Deciding Point

Deciding Point, 1675173, our female whelped January, 4, 2017 is sired by 5X Ch. Pennstar ex 9xCh/RUCh Straight Forward.  “Bek” is from a litter where the sire’s semen was frozen, then thawed and implanted into Straight Forward years after his passing.  Her parents are the most famous and most award-winning dogs we have ever produced.  We were thrilled to not just get pups, but to get a pup like “Bek” who personifies many of the traits that we and others have seen in her parents.

“Bek” started her life with a “whelper helper”.  Bob, who usually handles the whelping, was out of the country and the reproductive specialists we worked with on the frozen semen process recommended a person who whelps litters for other on a regular basis.  The litter was delivered by cesarean section and all the pups survived nicely.

Throughout the early months of “Bek’s” development she was with Bob Watts.  Her brother, winner Super Storm, was by her side in workouts where they both learned basic commands and how to hunt ahead, find and point birds staunchly.  Both “Bek” and her brother, call name “Fed” (think tennis great), were outstanding in wanting to please as well as learning quickly and cooperatively.  Once we had narrowed the litter down to our top two pups to go forward with, we passed the ownership of “Fed” to Thor Kain.

Once the newly born woodcock population became established in northeastern Pennslvania both “Bek” and “Fed” moved to Thor’s kennel in Carbondale, PA.  It wasn’t long until both pups were pointing wild birds and standing them staunchly.  “Bek” clearly demonstrated the traits that Dick and I have long sought in our dogs–hard hunting, determination, athleticism, boldness and especially class in action and on point.  It’s exciting every time we turn “Bek” loose.  She’s exciting to watch running and on point.  As “Bek” turned 1 year of age, Dick took her to Texas for a month and she cut her teeth on wild quail that are especially challenging.  This experience further motivated “Bek’s” hunting desire and developed her maturity and intelligence on a new species of game.

While we have dialed back a bit on running puppies in trials, we did enter “Bek” in some events that spring.  Thor continued to work with her and the performance she rendered in winning the Nittany Valley Open Puppy stake was truly thrilling.  Driving hard from objective to objective, “Bek” laid out and forward throughout.  Her running style was arresting–hard to take your eyes off of her.  She finished going away to the front.  Following this win “Bek” was 2nd in a large field at the Venango Puppy Classic run over the Marienville, PA course.  At this point, we knew we had a very special dog and that our plans for producing a dog like this, laid many years earlier with the freezing of Pennstar’s semen, had paid off!