.  Instead of hunting for birds with the travel trailer as base as I do in the fall, I am hunting for a house.  Michigan met most of the items on my checklist for a new spot to call home: no location met all.  So although it is pretty flat here in Michigan, I still have managed to not fall off of the edge.  A word of thanks for the friends who check in on me daily and keep track of me, you are more important than you know.  I'll let you all know when we are Home.

Cheers

Lynn Dee