LHW Celestial

ana 3/15/2020; the Covid shutdown weekend. After purchasing Luna from a reputable breeder, I needed to train her, but no organizations were meeting to train so, I decided to learn how to train my dog. I talked to my buddy's w/ labs, read books, watched videos, and then I purchased birds from our local NAVHDA chapter bird supplier who happened to be the NAVHDA training director and a professional trainer. When I arrived to pick up my 1st birds they asked what kind of dog I was training. She replied, "A what?" I repeated and they asked if they could see it, as they had never seen one before. After meeting Luna they gave me some tips on bird intro and I went on my way. Later that summer NAVHDA started meeting again. I joined our local NAVHDA chapter and met some great dog people: handlers, breeders, and trainers. The training director asked how my bird intro went, and we ended up chatting about their training program for a bit. I decided to do some 1on1 classes w/ Luna to get her bird exposure. We did classes for a while, Luna was doing great, and I then I started staying after class to help them train client dogs planting birds, shuttling dogs, catching birds, and shooting for them. That's when everything seemed to come together. Being able to see all the different breeds, temperaments, pedigrees, and all the different ways to handle each, made me into such a better handler and trainer. This was invaluable to helping us get to NAVHDA UT prize 1 and a trip to the 2023 NAVHDA Invitational. I was elected by our chapter to replace our training director who took on a new role in the chapter. After 2 years as training director, I stepped down to focus on my new puppy. After the invitational I earned breeding rights, and I decided to start breeding when I saw how hard it was to find a well-bred long-haired hunting dog. I am not looking to become a full-time breeder and will likely only breed the 3rd and 4th years of my breeding dog's life; this way the dams and sires have had all needed health tests done before breeding. I am looking to produce a versatile hunting pedigree in my dogs but, they could easily be a family dog w/ their dispositions. With guidance from my breeder, I was able to breed my 1st dog Luna that I purchased from her. For my first liter I was able to find incredible highly decorated long-haired sire in hunt tests and the show ring from the Netherlands which has produced my 2nd dog Stella. Since the pool of hunting long-hairs is scarce, I have also decided to breed my long-hairs to high quality hunting short-hairs to in hopes of introducing higher quality hunting traits into my long-hair bloodlines. So, I will have short hair litters that are long-hair carriers available. All breeding's will be healthy breeding with both parents being health tested before breeding