From a very early age, Piper’s parents noticed that she had some “dog whisperer” in her.

“When Piper was born, we had a 3 year old German Wirehaired Pointer named Top Shelf’s DeLong GeeBee Racer (GeeBee). GeeBee followed Piper’s every movement and was quick to join in on any games she suggested. We had fun playing “Where’s the Kong Ball?” and “Where’s Piper?” – games we suggested to provide GeeBee opportunities to hunt for items around the house while practicing his whoa/release commands. Piper and GeeBee loved playing those games together.” shared Piper’s mom.

Piper lost her best friend a few years ago, when her parents had to make the difficult decision to put GeeBee down.

“The loss of GeeBee was really difficult for me. I lost my best friend the day he died. I remember how hard it was seeing GeeBee struggle with pain and wanting to help him, but he would only let my mom comfort him. I so badly wanted to be the one who could help him.” explained Piper.

In 2017, Piper’s parents surprised her during Christmas with news that the family would be getting a German Wirehaired Pointer puppy in the spring of 2018. Top Shelf’s Q DeLong D.B. Cooper was born on National Puppy Day-March 23rd 2018.

“I was so excited! I immediately asked if the puppy could be MY dog! My parents agreed. I thought it was really cool that Cooper was born on National Puppy Day, but not as cool as when we discovered Cooper is actually related to GeeBee. His Great-Great Grandparents were GeeBee’s parents” said Piper.

“From the first day they met, Piper & Cooper established a special bond. The two developed their bond through hours of play on land and in the water, along with attending puppy and beginning obedience classes that summer/fall. One night, my spouse and I mentioned to Piper how we would like to take her and Cooper hunting for pheasants someday. We explained how he would need to be trained for hunting and asked her if she would like to handle Cooper in his spring 2019 NAVHDA Natural Ability test. Piper enthusiastically said “Yes! He listens to me. I should be the one who runs him!” explained Piper’s mom.

In early 2018, the Minnesota Chapter founded a youth scholarship program in honor of longtime chapter member Joe Dolejsi. Joe was a Senior Judge and Clinic Leader, and influential member at the local and International level of NAVHDA. The purpose of this scholarship is to assist a youth dog enthusiast and handler with training and testing assistance and give them a foundation to build on for their future training, testing and hunting endeavors.

Piper submitted an application. Cooper’s breeder Jeff Jalbert, a NAVHDA Judge and owner of Top Shelf Kennels, wrote a letter of recommendation for Piper to receive the scholarship. Piper and Cooper were subsequently awarded the scholarship in January 2019.

The two started off their training year by attending the Minnesota Chapter’s 10 week Winter Obedience Classes from January to March.

“The first night of class was a little scary. I was the only kid in the class and the only female handler that night.” exclaimed Piper.

Once the snow finally melted, the two started attending the weekly field training nights at Kelley Farms. In early May, they participated in the Chapter’s MOCK Natural Ability test to get a better idea of the different segments of the test and to gauge their progress as a team.

On June 1st, 2019, Piper and Cooper ran their Natural Ability test.

“I was feeling a little nervous going into the natural ability test and felt like I passed my doubts onto Cooper. I thought I was ready for the test, but was nervous not knowing how Cooper would do. I felt a little frustrated and mad throughout the day that he didn’t do the events perfectly like I had seen him do other times.” explained Piper.

“The test started with the water, then field and ended with tracking. Cooper had a lot of energy that morning and was harder to handle than usual. We had practiced water retrieves many times with straight retrieves, but that morning he ran the shoreline a bit before finally jumping in to get the bumper. My doubts settled a bit going into the field because he’s really good at that. I believed he would do great. Then as we walked along, he missed a couple “hups” and my doubts returned until I saw him point out some birds. The pheasant track was the event I really felt we didn’t do well on because his pattern was wide and then he went down into a tree line where I couldn’t see him. A judge walked over to where he went into the trees, stood for a bit, and then told me to call my dog. Cooper came back without a pheasant.” shared Piper

“At the end of the day when everyone’s test scores are read, I was blown away when they shared Cooper received a 104, Prize 1. I was expecting him to get a Prize 3 or something because he wasn’t the Cooper I was used to, the one who I’ve seen as a Prize 1, Prize 2 during training nights. My doubting Cooper and myself brought the bar down for me encouraging him. I really did not know what to expect at the end of our test.” said Piper.

Piper and Cooper did not stop there, though. They continued attending the weekly training nights to try to become better prepared for the upcoming pheasant hunting season. They both learned a lot and performed well as a team, and just as training season was wrapping up, Piper had Cooper steadied up to wing, shot and fall. A lot of progress for this young team!

Piper, Cooper and their parents look forward to hunting this season and getting Cooper on some wild birds. In 2020, they plan to be back training with the Minnesota Chapter and working toward the Utility Preparatory and Utility Test.

The Minnesota Chapter will be taking applications for the 2020 Joe Dolejsi Memorial Youth Scholarship until December 1st, 2019.  More information can be found at MNNAVHDA.ORG

 

The MN Chapter of NAVHDA ran its 41st Annual Pheasant Championship on June 22nd at the Major Avenue Hunt Club near Glencoe, MN. The day began at 60 degrees, cloudy, and a nice breeze. By afternoon the temperature reached 67 with continued overcast, and a moderate breeze. A very pleasant day.

The north field had been burned this spring and the grass was fairly thin, although there were areas with thicker cover. The cover in the south field was noticeably heavier, but open enough that walking was easy and the dogs could be kept in sight. Each field encompassed approximately 18 acres.

The competition was close, with 5 teams each bagging 5 birds and only 11 points separating them. Bryan Thomas, Jake Goergen, and Banshee, in the 7
th group, scored 121 points which held up until Mike Busse, Bob Ferris, and Riley, in the last group of the day, also scored 121 points. In the ensuing run-off (20 minutes with no additional birds planted) Team Busse edged out Team Thomas with 2 finds to take 1 st place which earned them $315 in prize money. Team Thomas earned $135 for their 2nd place effort.

I would be remiss if I didn’t comment on our good friend, Bob Ferris. Bob has been a faithful competitor in this event for many years. He has never been one to make excuses or let the small matter of age keep him from participating. This year, at 75 years old, not only did he partner with
Mike Busse twice, but he also answered the call for the 20-minute run-off immediately following his run in the last scheduled team of the day. His efforts were instrumental in helping Mike secure another 1st place finish.

As is customary, the first 6 places each received a handsome solid walnut plaque, and the top placing teams, beginning with 3rd place, made selections from the prize table for their efforts.

At this year’s event, 66 pheasants were released for 10 teams and 37 birds were harvested. This is a 3.7 bird average per team, which is up slightly from last year when the average was 3.2 birds per team. 2011, with 4.9 birds per team, remains the high-water mark for harvest ratio at our Pheasant Championship on the Major Avenue grounds.

Thanks to all who entered their dogs in the event this year. In addition to many of our long-time participants, we enjoyed the company of 3 first time competitors.

In addition, thanks are in order to Myra Martin of Major Avenue Hunt Club for allowing us access to these excellent grounds and club house. She also offered a delicious lunch for us. This is the 26th consecutive year this contest has been held on these grounds and may be the last. Major Avenue has been sold, and we’re uncertain if the new ownership will be agreeable to having us run the Pheasant Championship on their grounds.

Special thanks to all the workers who volunteered their time to make this event possible. We often have the same workers from year to year, but this year was somewhat unusual in that we had 2 first-time judges and 5 first-time bird planters. All these new workers did an admirable job and the event ran without a hitch.  A drawing was held for the workers for a $50 Cabela’s gift card. Matt Walvey, who planted birds, was the lucky winner.

Scorekeeper/Field Marshall and Driver:

Jason McKinzie

Bird planters:

Chad Gillete, Tony Hennan, Matt Walvey , John Cooper , Rick Neuman

Judges:

Diane Koetz , Pete Ness , Chris Buller , Brent Haefner

RESULTS OF THE RUNNING

Place	Handler/Partner	Dog	Breed	Age
1st	Mike Busse/Bob Ferris	Riley	GS	3
2nd	Bryan Thomas/Jake Georgen	Banshee	PT	6
3rd	Russ Koetz/Bryce Adams	Remi	GW	2
4th	Pete Aplikowski/Dan Haakenson	Ike	PP	6
5th	Lance Olson/Ed Erickson	Vinny	BI	5
6th	Bryan Thomas/Bryce Adams	Cutter	GS	10

As summer closes on the upper Midwest, the seasons begin; dove, grouse, and woodcock, followed- up by ducks and geese.  October brings on the pheasants; first North Dakota and Minnesota, today South Dakota and Wisconsin, and next week Iowa.  This is what we’ve waited for.  As the air cools and the leaves crisp, our dogs gain a new energy.  Suddenly bird scent seems cleaner to them, with the once masking smell of green grasses now gone.

For Minnesota NAVHDA, this annual journey starts in January, with 10 weeks of bird dog obedience classes.  In March there’s a test prep seminar. April’s new member orientations and Training Day with a Pro kick-off the weekly training nights – 4 different groups at 3 different locations, on 2 different nights, consuming countless hours by volunteer members and hundreds of birds.  May, June and July saw the Mock NA and NA Test, June Full Test, Pheasant Championship, Mock UT, Handler’s Clinic, and an August training weekend in Virginia, MN.

While the test days of August and September may seem like the culmination of it all, it’s really just the start.  Now is the time for which we all train, but none of this happens without countless hours spent behind the scenes.  The birds don’t just find their own way to the sites.  Birds need to be transported, housed, and fed.  Judges are scheduled from around the country and travel arrangements made.  Training and testing grounds are reserved and secured.  Insurances paid, portable toilets delivered, and lunches prepared.  Volunteers and ATVs are needed for test days, applications processed, and all forms filed correctly with NAVHDA International.  And the list goes on.

Last week we seated a new board of directors for our chapter, with 5 of the 8 as new board members.  While many thanks go to our new incoming board, extra thanks go to the outgoing team:  Chad Simmer, Ed Challacombe, Rolf Rogers, Dave Kunz, and Pete Aplikowski.  While I don’t know the exact number, I’d estimate that between them they’ve put in nearly 30 years on this chapter’s board.

With the new team remain our anchors of Secretary Peter Ness and Director of Training Mark Jacobs.  Pete does an incredible amount of paperwork to keep this chapter running – the kind of work most people would avoid.  As for Mark, well, we’ve been looking for a way to clone Mark and spread him around some more on the training nights.  If anybody has any ideas, we’d love to hear.

Put them together with the energy on our new team of Keng Yang, Brent Haefner, Sam Snyder, and Kevin Boog, throw in Jami Meath as our new Youth Program Coordinator, and as your President I’m just privileged to be the conductor of this fine orchestra.

But now it’s time for hunting – it’s what our dogs live for!  (We do it just to keep them happy, right?)  Savor those days afield.  These brief months will fly by and soon it will be January and your board will have in place the plans for the next year.   As you walk the fields and watch your dog work, keep in mind how you can share and pass along that experience to new members next year.  You won’t regret it.

Good Hunting!

Just when a person might be feeling a bit jaded and skeptical about the world, along comes a fellow like Brent Haefner, working for a company like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, having a program like “Dollars for Doers”.

Many of you have no doubt gotten to know Brent over the past couple of years.  He’s that guy you see at hunt tests shuttling ducks for duck search, working registrations at training nights, helping the Handler’s clinic run smoothly, or at most any of our events and trainings pitching in however he can.  What you probably don’t know is that he also shows up to the monthly board meetings and contributes his thoughts and ideas, as well as learning the board positions.  In fact, over these past couple of years, anything that you see with MN NAVHDA that’s running smoothly, there are good odds that Brent has had a hand in it.

Brent’s employer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, has programs to encourage employees to pitch in and become involved in their community.  As Brent puts it, “Here at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, giving back to the community is a huge part of our mission and culture. We have two different volunteer programs that I have used to volunteer at NAVHDA events. Blue Cross provides 20 hours of volunteer paid time off per year that the employee can use during normal working hours. I have taken advantage of this benefit during those Friday test days.”

“Then we have the Dollars for Doers program. If an employee volunteers a minimum of 40 hours of personal time in a calendar year to a single nonprofit organization, they will award $250 to that organization on the employee’s behalf.”  The bottom line there is that in the past 2 years, BCBS has donated $250.00 each year for a total of $500.00 to MN NAVHDA to use however we need – equipment, teaching materials, etc.

To achieve this, Brent has already logged in over 40 hours of his time in 2018 (and it’s barely August) for MN NAVHDA.  He’s contributed to NAVHDA his time, his energy, and his spirit.  It’s people like Brent who make MN NAVHDA work, with his friendly disposition and can-do attitude.  Thanks to Brent, BCBS of Minnesota has kicked in dollars for us as well.  Be sure to give Brent a big “Thank You” from yourself, the next time you see him.

I suppose that I could use this as a moment to make a pitch for more volunteers to help out at the upcoming test days – but I probably don’t need to do that.  I bet you’ve already picked up the phone.  Besides, it’s a great way to spend a late summer day, watching good dogs work.  See you at the next event!

Nominations are open!

It’s that time of year again for board nominations.  Our Minnesota chapter, at 229 strong, is loaded with talented women and men.  Please consider nominating yourself or someone you know!  Nominations will close on September 1st.

The Minnesota Chapter of NAVHDA has a board of 8 members, who serve for terms of 2 years.  Our board is a group of volunteer members who are dedicated to making this chapter run smoothly and put on the myriad of training and testing events that we do every year.  We want to make our chapter stand out as one of, if not the best, chapter in NAVHDA.  Several board members turn over every year, so we often have a healthy mix of seasoned members and newer ones with fresh ideas.

What does the board do?  The board for the Minnesota chapter of NAVHDA is concerned with the business of running a non-profit 501c3 organization.  The board handles everything from the organization and putting on of tests and training events, to the details of securing birds and judges for those events.  The board is the primary source of contact for NAVHDA International, as well as prospective members and current members with questions or issues.  The board manages the promotions and maintains the website.  Experience is not necessary.  What is necessary are organizational skills and the ability to work with a team to achieve those common goals.

We know you have contributions to make and we’d love to hear from you.  Please contact Peter Ness, chapter secretary, peter.ness@mnnavhda.org, with your nomination by September 1^st.

Thank you very much!

Saturday July 21^st marked the 2^nd ever Mock UT test done by Minnesota NAVHDA.  Although this training was for handlers running dogs in UT this year who want to see where their dogs are in preparing for the test, more importantly it was to prepare new handlers who have never run a dog in a Utility Test for what they can expect from the judges and how the judging sequences will go.

Each handler ran their dog through each portion of the test.  There was no scoring and some areas were abbreviated, but all were coached by NAVHDA Judges and Apprentice Judges in best ways to handle their dog in the test, how to prepare their dogs for the test, and see what areas needed more work.

What seemed the most remarkable to me was the volunteers who came to make the training possible.  11 handlers were there to run their dogs, 21 people were needed to make it all happen!  How do you like that?  Nearly 2 volunteers for every 1 handler; all that plus folks working beforehand to make it happen, and handlers themselves helping out.

Our chapter member volunteers are the real heroes of this story.  If you haven’t yet helped out at an event, please come and pitch in for our fall test at Kelley Farms, August 31^st – September 2^nd.  We’ll show you what to do and you’ll have fun doing it.  Not a bad way to spend a day watching well trained dogs work!

Contact Larry MacDonald, larrymacd@msn.com, 612-209-6105, and let him know you’d like to lend a hand.  I know he’ll appreciate it.

And those volunteers?  How about the Aplikowski family – Pete, Kathleen, and Ethan.  Plus Terry Petro, Lynn Erickson, Ted Wentink, Mitch Lindberg, David Hahn, Rory Revere, Chris Buller, Bryce Adams, Bob Roiger, Bryan Thomas, Ryan McClellan, Nathan Freshour, Matt Johnson, Gema Coleman, Denise Doll-Kiefer, Jake Tillman, Bill Liebnitz, and John Cooper.

Be sure to thank them when you see them.

By Mitch Carlson, Test Chair / Debbie Letcher, Test Secretary   Photos contributed by Joe Wessels

Three of our MN NAVHDA Chapter tests have been expanded to meet the demand of our growing membership which now stands at over 225 members.  The June Full Test, June 1-3, 2018, test an additional test day on Friday.  Thanks to the many members that stepped forward to volunteer, many of whom took off work on Friday,  we were well staffed to handle all three days.

Following many warm days, the weather broke a little on Friday and was ideal with cloud cover in the morning for the field work and sun in the afternoon for the water and tracking tests.  Six Natural Ability dogs and two Utility dogs were tested.

Thanks to our Director of Judges, Pete Aplikowski, we had NAVHDA Judges from both coasts led by Senior Judge Julie Tower, Nova Scotia, Canada and Bill Cosdon, Boise, Idaho along with veteran MN judge Frank Spaeth on Friday. The Saturday and Sunday judging team was again Julie Tower, Senior Judge, Bill Cosdon and longtime MN judge, Terry Petro.  Our MN Chapter has three Apprentice Judges in training.  Pete Aplikowski and Michael Bredahl attended the test as Apprentice Judges and did a great job.

Saturday was overcast and cloudy most of the morning for the field work, with the last few dogs running in a downpour.  The afternoon saw showers, a couple times quite heavy, for the water work and tracks. The NA dogs and handlers did well in the changing weather through the day.

Sunday was quite cool and windy, with up to 35 mile per hour gusts.  Scenting conditions were excellent and we saw some excellent dog work in the UPT, UT and NA tests. Matt Johnson’s Pudelpointer “Hazel” was the only NA dog running, and it was exciting to watch her expand her search to right and left, then use the wind to work her way back to the birds in the field. All dogs scored well in the tests.

The dog work and the handlers were quite impressive over the three days in the field. The success of those in our MN NAVHDA training nights really stood out in the tests.  Congratulations to all who participated, and thanks to the large number of volunteers and all who helped these dogs and handlers prepare for these tests.

(Note:  Volunteers are still needed for our remaining three tests!  If you have trained with us, but have not volunteered to work at a test, now is the time to go on line and let the test chair know that you want to help!)