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.

Waiting for puppies

Amber should be having her puppies sometime this week. She is getting quite huge so we're hoping for a nice sized litter with lots of females. Here is a picture I took of her a few days ago and one that was taken pre-pregnancy, she's obviously lost her figure!

RIP Grandpa Kenny Wallace

Grandpa Kenny passed away on Mother's Day after a lengthy illness. Kenny was the founder of our kennel and started it back in the 1970's with his Plott coonhounds. He was Pete's father-in-law and Justin's grandfather. Kenny was a great man, a Marine and veteran of the Korean War, and loved hunting and trapping with his family and friends. He will be greatly missed but fondly remembered. Our son (age 5) was named after his great grandpa and takes after him in his love for the outdoors and hound dogs! Here are a couple of our favorite pictures of Grandpa Ken:

Love running pups

There is nothing better than running young dogs and watching them start to really get it! I took Boo and KC out this morning here behind the house and they really did a nice job!! They ran 3 different rabbits and circled all of them. The 2nd one they really burned up, I stood in the middle of the field and watched them go around me a few times without many mistakes. I was very pleased with how they ran for 10 and 8 month old pups. They also do a nice job together so I'll probably run them this way quite a bit. Boo seems to do a better job getting the rabbits up and running but KC is a better check dog right now and is also more independent (even though she's younger). They both handled really well also, KC always listens very well but Boo can be hard headed-today she did a nice job. I'll try to get a video of these two running sometime soon and I also need to get Copper on tape. I know that Pete has been running him a good bit too and he's also coming along nicely-he's the wild child and is super hard-headed but in my experience those types tend to make tough hounds as they mature!

In other news, Amber should be expecting pups. We bred her to Dozer and should have a litter of Patch pups in mid-June. Time to get the whelping pen cleaned out and ready.

New dog: Kacey

We have added a new hound to our kennel. Kacey is a 7 month old patch female out of Shildt's Smokeypatch and Shildt's Hollypatch. She is a nice looking dog and is a chocolate tri (looks quite a bit like her sire). For a young pup she does a nice job hunting and will start and run her own rabbit. So now we have 3 young dogs to work with! It will be a busy Spring/Summer!

Copper and Boo are also coming along nicely. Boo is just coming out of heat so she'll have some catching up to do but they are pleasing us so far. Every female in our kennel (except Kacey) is either in heat right now or has just come out within the week!! So needless to say, the males have gotten to run a lot! I believe that we will be breeding Dozer to Amber sometime next week, if everything goes as planned we should have a patch litter in mid-June.

Gunner did a really nice job in the 2 trials I took him to last month. If it wasn't for a newbie handler (that would be me-Stacy) he probably would have won both casts, but hey that's the way it goes. I was very proud of him, especially because he is almost 8 yrs old and running against much younger hounds. I was very nervous about going to the 1st (and 2nd) trial but everyone was very nice and I would feel much more comfortable now having gotten some experience. We are hoping to get to one or two ARHA trials to check them out also.

Lots to post

Oops, I haven't kept up with this like I should have lol! Anyway, I'll try to update what's been going on.

Pete and Justin took a trip out to Altoona, PA a few weeks ago and ran patch hounds with Darrell Shildt, they had a great time (a short video clip is on the video page). We ended up buying a 3 year old female off of him: Shildt's Amberpatch. She is out of Sugar Ridge Buckeye Patch and Lehner's Lily Patch. Darrell had bred her once and the guys got to watch 2 of her 15 month pups run and they were pretty impressive. We've ran Amber about 6-8 times since we bought her and she is a heck of a nice hound with amazing hunt. We plan to breed her to Dozer this spring/summer.

With hunting season over our attention has turned to Boo and Copper, our two 8 month old pups. Wow, did the light bulb turn on for them this past week! There's nothing better than watching pups really start getting it. I have a feeling these two will turn out to be nice hounds and they are a couple of well built dogs too-I need to get some pictures of both of them and also Amber and get them posted ASAP.

I believe that Pete, Denise and I are going to head to a UKC hunt at Navarre, OH this Saturday. Unfortunately Dozer is a about a half inch too tall so I'm just going to take ol'Gunner in order to get my feet wet and see if it's something I like or not. I think Pete is taking Babs. Hopefully we'll be able to take the pups next fall if they keep improving.

-Stacy

Lost a good one

Our Daisy passed away on Saturday. This was a big hit to our kennel and also a huge shock as she was only 7 years old and never had previous health issues.

We bought Daisy as a pup from Darrell Shildt in Altoona, PA. She was the 1st patch hound that we raised here at our kennel. What an awesome little hound too!! She was the smallest of all of our dogs but had arguably the biggest heart. She was the one you wanted in your box in bad conditions or when you wanted to impress others. Daisy was a good mother and produced 2 litters of fine pups for us. We were planning on breeding her one last time this Spring because there was a large waiting list for hunters wanting a pup out of her, but it wasn't meant to be.

Daisy was so impressive because she was such a solid and consistent hound. She wasn't the fastest in our pack but she was virtually fault free and made everything run smoothly. Not only was she a great hunting hound, she was also great in the kennel and had a sweet disposition.

Of all of our dogs, only Daisy made the trip to Drummond Island every single year, the most recent being in January. Once again, she did an awesome job and ran hard all 3 days. We will miss Daisy but she will be remembered fondly. Although she is no longer around we own 3 of her pups (Babs, PeekaBoo, and Copper) and her memory will live on in them!

Here is a link to a video we made in her honor: http://www.vimeo.com/711527

-Sandy Valley Kennel