MUDDY CREEK KENNELS
GERMAN SHORTHAIR POINTERS

Craig,Elizabeth and Daniel Burns
JASPER, MISSOURI
1-800-777-8254
e-mail muddycreekgsp@aol.com

At Muddy Creek Kennels we learned a long time ago that what makes a bird dog a bird dog is "birds". We try to raise around 10,000 Bobwhite Quail to shoot for the dogs every year. We don't use Pigeons for training in any way except for the occasional dog when someone might ask that the dog be steadied to "wing and shot". Somebody will ask "why don't you use Pigeons?" Nobody hunts pigeons for one thing but the main thing is that there is nowhere to go with the training. In my experience unless you are shooting birds for a dog you can't finish the dog. We shoot thirty or so birds per training day and I can't imagine a pile of thirty  or more poor old dead pigeons every day. I don't even know where you could come up with that many Pigeons. It is the same with people that claim to train with Pheasants. Can you imagine what a mess it would be to figure out what to do with thirty dead Pheasant every day? How would you even keep that many pheasant?

We shoot approximately eighty Quail for each dog while the dog is being trained. That sounds like a lot of birds but it adds up pretty fast. We shoot two-three birds per dog per session. So on the average of thirty or so bird work sessions the dog has had seventy five-eighty birds shot for them. We finish the dogs steady to flush which means that the dog will hold point until the bird has been flushed. A bird could be up walking around and the dog actually looking at it but will hold point.The dogs are steady on point and all the "creeping" and "jumping in" is gone at that stage. We do sell some pups and started dogs but we lean tword the trained dogs as our main purpose. We train and sell fifty or sixty dogs each year. We are a family business and can only raise and train so many. When we are out we have to grow some more... We have young dogs at different stages of development all the time and you can either order a dog to be picked up when finished with training or you can see what we have ready at any time.  When our trained dogs have finished training they will be ready to start/begin hunting. They have good handling manners, come when called, "whoa", hold point until flush, retrieve and look good doing their work. We are hunting dog trainers and our interest is in getting dogs ready to start hunting with.
We are happy to visit about what type of dog you are looking for and would  much prefer a phone call over an e-mail anytime.