My new wife is an avid hunter and comes from German Shorthair lines. I am also an avid hunter but comes from retriever lines. This has caused some issues during our courtship but me managed to get through it and are married. For my birthday my wife bought me a great little GSP pup, as far as she knows she wins.... except her birthday is coming up and I have a nice Lab pup picked out for her. So as to not appear to be a total idiot is there a place I can find some GSP people to learn about pointing breeds and stay married? Jim in Winona, MN
Jim, your lucky and unlucky, welcome to the wonderful world of pointers. Your lucky in the fact that you have three clubs of equal distance from you: The MN GSP Club out of Minneapolis, the SE Wis GSP Club out of Milwaukee and the GSP Club of Eastern Iowa. A little further is the GSP club of Illinois out of Northern IL. All of them are going to be a two or three hour drive but they all have great people. There is some NAVHDA Clubs in your area but your Lab will not be welcome there as with the GSP people and the politics with NAVHDA as you may have read is very bad. So take a look at our calendar in back of this issue and take your new bride and your new pups for a nice ride and meet some nice people.
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I am tired of paying the high vet bills every year. I have noticed you can buy drugs and annual meds on the phone and online, is that worth it?
If all your vet did was fill your dog with drugs yes it would be. But for the extra few bucks your vet does a once over on your dog as preventive medicine. It's a whole lot cheaper to catch things when they are small and easy to manage then when they get out of control. It's the old pay me now pay me later thing. For breeders that have been in the industry for years, the drugs you speak of can be a good deal, but they have years of experience and are familiar with the things that go wrong with dogs. Spend the extra few bucks and sleep well knowing your dog is protected.
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My dog goes nuts when the neighbors cat is outside and they have been in more than one fight, any suggestions?
How about the old saying fences make good neighbors.
We are looking for a dog but my son had a bad run on with a neighbors dog years ago and is deathly afraid of dogs, can you suggest a breed?
Don't worry about breed, fix your son's problem first. You need to expose him to a bunch of good dogs so he knows MOST dogs are good. Find a club fun day or hunt test and take your kid out a few times til the fear goes away. Start him out with puppies. When the fear is gone, THEN you can start thinking about breeds of dogs.

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