I am looking for a nice stud dog for my 4 y/o female CH Never Complain Regardless (Trego).  She is 23 inches tall and weighs 50 pounds.  She is OFA'd excellent and is a great companion/house pet to our family that includes a 3 y/o and 3 month old girls.  Trego has a fantastic disposition.  Trainers and handlers say she  adapts easily to new situations and has never met a stranger. 

She is all business in the field and I hunt her 10-15 times a year on local released birds and preserves.  She has also hunted wild pheasants in Iowa last year and even being 5 weeks pregnant did not slow her down from three hard days in a row of hunting.  She retreives nicely and likes water.  She helped me set out decoys on the Mississippi River with icey conditions last fall.

Conformation wise, she is well balanced and moves properly.  If I were to critique her, I would like more front shoulder angle, more bone and chest depth and darker eyes.  She was pointed out with my handling her a true novice and Helen George put both her majors on her in two out of five shows she showed her at.  Helen wants me to special her and thinks she will be very competitve as a special.

I want to breed her to more of a hunting dog than a show dog (FC's DC's VC's ).  I want the stud to be a great companion that was easy to train.  I would prefer darker dogs to whiter ones as I intend to keep a female from the litter and find the darker hair easier to manage in the house. 

I know there are very knowledgable gsp on here and would like some advice on who to breed her to.  I have several dogs in mind and want to make sure I know  what I can before doing it again.  She will come in season around mid Feb. 2008.  Her last litter turned out nicely so far. 

Matt

I don't what lines your dog is from or what lines you may want to breed to so here's a bunch of links to check out. There are tons of people that have fantastic dogs these are just a few that have produced or have the kind of stud dogs you talked about. There are probably more that escape me so look around on the old board as well.

www.rugerheim.com

www.odysseygsp.net

www.nmk1gsp.net

westwindgsps.com/german_shorthairs_stud_dogs.htm

www.sundance-gsp.com               an Iowa dog, VC/MH

www.walnuthillgsps.us/kennel.htm

I assume you aren't looking to line breed her? What area are you located in?

With your dog having a pretty high inbreeding coefficient the rugerheim dogs may or may not be the best choice, if I were you I would get ahold of them and talk about what may be a good choice for a stud dog.

You never said if you wanted to line breed your girl or not. There is alot more needed before anyone can recommend a stud. What are your goals? What are her weaknesses? How much are you willing to pay? Plus many more questions to answer.

What titles does the stud need? VC, MH, FC, DC, etc...? Do you want a dog from NAVHDA, FT, etc... lines? You said you wanted a darker stud. Do you want a solid? Liver or black? Everyone says their dogs are very biddable and natural retrievers. But you will see that almost all the dogs out there are FF so the natural retrieve thing doesn't really mean that much IMO. I know it can be hard to critique your own dog but just think if she has any problems little or big you don't like. Nose, does she give you the range you want, does she take to water naturally (if that is something you want), hows her pointing, etc...? I am just asking these questions because it will help you narrow down which studs you would actually like.

Matt,

Feel free to call me or drop me an email.  You can get my info from my website:  www.honeyrunshorthairs.com

ALL of our dogs are hunting dogs first (Grouse) and show dogs second.  I currently have my solid live male available to approved females, but can also direct you to a couple of other available males that would meet your criteria.

Cindy Stahle, Honey Run Shorthairs, Dover, PA

This might be a dog worth looking at

http://hbv.netkennel.com/PedigreeView.asp?DogID=13845&HDR=3X%20Ch./1X%20RU%20Ch.%20D&D%27s%20Blackrock%20Stitch

http://hbv.netkennel.com/PhotoView.asp?PhotoID=9464&HDR=3X+Ch%2E%2F1X+RU+Ch%2E+D%26D%27s+Blackrock+Stitch

 If you contact Dr. Favor he will tell you how much of a hunting dog Stitch is than he will tell you about his FT career. Stitch is a hunting dog first. Besides DR. Favor is fun to talk too.

Hi Matt,

I outcrossed my Huntabird-line bitch to VC Graf Von Burkhart MH from the Western NY area. I'm very pleased with all 9 pups produced and I have no complaints from the hunting homes they went to. Those that have entered different venues: show, obedience, hunt testing, etc. have all excelled in those areas. Here's the pedigree on my Beretta, the pup I kept:

Beretta

Here are a couple of her siblings (good looking too, I might add ):
Gauge
 
Dutch


I agree 100% about health testing! There a quite a few cardiac and eye clinics going on where you can get OFA'd and CERF'd relatively cheap. Check out the upcoming shows in Madision, OH this weekend and Canfield, OH in August.

Good luck!
Tracy

Hey Matt,

I don't know how soon you plan to do a breeding, but......

You might want to see how the pups turn out from Steve Spanglers breeding of his Lily to Donnie Ebersole's Thunder and then consider Thunder for a Stud. With your pups ped being very similar to his, if his breeding turns out as I expect it will, you would have a well proven Stud and a pretty good idea how the litter would turn out. You will certainly see first hand how the nick works for him. I think Thunder would certainly fit your criteria for hunting abilities and Titles and he is a darker dog. Food for thought.

On the other hand, if you want to go in a different direction, do you have any thoughts on specific directions you may want to go line wise? Other than a darker dog with hunt Titles. I would consider offering Dalin next Winter/Spring, but he is a lighter hot ticked and I think a bigger going dog than you may want.

I would just like to note that there are alot of us around that have top quality hunting GSP's. I personally can't afford to take my dogs to the trials. Between work and training them. I have a male from Rawhide's Clown, Kojac's K-Man, etc line that I know would pass conformation, and do well in field trials as well. He is soft mouthed. Very stylish points, and will retrieve ANYTHING I want him to. I just wanted to comment on that because some of us just hunt our dogs and just because they aren't in the show ring doesn't mean that they aren't as good! We don't have too many places where you hunt planted birds so all of ours are wild Partridge mostly. But that is really the true test of a dog in my opinion.