Pine Straw Sweet Tea has BIG time at English Setter Club of America's spring trial.

Pine Straw Sweet Tea (Sugar) wrapped up her first year as a Shooting Dog in fine form. Dillon Shaffer ran Sugar for us in both the Open Restricted Shooting Dog stake and the Open Shooting Dog Stake of the English Setter Club of America's spring trial held at Medford, New Jersey. A handful of finds and nice race garnered 3rd place for Sugar in the Open Shooting Dog. Three finds and a great race earned Sugar a big 1st place win of the Open Restricted Shooting Dog stake. A big thanks to Dillon for running Sugar and to Cole Henry for scouting her.

Sugar's runner up for the Bill Conlin Setter Shooting Dog Derby award for the 2015-2016 season gave us high hopes for her shooting dog career and she has continued to improve through her first year. Sugar is out of our Mult. CH/RU Highground Jax Jabba X RUCH Pine Straw Katydid litter. She is very classy running, biddable, and seemed to mature a little more at every trial. Wrapping up the season with two nice placements keeps our hopes high for Sugar.

Pine Straw Black Hawk Earns 3rd Place at Keystone Shooting Dog Classic

On April 13, 2017, CH Pine Straw Black Hawk earned 3rd place at the Keystone Open Shooting Dog Classic held at Indiantown Gap. This is a big wide open venue that requires dogs that can really open up their range. Hawk laid down a great performance against a field of 42 which contained many champions. Big thanks to Jeanette Tracy (handler) and Dillon Shaffer (scout) of Ladywood Kennels for running Hawk.

This was a good way to end a trial year that had more than its share of setbacks, including an injury during the season that took Hawk out of competition for 3 months. He was then forced to return in the heat of the season at less than optimum condition due to the injury.

Hawk's 2015-2016 year qualified him to run in both the Shooting Dog National Championship and the Shooting Dog Invitational. It was an honor for him to compete at both even though he was fresh off his injury and not at the top of his game.

Hawk X Maggie daughter Ladywood's Jazz It Up earns first placement.

Ladywood's Jazz It Up (CH Pine Straw Black Hawk X AKC FC Pine Straw Magpie) took first place in the open derby stake of the Mid Atlantic Red Setter Club trial under the whistle of Dillon Shaffer. Congrats to Dillon and Jeanette Tracy. It's good to see Hawk's first litter of pups competing and great that Jazz earned a blue her very first trial.

Shearjoy's Unforgiven X Pine Straw Country Sunshine - Dottie has been bred

We have bred Dottie (Pine Straw Country Sunshine) to Shearjoy's Unforgiven.

Dottie is a first year All Age dog and this past year earned her first AA placement in South Dakota. In addition to being excited for her to be qualified to run in championships, we also were pleased that the placement came on the prairies where an AA dog has to show serious run to place. Dottie has always been a great bird finder, even as a little pup. Now she is a 48 pound leggy female that is fast on the ground.

Will (Shearjoy's Unforgiven) is just finishing his derby year as an AA derby with multiple placements. He is a big, proud standing dog that reportedly broke early and stayed that way. I have seen pictures of him on the internet (as you may have) and he looks good in them, but when I saw him in person, he looks even better. He is a very impressive dog. Will weighs in in the 55-57 pound range and has a leggy and athletic build.

We bred this litter in an attempt to get All Age Setters. While both Will and Dottie are early in their trial careers, they both appear to have the potential to be successful all age competitors. In addition, we like what the pedigrees bring to the table.

PEDIGREE DETAILS

Shearjoy's Unforgiven - CH Hytest Skyhawk X Prodigy's High Anxiety

Pine Straw Country Sunshine - Mult CH/RU Highground Jax Jabba X RUCH Pine Straw Katydid

In discussing pedigrees a lot of people like to talk about what a dog "goes back to", and I will elaborate on what lies behind Will and Dottie's breeding. But sometimes when I see people using the term "goes back to" I worry that it is euphemism for: "up close ain't much". That is not the case in this litter.

Grandparents:

Hytest Skyhawk - he needs no introduction, but so you know, he competed 4 times at the National and has shown to be a good producer of both winners and producers.

Prodigy's High Anxiety - she has her own ties to the National as her sire has produced 2 National Championship contestants: Stardust Chazz and Prodigy's Bonfire (a full sister from a repeat breeding).

Highground Jax Jabba - Jabba had 6 appearances at the National Championship and has produced champions with very limited breeding

Pine Straw Katydid - Katie is the only grandparent not directly tied to the National Championship, but she earned her own acclaim at a national trial, taking Runner-Up at the 2010 National Amateur Grouse Championship in a field that drew 69 dogs. Also, her sire won the grouse dog version of the big one, the Grand National Grouse Championship.


Overall Pedigree - A look at the first 8 generations:

National Championship Contestants:

This litter will have seven National Championship contestants: Hytest Skyhawk (2nd gen.); Highground Jax Jabba (2nd gen.); Tekoa Mountain Patriot (3rd gen.); Tekoa Mountain Sunrise (5th gen.)***; Hick's Rising Sun (5th gen.); Amos Mosley (7th gen.); and Johnny Crockett (winner) (7th gen.).

***While Tekoa Mountain Sunrise doesn't show until the 5th generation, he appears 19 times in an 8 generation pedigree of the litter. In the ancestor analysis of blood percentage as calculated on the Willie Walker database, he contributes approximately 24.5% blood percentage (where parents give 50%, grandparents 25% etc.)


Hall of Fame dogs:

This litter will have seven Hall of Fame Setters in its first 8 generations: Tekoa Mountain Sunrise, Hick's Rising Sun, Johnny Crockett, Grouse Ridge Will, The Performer, Destinaire, and Tomoka.


The Grouse Dog side:

I believe that successful grouse dogs have to be top notch bird dogs; and there is value in bringing the most athletic of those dogs into the breeding of horseback trial competitors. If the grouse dogs lines (or lines from any other venue) are brought in, it makes sense to pull the best. In the roughly 1/4 of the pedigree of this litter that comes from those grouse dog lines, there are at least 7 winners of the Grand National Grouse Championship: Chip's Uncle Buzzie, Stillmeadow's Jim, Grouse Ridge Storm, Grouse Ridge Will, Ghost Train, Jetrain, and Stokely's Diablo Jake.


Acknowledgements:

A huge thank you to Betty Shearhouse for allowing us to breed to her Will.

Thanks to the folks at the Willie Walker Setter pedigree database for making a lot of the information readily available. If you're a Setter person, you really need to use their database.

Thanks to those breeders that went to the effort to produce the great dogs that comprise the foundation of the English Setters of today.

Of course, now we wait. Wait to see if or how many pups we get, wait to see if they are bird finders, wait to see if they'll run, wait to see if they're classy, wait to see if they can be broke without losing that spark, wait to see if any of them have the ability and character to be a champion, wait to see if on that special day if one of them draws the right course at the right time with the right wind conditions, wait to see.......well you know what I mean.