For several months I had been searching for Vizsla and German Shorthaired Pointer breeders and was becoming very frustrated with not being able to find a breeder with whose breeding philosophy and practices I could agree and who could provide parents, pedigrees, papers, and puppies that I liked. Finally, out of desperation, I decided to search our local newspapers, so on Saturday morning, January 28, 2006, I purchased a copy of the TC Record-Eagle and searched the classified ads for German Shorthaired Pointer pups. I saw an ad from a GSP breeder that quickly captured my attention. I called immediately and spoke at great length with the breeder, whom, after careful grilling, I liked very much. He is a very serious upland game bird hunter, who has owned, trained, selectively bred, and hunted with GSPs for nearly twenty years. He expressed much concern that any prospective buyer of one of the eight pups in his present litter passed his stringent tests for being able to provide both a proper home and good training environments for his pups. When after I had apparently met Bob's requirements for being a prospective owner of one of his GSP pups, he asked whether I wanted a male or female pup. I told him that I wanted a male, and he said that he has three males, one of which he had already promised to his hunting partner but another male pup that he said has really captured his own attention and would possibly keep himself. He then began to describe it but suddenly stopped and instead invited me to come take a look for myself. So my wife Christine and I scheduled the first appointment since Bob had placed his ad to visit kennel and view the sire, dam, and litter of eight pups the first thing after church services the very next morning. We suspected that others would read the Sunday edition of The Record-Eagle and would want to see the pups asap as well, only we'd get the jump on them and, if we liked a puppy, get second pick of the litter.
We awoke 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning and rapidly prepared for our trip and our 11 a.m. appointment at the breeder's facilities. The morning was quiet and snowy; the snowplows hadn't yet cleared the snow that had fallen on the county roads and highways, but we had no problem driving through the snow in my Ford Explorer. As we drove along the county road through the middle of a cedar swamp a ruffed grouse flew across the road before us.
"That's a good omen!" I expressed gleefully to my wife. Never since our move to the rural countryside five years earlier have we observed a grouse in this area. "It'll be a good day to pick a pup."
Breeder Bob and his wife greeted us warmly and invited us into their spacious log cabin home that was located in the middle of expansive prime grouse habitat. "We are close!" I thought excitedly for immediately upon entering their cabin, I detected fresh puppy scent--it filled the air of their cabin, and I loved it!
Bob guided us back to their indoor puppy-rearing area and showed us the pups and the male pup which his grouse hunting partner had already selected. "I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Just make yourselves at home and mingle with the pups."
But before I mingled with the pups, I wanted to introduce myself to the dam and meet the sire. The dam, Molly, was rightfully protective and attentive of her pups and scrutinized my being and presence, for I was the first outsider to visit her pups in their home environment. I asked Bob for permission to lie down on the floor to conduct my interviews the pups, and he waved approval. I was in heaven! As I carefully lay my body down on the floor, I was immediately surrounded and cheerfully greeted by eight beautiful, bouncing four-weeks-old GSP pups, while mother Molly and my wife watched from the sides. Molly was beautiful, but the sire, Boone, was stunning! I wanted him and asked Bob about Boone. "Boone and Molly are not for sale," smiled Bob. He told me their bios and said that both are outstanding hunters, but Molly was better than Boone.
For the first 15 minutes, I let the pups crawl around and over me. I placed my hand on a few to secure them gently to the floor to observe their reactions to having their freedom of movement being restricted, and I watched them interact among themselves to observe which ones may have dominant tendencies.
During this period and for the next half hour, I subjected each pup to my "tests for nose". Unbeknownst to Bob, I had placed a grouse wing from the 2005 hunting season into my shirt breast pocket and a 2005 woodcock wing inside and up my left shirt sleeve at my wrist before my wife and I had entered their home. I wanted to see which of these pups had the scenting ability to detect and the desire to pull out any of these hidden wings. I felt confident that I could train any pup to be an obedient good bird dog, but I knew that we humans cannot train "nose".
A pup or a dog either has the ability to scent well or it doesn't, and this is my test to determine which of these pups exceled at detecting bird scent among their litter mates.
All of the seven pups [we had removed from the interviewing area the male pup that Bob had promised his hunting partner] acted, well, as puppies typically behave with expected energetic rambunction and enthusiasm, but two of the seven--one male and one gorgeous female--showed exceptional promise and started sniffing inquisitively at my left shirt sleeve's cuff and breast pocket. The male was especially determined to find out what these new, hidden scents were and successfully pulled the grouse wing from my breast pocket and the woodcock wing from my sleeve. He then proudly pranced around the floor among his litter mates and repeatedly back to me with both wings in his mouth showing everyone his "birds". At first, only the gorgeous female pup showed interest; the other five displayed no interest at all. So, I picked up this precocious male and walked several feet away to place him in the middle of the other 4-5 pups on the floor. Then I returned to my original position on the floor and watched. Immediately the precocious male pup, with both bird wings still in his mouth, walked right back to me and crawled up on my chest. "Wow! This is some pup!" I thought to myself. I wanted to give the other pups an honest chance, so I picked up the male from my chest, wings still in his mouth, and returned him to the area where his litter mates played. This time, the gorgeous female pup expressed interest in the wings the precocious male pup still carried in his mouth, and she tried to take them from him as he returned again back to me as I lay on my back on the ground and watched. The male pup carrying the wings refused to surrender the wings to her and to any other pup who later discovered the wonderful scented objects he still carried.
"Okay, I've made my decision." I declared to Bob and my wife Christine. "Honey, now it's your turn to see if you want this one or a different one."
"I don't know. I like the pretty female, but it looks like he's [the precocious pup who carried and defended the wings in his mouth] made his decision, too. He keeps coming back to you!"
We told Bob that we'd take the precocious pup with the very handsomely distinguishing liver-colored round rump and angel-winged shoulder patches.
"That's the puppy I started to tell you about when you called yesterday, but I wanted to see if you would discover him for yourselves. I'm happy to see that you did. He's the one that I want for myself, and for the life of me I'm still wondering why I'm not keeping him and why my hunting partner chose the one he did and not this one. That "nose test" you did with the wings is great. I've never seen anyone do that before. I'm very surprised how well the puppy you selected, the one we both like, behaved and performed. You're going to have a wonderful puppy and hunting dog!"
So, we paid Bob for our pup and scheduled a time and date to pick him up to bring him home. And just as we completed our business with Bob two hours after our arrival, three pickup loads of prospective-puppy purchasers arrived to view Bob's remaining GSP pups.
Have fun selecting your next pup, and give my "nose tests" a try!
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