I recently joined Instagram. Given I cannot post regularly out here in the UP this is a great way for me to share some nice photos of the llews working….and resting. My handle on Instagram is kylewarrendogs. You can #llewellins and #paintriverllewellins to help in finding me. Follow us and join the fun!!
Make it a great day!!
Hello Everyone! I can’t believe we have been here a week already!! It’s rained everyday but one day since we’ve arrived but that hasn’t stopped us from getting out and hunting every day for at least several hours. Many of our hunts have been incredibly exciting!! I could sit here for hours and hours just writing about all the great play by play bird/dog action from the past week!!! But I don’t want to bore you to death especially given that I really don’t have access to upload photos of the dogs on point (haven’t taken any yet really due to the weather). The grouse are so crafty it’s ridiculous!! Certainly anyone that spends time with them will understand why they are dubbed The King of the decidous forest. Always fleeing before we arrived at them, running safe distances before flight, hiding in their bunker until you immediately pass, roosting in a nearby tree and take off careening in the other direction, sneaking to the other side of the hemlock then taking off…. and my favorite though I’m hoping they are not this smart…. getting back near the house flushing a grouse and it flying directly over my 500 gallon propane tank. So much for throwing Kyle a bone!! But in all seriousness— it’s been a blast!! My llews are in heaven and watching them work the grouse and woodcock is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Warms my heart, brings tears to my eyes and gets my adrenal going all at the same time. All the dogs improve with each hunt this early in the season and the transformation is always amazing to watch. My old girl Rogue is in her 11th hunt season (2nd in the UP) she a superstar even at her respected age. I only hunt her every third day or so and only have 1-2 hours. She runs as hard as my two year olds. For any of you Toby Keith (country singer) fans, there’s a song that has the main line goes—”I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was….” well that’s Rogue’s theme song these days and we spread her hunts out for that reason. Love my old girl!! Then there’s the trio!!— My three kids that all grew up together and are around two years old in their second hunt season. Last year I was super impressed with these young kids on grouse and woodcock. This year they are proving to be the dogs that I’ll be proud to call my foundation stock. Once the leaves are off the trees here hopefully we will get more shots at these feathered crouch rockets!!! Duncan’s drive, intensity yet cautiousness—Widget’s wicked crazy smart intelligence to figure everything out before the grouse does pointing nearly every grouse before it gets a jump—and my Pixel—my primal girl as I call her… she’s no nonsense, find those darn birds one by one and move onto the next. Then there’s Omiimii… my little devil child that I spoil rotten!!! WOW!! She doesn’t like when dad goes hunting without her!!! I have been taking her every single day on at least one hunt since this is her first season. I call her my ninja! She slices thru the woods in a sneaky way to frequently check the scent in the air from a stand still then selects her next route. She’s incredible on woodcock and has over a dozen grouse points in her first week of the hunting season. I love this 30 pound little bundle of crazy happy energy. lastly there are the two newest additions that I’ll take out in the woods in another week or two— Jolene and Eli. They are having a great time racing around the house and the yard and playing with everyone between my hunts. They are 4 mouths and one week old as of now. I usually don’t start bird work until around 6-7 months old with the llews but certainly since we are in the UP in October I gotta take them out a bit. So just giving them every little chance I can to get a little bigger and wiser. But their bird fun is soon to start too!! Ok well it’s 8am here and it’s time to suit up and get out and find some birds with the kids!! Have a happy and safe day out in the woods wherever you are!!
Well we have arrived in the UP and it’s beautiful!!! The foliage is near peak and hunting season is here for our llews!! Today will be our first day of hunting and the dogs are rearing and ready to go!!!
Several of you have been anxiously awaiting the news that Pixel is coming into heat… well she came in a few days ago so we anticipate a few romantic evenings under the stars in the UP for Duncan and Pixel in the upcoming week. I will post the breeding date as soon as it happens.
Happy hunting to all my little llews from the Cameras and Gizmos litters!! Please send me photos of your kids hunting and pointing please!!!
I’ll check back in soon so stay tuned here with Paint River Llewellins!!!
click on photo for slideshow
Hi Everyone,
It’s been a long while since any postings…. sorry for that…. life has been super busy as always and now it’s time to get back into the groove of posting again!! We will have two litters of pups this winter and grouse season will be here before you know it!! At this time I have three paid reservations on Pixel by Duncan litter. We are expecting that she will come into heat Sept/Oct. We have our wild little girl Omiimii who turns 7 months old this week!! Wow!! Gotta get some training going. She’s a doll. I love her to pieces. We just came back from the UP. Great trip!!— and yes….. came home with two more pups…. this time from Illinois, a beautiful boy and girl from the same litter. Our future breeding stock is looking promising and I look forward to many great pups and stories in the years to come.
I always say….”there are dog people—and then there are bad people.” I can absolutely understand not owning a llewellin setter if you don’t hunt and or don’t have lots of space for the dog to run and hunt on it’s own around your home (property) but for those of us who view our dogs as an extension of ourselves…. well— then, you have found a great place to hang out online and read about amazing dogs with amazing abilities that are at the center of a dog person’s world.
Three things that warm my heart are: a llewellin setter giving me a hug, a llewellin setter snuggled against my body while I’m in bed watching a movie and a llewellin setter fiercely on a stunning point rock solid and as sure as the day is long. What do these things all have in common— a llewellin setter.
My first hunting season in the U.P. with my young llews could not have been more fruitful for both the dogs and myself. Nearly every time I came out of the woods from a hunt for a couple hours with one of my dogs or running a brace with Scott Lazur of Laurel Mtn. Lllewellin Setters with one of his dogs I pretty much always came out of the woods glassy eyed because it’s just so beautiful to watch these dogs do what they were born to do and do it with such style, with such grace and with such tenacity. I wear my heart on my sleeve but these dogs in incredible wilderness were just the song this country boy has been yearning for his whole life. There was no time, no place…. nothing…. ever…. that made me feel more at peace, more happy nor more excited than these few weeks of watching my kids do what they were born with. Here are some more photos that you can see for your own viewing pleasure.
So we finished the entire house in an amazing 9 days!! I can’t believe it myself!! Done right down to the paint on the sheet rock!! All we have to do in October is install the plumbing fixtures, get some dog beds, a human bed!! And we are good to go hunt’n in the U.P.!! I have included some photos of the house below. Click on photos to enter gallery
So my brother Kevin, friend Bo and I all headed out to the U.P. with six dogs to build my dream home in my dream location…. here are a ton of photos documenting our trip and work. We have been working 10-14 hour days everyday and getting lots done. All work seen below has been done in four days of work on the property. Check out all the photos below by clicking on the first one then you can see them in a slideshow by pushing the side arrow after viewing each photo—
My brother, Pixel, Widget, Duncan, Piper and me all squeezed into the truck and drove 1,177 miles from Olivebridge, NY to Amasa, MI. We did the marathon drive and did it with stops included in 21 hours one way. We made four stops on our way out and four on our way back— managed our time with getting food, gas and dogs out to eliminate each of the four stops on our route.
The above photo is of the utmost northern rim of Lake Michigan. This was at a rest area about 30-60 minutes once we crossed the bridge into the U.P.
We took one pup out at a time so they could run on the beach and get a little blow out. As we came back to the truck with Pixel— Widget, Piper and Duncan ready to hit the road and get to bird dog paradise!!
This place will definitely be my little treasure where I get to experience the locals! Great little place in wilderness!
Happy Mother’s Day. We were driving back to the property in a snowstorm from the Rusty Saw Blade and this was what we woke up to!
This view instantly took anyway stress that I have been having for the entire year.
Happy Kyle 🙂
Widget is starring at Kevin and I— saying yo bros lets roll!! We have a whole peninsula to hunt!!!
The sky is so beautiful in the U.P.
Speaking in code— there are a lot of pull-start lawn mowers in here 🙂
Widget hunting her heart out in the mother land.
All four kids romping thru the northwoods. What a dream of mine to see!!
If any of you are wondering what Kyle’s heaven would looks like this is it!! Everyday!!
Quax has no idea how or why he ended up babysitting these four llews but he’s happy that at least it’s in a really cool place!!
Look to the left, look to the right, look ahead and look behind you…. Aspen, aspen, aspen….. prrrretty cool for this eastern mountain boy to see!!
This bear is at least 400lbs more likely 500olbs. I weigh 170lbs and my track indent was about 25% the depth of this one in the mud.
Piper in action.
Widget living life to the fullest
Pixel on a tear
Duncan truck’n behind Pixel
Surgeon General’s Warning!!
If you are not a dog person and do not wish to be totally happy, filled with love and constantly have a smile on your face then under no circumstances own a llewellin setter. They will absolutely make you laugh, have a good time and have you enjoying snuggle-time more than you ever thought imaginable!!
Well that’s a good idea of what our trip was like so stay tuned for videos and photos of working the llews in the weeks and months ahead!!
I flew out to the U.P. of Michigan to find my first llewellin setter that would hopefully start my gun dog family. This trip was my most exciting trip of my life!! I knew it was time for this step in my dog career… what I didn’t know was what an amazing place the U.P. was going to be!! I arrived in the area where Laurel Mountain Llewellins are a bit ahead of schedule so I drove down a road, got out, looked down and saw a bunch of grouse feathers— hmmmm— I continued to walk down the logging road where I parked and I heard several grouse take off in the first few minutes of my walk. My hmm turned into a WOW!! I have my secret spots back home in the Catskills but from all the stories I’ve heard over the years about the U.P. from people who have visited and all my PDJ (Pointing Dog Journal) stories over the years everything suddenly came together in that instant!!
The breeder of the breed that I have come to view as the only dog to hunt grouse with, the Llewellin setter, lives here in the U.P. of Michigan—After having had Rogue for the past 9 hunting seasons in the challenging shrinking grouse habitat that New York has to offer—And I’m here to start my own gun dog family— I knew after that one short walk and having not even met the pups or the breeder that owning land in the U.P. was a must!!
I arrived at Laurel Mountain Llewellins homestead and I was in heaven! Llewellins running all over a large fenced in yard in total bliss!! Around 8 of them jumped up on the gate to greet me…. than ran back to studying the pigeons flying around the barn in true Llewellin fashion! I met Michelle, the owner, it was clear from looking at her dogs for just 5 seconds that she was the real deal and exactly the person that I was hoping to find in all my Llewellin research— dedicated, knowledgeable, experienced and has the eye for a super gun dog! Being around a lot of dogs (working dogs specifically) every day all day long my own and thousands of others it often takes seconds to know if a dog has “it” or not. Well I was hard pressed to find a single dog that did not have “it” on that property!! That level of consistency is what every breeder should be striving for it shows that the person is doing what they are doing for the breed first and foremost.
When I went into the house and met the pups!! These pups were out of Tori by Count, litter theme—The Spices. Once I sat down on the floor and looked at all 6 females, it took all of 2 minutes for me to make up my mind. The pup litter named Ginger was the pup that almost at first glance had “it.” I had spent the night and was leaving the next day to head home. At the time of this trip the pups were only 6 weeks old. My obsessive mind was hard at work for a name because all the ones I liked just didn’t fit this pup…. So in my dreams I was writing on a chalk board in a classroom and I wrote down the word Widget. I woke up and that was it! This name likely came to me because Michelle is a web designer, so it seemed very appropriate. Of course, I had both Michelle and me stressed out big time because I wasn’t first pick!! I was third pick!! So sweating bullets we waited for the other two people to make their choices and thank goodness Widget was still available!! Phew!!
My flight home was one of my most content moments in my life. It’s all coming together…..
