While I'm still crossing my fingers they continue to develop, it looks like the litter of pups I had out of my female is continuing to show lots of promise. I got a call from my trainer two days ago stating that one of the pups (a male I almost took home) won the OD trial in Iowa in a 20 dog stake. Not bad for a dog who can still run puppy stakes. He won with 4 finds, and the trainer said he got bigger as the brace progressed. My pup ran in OP last week and did a nice job, but was a bit erratic. 3 hours later in the OD and she was rocking and rolling, and she too got bigger as the brace progressed. Had she found a bird, I'm pretty sure they would have placed her. The judge gave me an extra minute and a half to produce, and later told me she would have really liked to use her. Oh well, that's trialing. The pups are showing good qualities from both the sire and dam, but IMO, have a few tell tale signs that they are out of my female. She sometimes starts a little slow, but by the end of the hour she is chomping for more. The pups also don't put up with ANY crap from other dogs in a trial. My trainer has used my female to fix dogs that like to screw around with others in the beginning of a trial... Now the question arises if we should breed my female again, and if so, to who? If we decide to breed her again, it will be to the same sire we used before (He's a NFC, GFC, FC, AFC, and Purina AA dog of the year), or possibly do an AI breeding to the sires Dad, who has produced ridiculously well, but has been gone for 7 or 8 years. I don't really need to breed her, but would like to know if she's a Blue Hen.
I'm trying to learn as much about breeding as I possibly can, and in doing so, ran across this article from one of the best. He makes some very interesting points.
http://www.superiorpointers.com/pdf/Wehle_on_breeding.pdf
