Virginia Welcomes Emmett!

This handsome devil is Emmett. He will soon be making the trip from Vidor Vizslas in Michigan to the great state of Virginia!

I met Emmett's new owner, Jena, when she came to one of Winnie's shows. She has waited a long time for her puppy and I just couldn't be more happy for her and her family! It will be neat to have another HWV near enough to visit and train with. Additionally, there is another wire from the same litter going to Andy in nearby Maryland. I met Andy in Winnie's conformation class. I know these will be great homes for these special pups, and rest assured, I will be pestering these new owners for plenty of photos to post here!

So, safe travels for these new pups. Congratulations to the families who will be enriched by them, and to Carolyn of Vidor Vizslas for producing this beautiful litter!

Chainsaw Sculpture

I've never tried to carve with a chainsaw before, but we had this stump in our front field that's about 3 feet high and it just kept calling to me. What the hell, if it doesn't work, I just cut it down, so I figured it was worth a shot!

It's not done, I've worked on it in two different sessions so far. The sessions come after I've been chainsawing stuff that actually needs to be cut, so although I did more today than the last time, I still can't do very much before I just get tired.

Another disclaimer, because I'm sawing, Winnie is not present when I'm working on it. And trying to recall the shape of a dog from memory is not as easy as you might think! But when I went down today to snap a picture and brought her with me, I started to think I might just be able to pull this off.

Anyway, I will post progress as it happens, or maybe I'll screw it up and cut it down and you'll never hear another word about it. I think that's why I wanted to get a picture now. It might be as good as it's going to get.

Great dog video from Hungary (featuring a really cute HWV!)

Fire Alarms

NA, N/A

Our last field outing produced some positives, but also raised a couple of concerns. I feel like I'm at an important point in our training right now and I really want to keep things light and fun for her. So I've decided to pull out of the NAVHDA NA test in a couple weeks. I think instead of training for tracking and swimming and stuff in the coming weeks, and then driving 2+ hours to the test where I will be nervous and unable to hide that from her, we're just going to keep things light.

Her next field day will be just one gun, a few chukar, finally some EASY cover, and we'll go at our own pace.