|
Scott is a science teacher and Cortney is a
wildlife biologist. Both of us grew up hunting.
After we got married, it seemed only natural to get a gundog.
We ended up with an independent, high-strung dog whose breed we
won't even name :-) As a result, our search for a second
gundog was much more thorough. We wanted a talented gundog
with a calm temperament. To ensure that our new dog had
excellent hunting ability, we also restricted our search to dogs
with performance (hunt testing) standards.
That is when we got really interested in German-bred dogs:
Deutsch Drahthaars, Deutsch Kurzhaars, and Deutsch Langhaars.
All three breeds have strict breeding and testing regulations.
We ruled out Kurzhaars because we live in Wisconsin and duck
hunt a lot. We decided to go with a Deutsch Langhaar
(German Longhair) because langhaars are on average a little
softer than drahthaars (in terms of temperament). Also, we
liked the look a little more.
We got our first Deutsch Langhaar in 2005 from Illertal
Kennel. Kaylee was an incredibly easy puppy to raise
and it was really rewarding to have a dog who could sleep in our
laps and be bird-crazy in the field. She just seemed so
responsive and eager to learn. And at the same time, she
had a really quiet demeanor with a definite on/off switch for
the field.
During the rest of the year, we spend a lot of time training and
testing our dogs. We believe that testing your hunting dog
is an excellent way to explore all of your dog's potential and
to keep you both on track so you can be prepared for the hunting
season. We test our dogs in the DL-GNA (www.dl-gna.org),
JGHV (www.jgv-usa.org),
the VDD-GNA (www.vdd-gna.org),
and NAVHDA (www.navhda.org).
All of the testing systems are a lot of fun, require similar
training, and provide us with non-biased evaluations of our
dogs' natural ability and trainability.
Our first langhaar, Kaylee, is such a great dog. It
wasn't long before we started getting requests for puppies out
of her. Everyone from our vet to gunners at hunting
tests. We always thought that if we did breed her or any
other langhaar, that our breeding priorities would be to produce
hunting dogs with calm, cooperative temperaments. It is
amazing how much easier it is to train a dog that wants to
please you. Our other langhaars also exhibit this calm,
cooperative trait combined with excellent hunting ability.
We decided to name our kennel Coraschatten in honor of
Kaylee. Kaylee's registered name is Cora vom Illertal.
"Schatten" is the German word for shadow. So,
Coraschatten literally means Cora Shadow or Cora's Shadow.
We do feel like every dog we ever own or produce will be
compared to Kaylee and will have to live up to her
standard. Thus, we felt it was appropriate to name our
kennel Cora's Shadow. We hope that by breeding Deutsch
Langhaars we will be able to provide hunters with a dog that
they enjoy living and hunting with as much as we have enjoyed
Kaylee. |
|
