Chippewa starts school

I like for pups to just be pups until 3-4 months old and usually sometime around 4 months old your pup develops awareness to its super powers: incredible scent ability, increased speed and motion detection ability. All of these enhancements promote curiosity and independence. Soooo it’s time to start some fundamental command work. This is Chippewa’s third 5-minute lesson in 5 days so I’m very pleased with his cooperation. He’s been showing more and more independence, typical of this age bracket so I need to step up to the plate now. Depending upon time of year I like to tremendously decrease bird exposure and increase command training between 4-6 months old. The pup has had at least 10 runs in the training fields to see what his raw genetic potential is over the past 4-6 weeks. He has the goods, now obedience work will ratchet up to put some governing qualities into the equation. In accordance with command cooperation we will work our way back to field work. Transitions are usually smooth if timed correctly. So these 5-minute drills will be the afternoon routine when done with clients for the day at least 4 days a week for the next month or two. With young pup intros to commands I like to use a little food reward at this stage since they are so easy motivated by it. As the pup progresses I transition to earned praise for emotional reward. This preliminary work is also the only time I like to use a retractable leash for training. Makes for easy handling in the capacity of these exercises.

Pixel x Duncan litter update

Hi Everyone!!

So it’s been a busy week here for Paint River Llewellins!! I will try this weekend to get some individual photos of the puppies up on the site. As many of you know one of the delights of Llewellins is that they change color so much you often don’t know what you get until it’s time to pick them up!! … and sometimes your lightly speckled belton turns nearly a solid color as one of my recent puppy owners found out!! So I don’t like to guarantee any coloring on the beltons. And we have four beltons in this litter!! Over the next month it will be clear as to what colors they will be but this breeding last year and Duncan’s other breeding showed him to be very dominate in the breeding. All tri-beltons ended up being heavily ticked just like their papa!! Which I personally love.

At present the best I can tell we have a tri-color female with several patch markings, a black and white female with a face patch, a belton female, 3 belton males!!, a black and white male with nearly a full hood and a body patch, and a tri-color male with a small eye patch. All these pups are likely to get MUCH dark in the weeks ahead and that’s part of the fun of watching this breed grow!! So please be patient because before long you’ll have so many photos in your inbox you’ll have to buy more memory for your computer 🙂

Oh!! And hopefully we will have a litter theme this weekend too!!

Paint River Updates as of Nov. 5th

Hello All!!

Well it’s been a whirlwind!! 5 solid weeks in the UP hunting grouse and woodcock with my 7 llewellin setters. Best 5 weeks of my life!! I have so many photos to get up on the site to share with you but it will take me some time to do so given the number of photos I have and how much work (dogs to train) I have since I’ve been away from home. We will continue to squeeze in 2-3 hunts a week here in the Catskills of NY but we are bummed that our season in the UP has come to a close.

Here are a few photos of Pixel and Duncan. These are the parents to the upcoming litter due on December 4th. We have several paid reservations and several other inquiries. Please inquiry if you are interested. This is a repeat breeding and should produce fantastic family hunting dogs!!

Pix pointing grouse Pix honoring Rogue on Grouse point pix bags a bunch pix and omi bag a bunch Duncan pointing grouse duncan pointing grouse2 duncan pointing grouse3 duncan with his hunt's results

Paint River Llewellin breeding update

I know we have many of you that are very excited to hear when Pixel is coming into heat…. we hope that this will be really soon!! She usually goes in every 6 months and six months ago today she was in heat so… any time now we hope. While we are excited to have our next litter of pups I am also happy that she’s a little late since last hunting season she was very preggers while we were out in the UP. She hunted every day but we kept all her hunts to around or under an hour. One of my favorite pointing photos of all time is the picture of Pixel pointing a grouse in the UP 50 days pregnant with with giant belly and split tail. My respect for these dogs and their instinct work ethic is second to none. So Pix will enjoy long hunts for our full 5 week hunting adventure this year and get to do some nice hunting in NY for a week or two hopefully before nestling in for the arrival of her next pups. I will post when we have a breeding date but as of now looks like her and Duncan are going to have their romantic date under the stars in the UP.