December 2003 - "...He really is maturing to a fine dog. Our kids are crazy about him as we. Jim has had him out with the dummy and in water. He really is something to see..."
August 2004 - "We are the family from Westville IN that travels a lot to our place in WI. Hope you remember us. Our Sam turned a year old and is such a great dog! He certainly loves our children. He has become protective of them and us. I find that a bonus! We will be heading up in October for partridge hunting. This will be the first "real hunt" for Sam.
We are excited to see how he does. Hopefully I will get some pictures sent to you to see what a nice looking dog he is. We bought our own clippers so we keep his hair short.
I just wanted to touch base to let you know how one of your pups has grown. We love him so much. I'll talk to you another time."
November 2003 - "...We continue to really enjoy Scout. She is in puppy class and doing really
well. She is very bright and a quick learner. Kevin has also started doing
very basic hunting techniques with her and he says she is a natural. She is
so attentive when he has her out with pheasant feathers in our yard. He
can't wait to take her hunting. I just thoroughly enjoy her as my
companion. She has a really sweet disposition and is friendly to everyone
she meets."
"I have gone on about Scout enough, we just really love having her!"
January 2004 - "We just thought that we should send you some pictures of Scout. Today is January 1, 2004. Scout is almost 6 months old. Everybody in our family just loves her. She has been a great addition to our family. She has such a great disposition. She is very eager to please and has been very easy to train."
"I have been working with her as much as I can. She retrieves to hand, heals, sits and always comes on command. The only thing holding her back is my knowledge of dog training. I purchased the book "Hup" off of your web site. I need all the help that I can get!"
"Scout missed Pheasant hunting in South Dakota this year. I really wanted to take her but we decided that she was just to young. I can't wait for next year. It is no fun hunting without your dog. Her first outing in November went ok. We released 20 pheasants on my Dad's farm. She spent most of the time just getting use to all of the action. By the end of the day she was working the fields and looking confident."
"We are going out rabbit hunting today. Hopefully we will run into some of those pheasants that "got away"."
"I have to say that we are all very happy with Scout. I am so glad that we have been introduced to the "field springer" and this breed..."
April 2002 - "...Skye is just such a sweetie, we've been spending all our time with him. I'm sending some photos I took of him on the walk out to our pond and him taking his
first canoe ride - he loved it! There were Canadian geese and mallard ducks on the pond and he was really intrigued. Thank you for sending the photos and hat. He has been to the
vet twice for his boosters and has his last appt May 8th. I took him last week for heartworm and everyone there just loves him and the vet can't believe how well mannered he is
for a pup. It took about a week for the cats to come around, but they get along fine now. I wish I had the digital when we introduced him to the cows, the look on his face was so
funny and he jumped into Bill's arms and hid his face in his neck. Now he runs down there and barks at them.He's such a riot. I hatched 25 giant cortunix chicks two days ago and
we have 100 pheasants on the way - so he'll have plenty to hunt in the fall. Bill is doing all the training. He ordered training dummys, scent and a quail plastic dummy. He's very
happy with the way he's learning-he's a quick learner. Once again-thank you so much for letting us have him."
October 2002 - Just thought I would let you know how Skye is doing. Today was opening day of duck season. First fowling retrieve was a green winged teal in open marsh. He marked well,
retrieved well and promises to be a strong water dog. Second retrieve was a widgeon which travelled 60 yards or so behind the blind of tall reeds. As this bird was taken by my partner,
Skye did not see the fall. We went to retrieve it in a canoe(same canoe as in photos sent to you) and our opening day excitement got the best of us. Though he's great in a canoe, when he
saw the game, I commanded him to go - first mistake - I locked my feet under the strut of the canoe - second mistake - previous game was not secured - third mistake -(do you see a pattern here?).
While I was pouring the water from the canoe, Skye waited patiently with the bird.
He's 52 pounds now and still growing. Do you know when he'll stop? His Vet is impressed with his progress.
This evening I opened the bird pen door to allow the guineas to go in and didn't realize that Cheryl earlier in the day had released the quail in the pen. A quail escaped, when we all went
down to the pen, Skye did his first live retrieve to hand, scent trailing, Nicely done.
"As everything goes we have a very good vet. She also commented on how
good of health Sonny was in. She commented on how good your records
where and how cool it was that you did the eye testing. Also really
liked the food you had the pups on."
"So far he knows: "go poddy," "come inside," "go outside," "stay,"
"come," "down," "quiet" and "no." I am working on him to get him
used to others like commands (not the industry standard) for
retrieving, which he still really loves to do. The commands I am
working on him with are "go get it," "bring," and "drop." Doesn't
like the drop command. :) He is really quiet intelligent and picks up
on commands by watching Sophie and listening to us. He will start
puppy socialization and obediance class through the local kennel club
on July 23. I have gotten a number of referrals on how good the class is."
January 2003 - "...[Sylvie] and JD are great budies... We had the dogs out walking last Sunday and today. Last Sunday, they put up a partridge. They work well together..."
