Mackinaw Valley Gun Dogs

10/01/2026

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It’s game day!!! Let’s down those ducks!!

PS: only AI ducks were harmed during the making of this post… 😉

01/01/2026

We had another great trip to Kansas. The weather ranged from 75 degrees and sunny to 15 degrees with 40 mph winds. The bird numbers were great this year, and the dogs were able to find them in the extremely varied conditions. Desi continues to improve and was able to find several downed birds that the experienced dogs couldn’t locate. Mason provided the comedic relief for the trip as always.

20/12/2025

We took Desi on a quick hunt at home today. She did a great job staying under control and tracking the running birds. She finally pinned one down at the end of the cover and made a nice retrieve after the shot.

26/10/2025

North Dakota 2025- We had a great trip to ND this past week, duck hunting in the morning and upland hunting the rest of the day. My main goal for this trip was to allow Desi to apply her training to real world situations. She learned a lot about wild birds and retrieving ducks in cold water cattail sloughs. The highlight of the trip was when Desi pointed a pair of roosters in a tree row. She was steady until released and retrieved the big, old bird with its tail dragging on the ground.

The rest of the dogs performed like the seasoned bird dogs they are, and produced lots of birds for the guns. Fire loves diving into thick sloughs in search of pheasants, and will retrieve anything that hits the ground. Nadia and Stewie covered miles of prairie, handling pheasants, sharptails, and Huns throughout the trip.

11/10/2025

Desi earned her Grand Master Pointing Retriever title last weekend at the NC APLA hunt test. We picked her up today at In Flight Retrievers and Ryan has done a fantastic job with her. Now it’s time to go hunting.

Thanks to Roy Geberth for the great hunt test photos.

22/09/2025

Desi earned the first pass towards her Advanced Pointing Retriever title this weekend at the Wisconsin APLA hunt test. She will be traveling to North Carolina in a few weeks to finish her APR title and attempt to pass the Master Pointing Retriever test.

02/09/2025

The 2025 hunting season is finally here! It was a slow night of dove hunting, but the kids and Fire still had a good time.

02/08/2025

Happy 8th birthday to Nadia and the rest of the 2017 Molly/Fergus litter.
Nadia started her day having a big birthday treat and everyone else got a treat to celebrate with her.

04/03/2025

Nadia and Stewie are tuned up and ready for the first field trial of the season. It was a bit windy yesterday, but they didn’t seem to care.

10/01/2025

Desi and Fire enjoyed the fresh snow on their run this morning.

31/12/2024

We had another memorable trip to Rex’s place in Kansas. Mason shot his first Kansas rooster, first quail, and also his first Canada goose. We enjoyed lots of good dog work, especially from Stewie. He has matured into a fantastic bird dog. I lost count of his covey finds, and he handled many spooky Kansas pheasants.

24/11/2024

Fire had a busy weekend at the duck club. She helped blood trail a deer late into the night Friday. It would have been much quicker if I had trusted her nose when she took me in the “wrong” direction. Then we had a great duck hunt yesterday morning where she got lots of retrieves.