November finally arrived, Vibeke and I went to South Dakota with two of our Small Munsterlanders, Appi and Echo. I was originally contacted in June by Chris Dorsey the producer of the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) series: "A dog’s Life." The show is a series of 26 half-hour episodes featuring sporting breeds from the Chesapeake to the Vizsla. We were asked if we would like to present the Small Munsterlander.

The filming was going to take place at the Krull Lodge located in Harrold, SD. This is only the second year that the lodge is in operation so everything was shiny and new. The lodge was about 15 miles from "downtown" Harrold. Harrold consists of about 20 homes, a gas station, some corn silos, and a three-story brick school house that is world renowned as it is the only school that displays separate entrances for boys and girls.

The weather was beautiful on our car trip from Massachusetts and during our stay in SD. Our first stop in SD was in Mitchell where we viewed the Corn Palace and where we spent a substantial amount of money at the Cabela's store. We arrived at the Krull Lodge late Sunday afternoon November 9, 2003 and were greeted by the hostess of the lodge and we were shown to our room which had two very nice queen sized beds. Our dogs were allowed in the room as long as they were crated. Not a problem!

After having settled in we met our host for the program, Jameson Parker, who is probably best known for his eight-year stint as the co-star of the detective show, "Simon & Simon." We were treated to drinks in the open bar and at around 7 PM we all went in to the dining room for a succulent game dinner.

After a good night’s sleep we were joined for breakfast by Kris Hill who had brought her bitch Hunting Hill’s Cruiser and her 4 puppies to the Krull Lodge as participants in the filming. Our Appi is the sire of the pups. After a hearty breakfast we all went into the field where the initial filming was done with the pups and Jameson asked me many questions regarding the Small Munsterlander. What he asked me I really cannot remember as I was concentrating more on answering the questions as correctly as I could rather than placing the questions in memory, so I guess I will know when the show airs. Kris seemed to think that everything went very well, so for now I will take her word for it

After the filming of the pups was over we had time to socialize with the pups and get some still photos. Some of those photos are accompanying this write-up.

Late morning Kris packed her pups up and headed back to Omaha, a seven-hour drive, a valiant effort on her part for which I am grateful.

I let Appi loose, Jameson and I then loaded our shotguns, and we headed to the field. The first area we got to is surrounding a little pond dammed up by an earth dike. Appi acted birdie on the south side of the dike and he dropped down the 12-foot sloped dike and a rooster went up. I shot and he was hit lightly and the bird came down. The retrieve was not a problem for Appi.

Appi continued searching the tall grass and it didn’t take long before we had lost track of him. I had forgotten to put a bell on him so I couldn’t hear where he was. Jameson continued to ask me questions as we were walking making keeping track of Appi more difficult. We kept on going south until the tall filmmaker Larry Sletten (Chris Dorsey’s partner) finally saw Appi on point. Jameson and I hurried up there and a rooster came up but we were both had bad shots, so no bird. We had Appi search more of the grassland and also a couple of milo fields but no birds, so we headed back to the lodge for lunch.

After a delicious lunch we went to a large milo field and here we had lot of action. We had nice points and good shooting with 5 birds bagged within the next two hours. One of the situations in particular impressed Jameson. After Appi’s point and my flush I shot at a bird and it clearly showed the right leg drop so we just watched the bird go because we knew that it would come down. This was a strong SD rooster and it sailed out about 250 yards, but Appi didn’t waste any time, by the time the rooster landed Appi was there and brought it to hand just as he had done very nicely with the other birds. Jameson continued talking about this long retrieve and how wonderful it was to have such a small dog that could perform so greatly. For me it was nice to see that Appi also demonstrated how great a soft mouth he has so there was no damage to the birds when he brought them back. All in all I believe that he represented our favorite breed very well.

After that long retrieve we had another still photo session and the filming was over. The postproduction will probably take place in January and as soon as I know the schedule of the segment on OLN I will let everybody know. Vibeke and I stayed for a couple more days at the lodge and did some hunting on public access areas around Harrold, and on Thursday we moved into the Ramkota Hotel in Pierre and continued hunting the great roosters around the capital.

We had a fantastic time, I walked about 9 to 12 miles a day and the dogs loved it. I had great dog work, the dogs covered the fields and more widely and thoroughly than I had expected and they gave me many, many opportunities for bagging birds that I didn’t take advantage of because of my poor shooting. I did redeem myself on Saturday when I doubled on pheasants, which I had never done before. I can’t wait to go back, but I believe that it will behoove me to enter a shotgun proficiency course before venturing west again to pheasant country.

Appi lost about 9% of his body weight even though we fed him all he wanted of high protein Purina Pro-Plan every night. He is now back to his normal weight again after having spent the past two weeks just enjoying home life.