Muddy Creek runs into the North Fork of Spring River. We live on Duvall Creek which would make us Duvall Creek Kennel except for a guy named Bud Beck. Bud is about 75 years old and he was Muddy Creek Kennel long before I was. I obtained this dog that Bud had raised. Bud is an avid field trialer. At the time I didn't know Bud but knew of him. People are into field trialing for different reasons and Bud is a breed purist. He is very adamant about pointer bred German Shorthairs. Some say these dogs are English Pointers with a cut off tail. I am not a breed student and haven't been around as long as Bud so who am I to say wether some of these dogs are actually English Pointers or not? I do know that it dosn't take much to cut off a dogs tail, and I suppose if someone wanted to call an English Pointer a German Shorthair Pointer it would be pretty hard to tell one from the other in some dogs. Especially those kind with the pink spots on their nose.

But anyway, Bud cares about such things and this dog that I had, Bud raised him and Bud retained the registeration papers. I went to Bud, introduced myself,and proceeded to explain to Mr. Beck how I had obtained this dog and really would appreciate his registration papers "Please!". Well Bud explained to me real quick that he raised that dog, I wasn't supposed to have him and no unknown,upstart quail hunter that might breed his dog to a English Pointer was going to get into his bloodline. Well, I had other ideas as this cull of Bud's was about the best bird dog I had ever seen. I had two females bred like him and I wanted some puppies, but there was no way Bud was going to have his blue nose babies disgraced by some common quail hunter making gun dogs out of them. This went on for a couple of years. I'd stop by and ask, and Bud would say "NO!". 

I bought some dogs from John Blurton at Independence, Kansas and one of them was a real fancy line bred Moesgaard female and I got the idea that maybe if Bud was impressed with me having this dog then he might give me my dogs papers. It worked! I sent a copy of her pedigree to Bud and asked if he would be interested in raising a litter with her from his stud. About two minutes after he opened the mail he called me and said he sure would. I took her over there and she went floating around the yard, prancing and throwing her front feet out as pretty as could be. After Bud got through oohing and ahhing I said, "You know Mr. Beck you really ought to let me have the papers for my dog." He didn't say anything but went in the house and handed me the papers when he came out. I said ..... "THANKS!!!"

Bud decided I wasn't going to breed his dog to any English Pointers and that was the start of our friendship. We still get a little tense over what a class birddog is but then he's a field trialer and I'm a gundog breeder. But through it all Bud did pass on his approval of my efforts by bestowing to me his name Muddy Creek and his sign is now at my driveway. By the way, I never did duplicate "Ole Buckeroo Bonzi" but there are now a whole lot of people out there hunting with his "greats" and "great greats" saying the same things about them that I had to say about him I am sure...

My personal guidelines in attempting to raise top-notch bird dogs for people to enjoy as hunting buddies and friends are the following: