Hi for all thoughs with a love of GSPs and owners, love to see pics of your dogs / hear how your getting on with them / stories / etc Hears a puppy pic of my Bertie.
Bertie is really cute. Have you had a GSP before? I had a GSP bitch who was a doddle in the 1990s. Ollie has been slightly more of a challenge but has turned into a really fabulous dog with oodles of personality. Since I bought him I have been told numerous times that "Birkenwalds are wilful dogs", I suppose that's what they meant but I love it! It must have been the quality of the photos on the other thread, but he's not a liver. Here's another picture where he looks a bit blacker!
Oops sorry looked very dark liver to me (need to clean my glasses) he's lovely though. Birkenwalds are fab IMO 'wilful' maybe but they know what there doing gundog work wise all you need is controll and little bit of perfecting and you've got a brilliant gundog great temperaments the two we've had are both very confident, my Dad had a Waldburg (when Birkenwalds were also Waldburgs) which I grew up with and now I have Bertie who is Ella x Wasir (see their website) whos your boys mum? If Ollie is Birkenwald it's likely that they are related.
Love GSPs - although I`d never heard of them when I brought my first one home from the Rescue - complete with papers. He was a wonderful dog. He died last year at the age of 15. He`d been imported from Ireland, put to stud then neglected and dumped. We had 10 wonderful years together. he taught me about gundogs. I got another rescue who was picked up as a stray in Ireland. This is Shamus. He`s a bit dim but is totally obsessed by pheasants - he flushes and points beautifully but doesn`t retrieve. Ah well.
This is Millie, My OH's dog: I couldnt tell you about her breeding although i'm sure he says she's got Birkenwald in her. He originally got her to work birds of prey over her but his circumstances changed when she was a little pup and he hasnt owned a bird since. She is a potentially good dog work wise but a severe lack of interaction and training has ruined her. Since he didnt have a bird, he didnt have to put in the training so never bothered and now she does her own thing and makes a very poor pet (i.e her general behaviour is appalling, making her a dog I certainly couldnt live with in the home). She works very much like a spaniel which I personally dont like. If you want a spaniel you buy a spaniel, not a HPR! I prefer my GWP's but thats simply because the coat type softens up the features a little bit, the face doesnt look so boney hence I prefer HWV's to smooth vizsla's too Oh, and I prefer black and white/solid black to liver and white/solid liver both in GSP's and GWP's.
Shes a pretty girl shame about lack of training though :-( , my boy is laid back and much calmer than our viz in the house and in general, I'm very pleased with him think he'll be a good gundog (hopefuly). Agree re: spaniel / hpr working, so does she get worked then??
Ollie's mum is Birkenwald Polly and his dad was an Andsal dog that was imported from Germany. T.T. KURTZ VOM WACHTAL WEISA (IMP). Ollie doesn't work he spends his life being a much loved and thoroughly pampered pet.
No, she doesnt get worked but we encourage all our dogs to hunt and flush out game, We did take our pointers beating once but TBH, the vast majority of dogs were Border Terriers which were running riot and running in on everything our pointers were pointing! The dogs will naturally hunt anyway, especially if they are from working lines so Millie hunts for herself and nobody else!
Nice photo of ladie Thanks What a night mare with all the terriers running in, yes I know they'll hunt etc anyway, just wondered. Don't know of a Polly just wondered if she would be any I heard of. And yes Bertie is pet first gundog second also want to do a bit of agility with him.
Lucky Bertie, he's got the best of both worlds!! I did some agility with my Springer and it was brilliant for building up his confidence. The field was right under the flight path at Heathrow, next to a railway line and a busy road. It took 3 weeks to get him to walk along the dogwalk because he was so scared and then the next 3 weeks to persuade him to trot at a sensible speed rather than race to the end to get some salami!
Yes I think agility sounds good fun and something to keep his brain busy, hes got plenty of confidence but I thought it would also be great for off lead controll and for him to focus (on me), which he does but will need more control when I work him.
It may sound like i'm poking my nose but as you know, GSP's are lively, impatient animals who want to do everything at 100mph! You may encounter problems if you want to both work your dog and do agility as well. Agility is all about getting the dog excited and it racing round an assault course as fast as it can (and as precise of course) in order to beat the clock. Being a working gundog is all about steadiness, waiting for the next command patiently and not letting excitement and eagerness rule. It's also about stealth when it comes to hunting. Gundog work and agility are opposite ends of the spectrum and you may find that the agility ruins the working side (I know from experience but I got 2 collies to fall back on!)
I was doing an agility course with Laddie once and he jumped a line of jumps, then kept running straight on, cleared the fence into the cornfield next door and put up some birds
Yes good points, thank you for saying, it has made me think I will talk about it to family, but think I should explain what I wanted to do a bit more and why I thought it would be alright: First if I was to do it with him I am in NO WAY serious at competing or being fast against the clock, never have been and never will he can be clumsy and I don't think you can compared him to the neat and niffty collies who are just great at it lol. I just wanted to have something else to do with him at home as well as gundog stuff (and am interested in agilty), and would do classes to get the basics, I thought they started off with begginers / puppy classes where you just work on control / bits you'd need for agility, thought it would be good to get good off lead controll in a different situation that he may find exciting. My GSP by stands is pretty calm but he will find game 100 times more interesting than popping a few jumps or other dogs etc I know of a hpr who competes in agility and is steady on a shoot and another who does very well at flyball and works as a gundog and they are even more opposite as catching things out the air as you know is a big no, no in the gundog world (I'd never do flyball with him). But that has put a question in my mind and thank you for saying that but as said I'd be happy if he just hopped over a few jumps and went over a dogwalk, I want to get a him good at listening while exciting things could be going on, that is all really. But if you think it could cause problems maybe I shouldn't.
i don't agree with the hyped agility bit, certainly not for a springer GSP maybe different. agility is about working closely with your dog, Meg works the season in the beating line, and we do agility to a competitive level in the summer
Thats what I thought and thats what I'd like to do. Leanne, a question I was meant to ask was have you done agility with your hpr(s) then had problems controlling them the the field as a direct result?
I suppose it depends on how your dog handles excitement. To answer your question, yes, I did start off with agility with Flynn but then stopped after a while as he couldnt control himself. He would constantly snap at various parts of my body because he was so hyped up, the final straw was when he narrowly missed biting my belly and tore my t-shirt instead. He also did some damage to the trainers arm (not through biting but by being over enthusiastic nonetheless). Then I moved on to gundog training with him and he was like a whirlwind, wouldnt wait for anything, ran round like a lunatic. When my trainer found out he'd been doing agility he told me it was the worst thing I could have done for a dog such as Flynn and to stop immediately. You obviously know your dog better than I do and if he's fairly level headed then you will probably be ok. I didnt say you would have a problem, just thought it was something you might want to bear in mind. Certainly for my HPR it didnt work as steadiness is a constant struggle in the most calm of situations! As for neat and nifty collies, could you please tell my two about this concept?! I think a Newfoundland would be faster than Jed! To be fair, pointers are perfect for agility as they have the stamina, the speed and the nimbleness. Jumping a 6ft fence from a standing start is not a problem for them so I doubt a few jumps will faze them! There is a woman local to me who has 3 GSP's, all compete in agility and it's nice to see something other than collies in the ring.
Thanks and yes I can now totaly see your point I think I will do a bit BUT if he starts going that way I'll either let him know it's not acceptable or if he does that regardes I'll stop. lol Thanks again Sophie
