Drummond hare we come!!!!

Well we leave tomorrow for our annual fall hare hunting trip on Drummond Island. We'll be there for 6 days of hunting and can't wait. This year we'll have a few newbies on the trip: Copper, Kacey and Amber. It should be interesting to see how they do. Unfortunately Boo just came into heat so she isn't able to come.
We are taking 8 dogs up this year including: Gunner, Dozer, Echo, Kacey, Babs, Copper, Amber, and Sugar. Normally we rotate 4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, this usually keeps them pretty fresh throughout the week. Hopefully we'll have some great running and good weather! I'll be adding lots of pictures to the web site as soon as we get back.

Last day with all five

Yesterday was the last day with all 5 of the pups. One male left for Missouri yesterday evening and a female left for Wisconsin today. The other 3 will be picked up next weekend. They have been a fun litter of pups, very bold with lots of energy-hopefully they will turn out to be nice hunting hounds.

The cooler weather is starting to come back which is awesome for running the dogs. We will probably be running more and more to get ready for our October hare hunting trip. It should be interesting to take 3 young dogs up this year (Boo, Kacey and Copper) and see how they do on hare.

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It's HOT!!

It has been very hot this week, in the 90's for the past few days. I've taken the kids to the waterpark and swimming in order to keep them cool. Also been keeping an eye on the dogs and making sure they have plenty of water. I did get a chance to run the young ones (Boo, Kacey, Copper and Willow) on Tuesday morning and they did a really nice job. I also ran them tonight but it was pretty darn hot and they didn't have much luck.
The pups are getting big, they are now eating puppy feed and love to play with the kids. We have 2 going to Pennsylvania, 1 to Indiana, 1 to Missouri and 1 to Wisconsin.

Puppy update

The pups are getting big!! They are now 3 weeks old and starting to act more like puppies. They were out on the grass for the 1st time yesterday and again today. I took a few pics of them with the boys. We thought that they were all spoken for, but a couple of people have backed out so we now have one male available. If only she had had more females LOL, they are much more in demand!

Pups

They are now 3 days old and still look great. Here is a picture from yesterday:

Pups are here!!

Amber and Dozer's patch pups were finally born early this morning. She had 7 total but one died soon after birth. So we have 3 females and 3 males, all appear to be healthy. It's hard to tell their markings this early but they all seem to be nearly entirely white (I'm sure some lemon patches will come in time). I will add some pictures tomorrow.

Still Waiting...

We are still anxiously awaiting our puppies. I recalculated her gesatation and she is currently on day 65, so she should be having the pups any time now. The kids are getting excited, they check on her about every hour. She is really huge but seems quite happy.

I've been running the dogs quite a bit (mostly the young ones). I've tried to run about 5 times a week. Unfortunately the weather has been so hot, I only let them loose for 2 hours or less at a time. We've run into lots of baby rabbits which make for some crazy (and frustrating) races. Boo and Kacey are really coming on, they hunt very hard and do a nice job on a rabbit.
I am also running a patch female for a friend of ours who lives in WV, she is Boo's littermate and her name is Willow. She has really been doing a nice job too and I hope he's pleased with her progress when he gets her back. He and his father are coming up to Drummond with us in October. He went up with the guys once a few years ago.

On Saturday I ran Willow, Kacey, Gunner and Sugar. They started a rabbit as soon as they were cut loose and ran it for a good while. It was about 80 degrees outside so I only had them out for just over an hour.

On Sunday I ran Willow, Boo, Kacey and Dozer. Boo started 2 of the 3 rabbits that they ran (Dozer jumped the other). They had one run that lasted over 1/2 hour which I thought was pretty good condsidering how hot and thick it was.