About Copper Bluff Pointers

Copper Bluff Pointers is my kennel on the river breaks north of Pierre, South Dakota. I have hunted over German Shorthaired Pointers since 2009 and bred them since 2013. I raise one or two litters a year, and every dog I breed is a dog I hunt.

I grew up walking shelterbelts and cattail sloughs for pheasants behind whatever dog the family had. My first shorthair, Rye, showed me what a dog with a real point, a nose and a natural retrieve could do on wild roosters. Half the dogs in this kennel still go back to her.

My dogs hunt forty to fifty days a season. Sharptails and prairie chickens on the Fort Pierre National Grassland from the third Saturday in September, pheasants from the third Saturday in October until the season closes at the end of January, and ducks off stock dams and the river when the weather turns. A dog that cannot handle heat in September, ice in December and a running rooster in the cattails does not get bred here.

Hunting tells me most of what I need to know, but I test too, because a judge has no reason to flatter my dogs. Every breeding dog here has a NAVHDA Natural Ability prize, most have run the Utility Test, and all of them carry an AKC Junior, Senior or Master Hunter title. Hips, elbows, heart and eyes go through OFA, and every dog is DNA tested for cone degeneration and lupoid dermatosis.

Puppies are whelped in the house and move to the heated puppy barn at four weeks. They see a pigeon wing at five weeks and live quail at six, swim in the stock tank on warm days, and hear a blank pistol at a distance while they are busy chasing a bird. They go home at eight weeks with tails docked, dewclaws off, first shots done and a good start on crate manners.