Advie English Pointers

CONTENTS

Advie English Pointers
bred for work

Photo: Advie Miedema (front) and Advie Annan (back)

Advie gundogs are workers and are never sold as pets. When I watched field trials in the 1960's as a university student on vacation I noticed two types of pointers. There were hard trial dogs that would take a fair bit of abuse still common today and a softer rarer more responsive type which is now quite difficult to find. I read about these soft old fashioned dogs in books like Arkwright's "The Pointer and His Predecessors" and determined to get this type of pointer when I left college and could keep a dog again. And this is exactly what I did and my pointers today are the culmination of over thirty years of careful selective line breeding for these dogs in my own kennel. I have to confess that these are my first love. My pointers are bred from the famous Cromlix kennel owned by the late Lady Eve Aukland of Cromlix Estate.

Lady Aukland imported dogs from the top European working kennels in the 1950s and 60s and inter-bred them with the remnants of the British and Irish dogs which had survived World War II. She was fortunate to have Angie McLaughlin as her kennel manager because Angie was one of the last of the real professional birddog trainers/handlers in the UK. The Cromlix kennel not only bred top English pointers, but also excelled with Labradors, Cocker spaniels, and Gordon setters. These dogs won extensively in field trials in the late 1960s and 1970s. The blood is in most successful British trialers, but none so strong as in my own kennel.

Photo: Angie McLaughlin, right; Mr Tokujiro Ishibashi, centre; Frank Gillan, Lady Aukland's gamekeeper, left.

Lady Aukland's kennel manager, Angie McLaughlin, was a personal friend who gave me much advice and his own pointer dog, Sandpiper of Cromlix, the last dog bred by Lady Aukland and the cornerstone of my current breeding programme at Advie Gundogs.

Photo: Advie Annan aged 12 months. First point on grouse, Isle of Orkney.

To understand something of the breeding of these dogs, look at the pedigree of Advie Annan and Sandpiper of Cromlix.

My first pointer was Embercombe Rascal, a bitch sired by FTCh Swallow of Cromlix out of Joy of Knock. Swallow was sired by FTCh Lark of Cromlix and Joy was sired by FTCh Swift of Cromlix and out of an imported bitch Blackfield Janka vom der Karthause. I made Rascal up to a FTCh and she was exported to Japan. But before she went, I bred her to Langwell Joe, a good working dog owned by The Duke of Portland. One of the puppies was FTCh Advie Gunsmoke. I got a service pup from John Nash, Moanruad Mourne of Advie, out of his bitch, Moanruad Aiobin, who was sired by a full brother of Rascal's out of an exceptionally good Irish bred bitch, Grannagh Lass. About this time, Angie McLaughlin gave me Sandpiper of Cromlix. Sandpiper sired two litters out of Moanruad Mourne of Advie. I retained most of the puppies from these two litters and they form the foundation of what I have today.

FTCh Gunsmoke won three Open Stakes in rapid succession and was then exported to Japan for today's equivalent of Ł23,000. I did not trial Mourne because she was an exceptional bitch and if I had trialed her, I knew she would win and I would have got offers for her I could not have refused. In my opinion, Advie Annan ("Garry") who is in my kennel today is a far superior dog to Gunsmoke and my decision not to sell Mourne has been vindicated. Mourne's father, FTCh Moanruad Joker, was also exported to Japan. Rascal competed once with Gunsmoke's father, Langwell Joe, and beat him into second place, winning the stake.

FTCh Swallow of Cromlix, Rascal's father, won the Champion Stake in 1966. Swallow's father, FTCh Lark of Cromlix, won the Champion Stake in 1961. Lark's father was Cam of Cromlix, imported by Lady Aukland from Count Saladini's kennel in Italy. Lark's mother, Hope of Cromlix, was sired by Scotney American Ambassador, imported from the USA for Lord (J Arthur) Rank.

Blackfield Janka v.d.Karthause represented the top German breeding of the time and she is behind many field trial champions. This breeding amalgamates the top German, Finnish, Swedish, Irish and British blood after the war. The Cromlix dogs dominated the Scottish Champion Stakes for several years (they did not compete in England) and the same breeding was behind most of the winning dogs from that point on.

My own dogs from this breeding invariably won when competing in trials and still consistently make record prices for export. FTCh Advie Gunsmoke, sold for an equivalent of Ł23,000 ($38,000US), with many more Advie dogs approaching this price. Advie Annan competed in a few trials before I gave up in disgust. He easily made a Second in a Novice stake and was not permitted to run in an Open Stake because he was not qualified to do so!

I believe breeding fine gundogs is like making a good Scotch whisky. The quality is carefully distilled over generations, not mixed in like the ingredients of a cake. It is clear that Lady Aukland intended to breed this way after collecting dogs from the best European working lines and the degree of inbreeding can be seen from Sandpiper's pedigree. I merely continue what she began. This line has been carefully refined and matured for more than forty years. In my opinion, there is no better breeding in working pointers in Britain today, possibly none equal in Europe.

Advie Gundogs
Miller's Place, Fendom
Tain, Easter Ross IV19 1PE
Scotland UK

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