News + Events

New Year Update from Decoverly Kennels | January 2018

Hello all! I hope you are enjoying the season as much as we are!

I know a lot are missing the Christmas Cards but when you send out over 2500 it gets pretty expensive. I hope you understand! Here are some of the outtakes from past years.

Outcrosses have been done since the beginning of the Ryman line when George Ryman was breeding the dogs and they will be necessary for as long as the kennel exists. The goal is to breed a well-structured, enthusiastic hunter who has an off switch to make a great pet AND to be healthy mentally and physically.
Every breeding we do has this goal in mind and if a particular dog or breeding does not produce and is an example of our goal they are sold or placed.

In 2010, the plan for the breeding program was to breed in some of what I call, bottom. A dog that can take a little pressure , either mental or physical, one who was confident in new surroundings, one that has a bunch of desire and will overcome diversity to find their birds. BUT I did not want to lose the loving sweet temperament of the Setters along the way. We brought in a couple of outside lines to improve on this. The first cross was to a Llewellin Setter. We Kept Louie from a second generation breeding and he is producing some nice pups that have great personalities.

Another product of outcrossing is just now starting to be bred, DeCoverly’s Boston is a breeding of Sterling lines to Long Gone Boston lines. Our Boston has pups that are about 3 months old and we look forward see what we get from them. So far very good looking, bold pups!

To maintain and improve structure a DeCoverly/ show cross with lines that include dual champions has produced Finn, who is a lovely, lovely boy with great bird sense, and Finn now has HIS first crops of pups on the ground.

We also bred to a wonderful field Champion named CH Shadow Oak Bo.

Bo is a two-time National Champion at Ames Plantation, which is very rare of in the field trial world competing against pointers. I did not just pick Bo because of his title, but because by all accounts of people that I talked to, he is a wonderful animal. Calm and sweet while not in the field, he truly has an off switch. He is an attractive boy, for field trial world and he is a decent size at 60 #. And then of course his sense in the field…is fabulous. That breeding produced a litter of ten that we initially kept all of. We evaluated those pups for about 18 months now and have three that will be staying, Hazel, a female and Ben and Trouble, both boys. All three have had PennHips done and are within our criteria and also had preliminary OFA hip and elbows done and are good hips and normal elbows. They are also BAER normal. We are amazed at how well-structured, well-tempered and close-ranging these pups are for the first generation field trial outcross. The boys will be bred to select bitches this spring and we are very excited about this second generation.

We also have benefited by someone else’s breeding, with one of our Bo pups that we sold as a started dog, bred to a bitch from the October setter line (different Ryman type lines than ours). Chewy is still less than a year old , but we are hopeful he turns out to be a stunning dog in the field and after careful evaluation and health clearances will be added to the breeding program.

In the future we plan to bring in a full show bred boy with a good history in the field to continue to improve or maintain structure.

Nick Puhak trains all of the upland dogs for both the kennel and for the clients. Once Nick has spent some time with each dog, Bridget and he both go out together and discuss each dog and evaluate for confidence, strength in the field ( bird drive, bird sense, nose, trainability, willingness, e-collar and gun sensitivity). Structure is evaluated and health clearances are done. Only after the dog is evaluated to be something that we feel is a positive addition does he/she get bred.

We feel we have made some real progress and are looking forward to each and every litter. The hopes and dreams for each litter takes several years to prove and progress can be slow, but it is very real. We are planning on having a setter field day this spring / early summer, where people can come out and walk with Nick with some of the kennel dogs and you can see for yourself what wonderful group of dogs we have.
We are very proud of the team here at DeCoverly; Bridget is our manager/head trainer/retriever trainer, Dani and Jamie are chief dog technicians, Nick is the upland dog trainer and Bridget’s fiancé, Charlie, is stool management. 😉

We have also been building the boarding and training business for all breeds. I would like to thank all of the boarding training clients for their confidence in us and allowing us to take care of your four-legged kids. If you have any critique or kudos, they are always welcome! We are constantly trying to improve this side of the business too.

We have been running various breeds in different venues and have been awarded many titles on client dogs in the past few years. If you are interested in a FUN off-hunting season game, talk to us about participating in AKC hunt tests. It is a great way to keep advancing your dog’s skill level while achieving Junior, Senior and Master Hunter titles, and something you can work on together as a team.
Please contact us for further info.

We hope you all have a wonderful New Year and look forward to seeing you soon. As always, we would love to hear from each and every one of you about how your DeCoverly dog is doing. We want to know about good and bad behavior, field and health. All of the info you send back is very important to us and always taken into consideration when making breeding selections.

Happy New Year!!
- Bridget and Staff