Meet Alivia vom Prairie-Flusstal

Liesel has been such a wonderful dog that I could not help but to want a daughter out of her.  I carefully considered so many different stud dogs trying to find one that would help me reproduce a puppy as similar to Liesel as possible.  And then once my "A" litter was whelped, I had 7 Liesel daughters to choose from.  I spent so many hours with the puppies trying to get to know them as individuals as much as possible.  I read a few books on conformation that included advice for selecting a puppy at 7/8 weeks of age.  I consulted with various friends in the DD world as to which puppy I should select.  In summary, I probably over-analyzed everything as per usual :-)  It was a tough decision with so many nice puppies in the litter and I was dangerously close to kicking someone off of our list so I could keep 2 puppies.  But when the tattoo ink was dry, Alivia "Livvy" was the one I chose to keep.

Livvy has a very short, hard and tight-fitting coat like her mother...maybe even a little better with a little more density.  She is bold and friendly, but yet also sweet and cuddly.  At her young age, she appears to be put together pretty well (i.e. no major conformation faults).  I particularly like her strong and methodical tracking ability, her passion for retrieving, her range and stamina afield, and her willingness to honor her mother on point.   

Livvy has had an incredible first hunting season for a young puppy.  At less than 6 months of age, she has already had over 25 days of upland bird hunting on wild birds.  She has found and pointed several pheasants, several rabbits, and a few coveys of quail.  She is a very natural retriever (always carrying things around the house) and has retrieved pheasants, rabbits, quail, geese, and a lot of training game to hand.  But what has impressed me the most is her tracking and how well-mannered she is.  When she hits a scent, she is locked on for the long haul.  I've actually lost her a couple times for 5 minutes while hunting because she gets on a running rooster's track and disappears after him.  But yet, after the bird flushes or she loses the track, she is immediately looking for me.  She seems to have an ideal balance of independence (that gives her the confidence to take these tracks) and cooperation (to bring her back to me).  She also does a great job of independently searching for her own game, while backing beautifully anytime she sees her mother on point (which was A LOT this last season).  She has never busted a bird that her mother pointed.  She always honors her and waits for me to flush.  And when she has found/pointed her own birds, she has been naturally steady enough for me to approach and flush most of the time.  It was a really impressive first hunting season.  Completing force fetch with her the month after hunting season ended was a breeze.  

After such an impressive first hunting season, I should not have been surprised that Livvy went on to have a very successful test year.  She excelled in all 3 levels of JGHV testing.  She actually completed her VGP the weekend before her HZP at just 13 months of age.  I always incorporate as much VGP training as possible into my early training in the hopes of the dog being prepared for both the HZP and VGP in the same year, but each dog is different and you never know which ones will be capable of handling both tests in the same year until test-time.  Livvy certainly struggled with certain aspects of the training at times, but she just has such a strong desire to please.  And she has a very positive attitude.  She was always excited to work and she got better with each subject with each repetition.  Training her was really a fun and rewarding experience.  She was doing so good with blood tracking that I decided to attempt an overnight blood track at her VGP rather than the typical day-track.  I also added the optional Totverweisen (Dead Game Guiding) because I knew that Livvy could do it.  I am happy to say that all of our training efforts paid off and that Livvy earned a very high score and a Prize I in her VGP.  The next weekend, I drove to Wisconsin to complete her HZP.  

I am really looking forward to hunting with her and her mother together for the second year in a row.  With all of the training/testing that Livvy has had, building upon the impressive first hunting season she had last year, I cannot help but expect very big things out of this little dog :-)