I grew up in Nebraska
hunting pheasants with my dad. We never had a gundog and
consequently, we didn’t scare up many pheasants. While attending
the University
of
Wyoming
for my undergraduate degree, I got really into duck and rabbit
hunting. So when I was about to graduate from college, I decided I
was going to get myself a gundog for my graduation present. I had
hunted with several friends’ labs throughout college and was
never really impressed. I had grown up around German Shorthairs but I
had always found them to be fairly high-strung, although I knew that I needed
a versatile dog to best fit my hunting interests and training style.
I had seen a few Small Munsterlanders and really liked the look
of them. Everything I read about them said that they were calmer
dogs that were easy for first-time owners to train. I found the
nearest Small Munsterlander breeder and got on a waiting list for
a puppy. It wasn’t long after I received my munster
that I realized that my pup was nothing at all like everything I
had read about the breed. He was stubborn, independent, and the
whiniest, most high-strung dog I had ever seen. He was a descent
field dog, but lacked the self-control to really focus on tracks
or hold points for very long. He also disliked the water. We were
told by our vet that we needed to medicate him in order to calm
him down enough to take his nightly walk.
By this point, we knew it was time to look into another gundog.
My husband, Scott, and I were sick of missing out on duck hunting
and we were ready to take on advanced dog training. After our
experience with the munster, we knew that we needed to find a breed with stricter testing and
breeding standards. We also wanted a breed where temperament was
also evaluated. We knew that we couldn’t put up with another
hyper dog. So, we set out to find the calmest gundog we could. We
even looked at Golden Retrievers and British Labs at one point.
But finally, we decided that we wanted to stick with pointing
dogs.
We narrowed down our search to Deutsch
Drahthaars and German Longhaired Pointers. We like the fact that
both breeds have so many breeding controls. Ultimately, we chose
to get a longhair because we prefer to train softer dogs. We also
decided that we liked the long hair look a little more. I was
lucky enough to contact a kennel right before they had a
litter due. A couple months later, we had our first longhair,
Kaylee. When she was about 6 months old, she was already further
along in her training (and much easier to live with) than our 3
year old munsterlander. That is when we decided to sell the munster
and stick with longhairs. We have never looked back :-)
Gera
and Lona both joined our family this past summer and I am always
checking litter listings in Europe for our
next longhair puppy. Good dogs are certainly addictive! The photo
at the top of this page shows me and my husband, Scott, with our
three longhairs:
Gera, Lona, and Kaylee.
