We have a new dog and it's a Spinone!
www.windycityspinoni.com
A look back at our first year with a versatile dog. It went by really fast! We hope to bring you higher quality and quantity of videos in the upcoming year.
As an adult, I still find there isn't much of anything better than perfectly crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside breakfast potatoes, and my Great-Aunt's potatoes were the best in my book. She passed this simple and delicious recipe down to my Mom, who in turn taught me, and now I'm sharing with you.
Check out the Instructable for this recipe.
We tried to capture one of our grouse hunts. It is a tough thing to film because the action is blistering fast and always surprising!
Rupert points a covey of grouse. We counted 4 or 5 flushes out of this covey but it's tough to keep track in the heat of battle!
A simple pickled pepper recipe. Do you have too many peppers from your front yard garden? Don't want them to go to waste? Why not pickle them?
Also Check out the Instructable for this recipe!
A quick peek at the challenges of shooting grouse in the northern midwest.
For several weeks Rupert and Scott have been working hard on trained retrieve. At the monthly training day of our local NAVHDA chapter, Rupert put his skills to the test as he was introduced to duck retrieving.
On May 16, 2015 Rupert, our wirehaired pointing griffon puppy, completed his NAVHDA Natural Ability Test. Rupert ended the day with a 104-point Prize 2 score. Photos were taken by Thomas Bender.
I was gifted eight pigeons bringing my total up to eleven. It was time to build a proper coop. Take the tour and see what you think.
Rupert finishes the day on point!
The puppies continue their day and get some exposure tracking.
Rupert and his friends practice swimming days before testing.
We continued Rupert's preparation for the NAVHDA Natural Ability test by spending the day training at Windy City Spinoni Kennels. There we also helped train two Spinoni pups preparing for the test.
Earlier this spring Scott and I got a roadkill deer that we processed ourselves at home. We didn't have a meat grinder at the time so I froze the meat. Today we were lucky enough to borrow one from some friends so I went to work making my own ground venison.
Rupert was showing a little bit of water apprehension. We have been working really hard the last ten days or so and we had a breakthrough! Rupert completed 10-15 retrieves like he has been doing it his whole life!
April's training with WRC NAVHDA. We left Rupert on a long lead to reinforce his pointing. On his first run, Rupert pointed the pigeon. We did not know the pigeon was still alive when he was retrieving. Thankfully, he pointed it again and we were able to grab it before Rupert got it.
The second bird he pointed was an escaped training quail. We didn't even know that this bird was there. Rupert figured it out. We ended Rupert's fieldwork on a good note.
Spring is in the air! In this video I get this year's vegetable garden started from seed.
Spring is in the air and that means it's time to clean out the Hunting Nerd garden.
Set out to do some tracking training simulating a wounded bird. The wind shifted and started to push the scent away from Rupert. He did a good job recalibrating and then held a nice point while I located the bird! Probably shouldn't have let him catch the bird at the end but what the heck.
I built a dog training table for Rupert to help teach the whoa command. It folds up for storage I will eventually add some legs.
Rupert trained with live birds for the first time with the NAVHDA Wisconsin River Chapter at Mazomanie Wildlife Area.
Rupert trains with pheasant wings at the Mazomanie Dog Training Grounds in Wisconsin.
Nothing wrong with roadkill! We got this one fresh and didn't want the meat to go to waste.
Follow Rupert through his second day of obedience training. Watch as he trains with the Wisconsin River Chapter NAVHDA group. It was a great indoor location at the UW-Madison campus.