RT Ch Birdelhund All The Way – Stella
Stella’s life, July 20, 2002 – April 29, 2015, consisted of three litters and great career in retrieving trials. As we travelled around Australia Stella was a joy to have beside me. Her life experiences were vast, much more than the average dog because our travels went on for many years.
Born in Collinsville, Queensland her travels started at 8 weeks old. As a result, it took a two hour drive and then, three flights on three different planes for her to reach her new home at Kuven. Despite the long trip this puppy faced she settled in beautifully and grew into a dog with a great work ethic.
Stella was very well travelled puppy, because through her lifetime we lived in four different states. We also visited every other state in the country to work in retrieving trials. She was well accustomed to plane, boat and road trips.
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| Stella 6 weeks old | Stella ready for work |
Litters
Stella had three litters, which interrupted her retrieving career. Her first, only conceived one puppy. I lacked the necessary experience at the time. Consequently, he was born dead by C-Section.
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| Pregnant Stella | KLM Litter |
The second of her litters consisted of 8 puppies, but only 6 survived the birth. It was themed KLM, because I was working for a company of that name at the time. As my prefix started with K each of the puppy’s names had the initials KLM, eg Kuven Lasting Memories, Kuven Lucky Man etc.
By the time the last of her litters was born Stella was living in her fourth state. This also was where she had most success in her retrieving work. Their were 5 puppies and they were the Aussie litter with names such as Kuven Good Onya, Kuven True Blue etc.
Career
What a pleasure to have around at any time. She was never demanding and always wanted to please. But, it was her natural talent that made me smile. A most important desired trait. Her biggest handicap was her handler – me. We had many All Age events where the work was not good enough. We just lost our breaks and steering and were eliminated. Eventually we managed to consistently finish which built our confidence.
Although time out was taken from her career for litters, she finished a total of 36 All age events. This included 6 wins, 3 second placings and 2 thirds. Stella also completed the WA State Championship in 2010, placing 5th.
At work in an All Age Retrieving Trial
Labrador Retrievers are part of the Gundog Group
and Gundogs are fun dogs