Background

Rick Rock, my father, spent his earliest years in Roosevelt, WA and Hermiston, Oregon, where his family farmed and ranched. As a boy hunting with Uncle Frank and his German Shorthair Pointer, he learned the thrill of the sport and was hooked. Sallee, the GSP, found Rick's very first bird and still holds some fond memories for him. Among many field outtings behind his friends' bird dogs, Rick later hunted with his own Black Labrador, Joe, and his brother's GSP/Lab cross, Ben. He was a country boy and could often be found riding his ponies and horses or kicking the brush with one of his dogs, gun in hand. Hunting was one of Rick's favorite pastimes as he was growing up. Of course, he and his two brothers and sister got into a fair amount of mischief around the farm doing other "activities!"

In 1983, Rick married my mother, Jan. He had worked for his parents' irrigation business but soon starting commerical trucking, until, in 1987, the year I was born, he became indentured into the electrical contractors program. As he was establishing his family and electrical contracting career, my dad found that he still enjoyed hunting but missed being behind his own bird dog. In his early thirties, my parents decided that they and their children, Tyler, me (Chelsea), and Logan, were ready for a dog. Rick set out to find the "biggest and baddest" bird dog that he could and bought a champion-pedigreed German Wirehaired Pointer, Rock's Rusty Gun. Rusty was an incredible bird dog that we used on pheasant and quail, impressive and intense. He helped carry on the Rock's family tradition of hunting to my brothers and me. When Rusty was three years old, though, there was an unfortunate accident, for which he had to be euthanized. It was a heavy blow for our family.

A couple of weeks passed, and the absence of a dog felt unbearable. There had to be a "replacement." When we brought Jake (Rocco's Gallantries) home, we knew that we had found a breed that encompassed everything that we wanted- class, gentleness, athleticism, intelligence, beauty, biddability, and most importantly, excellent hunting ability. Jake changed the way the we cared for their animals, or rather, Rusty's untimely death caused the change, and Jake received all of the benefits of it. To me, Rusty deserves full credit for everything "Rock Llewellin Setters" and much more.

Jake was our first Llewellin and we when he was a couple years old we began playing with the idea of dog breeding. With still a lot to learn, we started seaching for a female Llewellin. After about a year, we had Sophie shipped here from Buckaroo Bondhu Llewellin Kennels. All the while we were raising, training, and hunting our dogs, I was busy doing research on dog breeding. We decided to start a small breeding business, a modest division of Rock Inc, which previously only consisted of Rock Electric. Initially, we wanted to give more people in the Northwest the chance to hunt with quality Llewellin Setters, which are pretty rare here. We began and continue to breed with the goal in mind of maintaining and improving the Llewellins' hunting ability, temperament, conformation, and health to modern ideals.

Through the past six years, I have been largely involved with our setters and love expanding my knowledge about training, handling/care, breeding, health issues, hunting, business, and much more. I've found that this is something I am passionate about continuing throughout my lifetime, so I am now focusing even more on how to achieve success with our program for the future. Because I've been attending OSU for the past three years, studying zoology, my daily hands-on work with our dogs has obviously decreased, but I still take care of the business/informational side of things, as well as get home to "play with the pups" a couple weekends a month. Every litter we will breed will be with the intention of incorporating them in part of my program down the line. In addition, we are stepping up our training program, and I am going to be giving hunt tests and trials a shot with our next pup.

Bottom Line: Our dogs have been bred for the field and are beloved members of the family. They excel in bird hunting and are taken out as often as life allows. At Rock Llewellin Setters, each year brings on new and memorable adventures.

RLS's Ongoing Mission is:

To maintain the physical and mental health of our dogs by caring for them in the best ways we are possible of doing.
To only breed dogs we know are healthy, mature, and possessing specific qualities we want to maintain.
To stay current with health, breeding/genetic, and training advances.
To responsibly produce healthy puppies with good temperaments and excellent natural hunting abilities.
To place our puppies with knowledgable, dedicated hunters and/or field trialers where they will have the opportunities to do what they love.
To be responsible to our dogs and puppies throughout their lifetime.
To be available to our clients/pet owners for help and questions.
To help educate people about animal care.

During the next decade or so, you won't be seeing many puppies advertised for sale. One of the reasons is that we don't have a lot of dogs for breeding stock. Each breeding will be planned only if and when we have specific qualities that we want to see continued. In addition, because our ultimate goal is to contribute to the genetic diversity of the Llewellins, we will not be breeding the same pair of dogs together more than twice. We're not here to fill puppy orders. We will not breed a bitch consequtive heat cycles because their health and condition is the utmost importance to us. And lastly, we will only plan a breeding when we can be sure that we will have the time to do each litter full justice with care, socialization, and training. Our priority is and has always been in the interest of our dogs and puppies.

• Hunting: Medium ranged, hard-going hunters, with mid to high set, merry tails. Stylish, tall/proud, intense points. Good scenting capabilities. Bold, intelligent, confident, fast working, thorough, easy handle, and responsive. Exceptional stamina/endurance over variety of terrain. Good heat and cold tolerance. Tough physique with drive and love of work. Exceptional hunting instinct, including natural pointing and backing. Quartering when desireable. Tendency for natural retrieves. Able to handle variety of upland birds.
  
  

• Color: All colors are acceptable; prefer dark eyes, eyelids, and noses.
  

• Health: Exceptional physical & mental health through screening and development. Close genetic history of at least OFA Good for hips and must be healthy dogs in every other aspect. Genetic predisposure to dysplasia, deafness, cryptorchidism, umbilical hernias, etc, will be as limited as RLS can determine.

• Size: Females maturing at 43-53 pounds. Males at about 45-60 pounds. Females about 19-25 inches at shoulder. Males at 21-26 inches.

• Conformation: Functionally correct, nicely formed, pleasing to the eye, and overall balanced build that will be able to handle the rigors of long days in the field. Muscular, sturdy, and defined but not too course nor fine. Level/parallel planes of the head, length of muzzle about equal to length of top of head (occipital to stop), streamlined/oval skull from above, square to slightly tapered muzzle, large nostrils, slight scissor bite or even bite, eyes well set in the head, with tight eyelids, and "bright eyed", medium set ears; tough, tight, arched feet; mid-high set straight/slightly arched tail, prefer medium length tail that reaches the hock, carried above the back, high on point (10-12 o'clock), merry in the field; deep, wide chest, bottom of girth reaching the elbow, with roomy cavity; flat, smooth shoulders that are near at the tips and angled appropriately; muscular, straight/parallel forelegs approximately same length as depth of ribcage, short front pastern at slight angle; muscular thighs, well bent and strong stifles and hocks, more upright rear pasterns, straight/parallel hindlegs can point out slightly at feet; proportional, muscular, strong back/topline, with slightly angled croup and strong hips; defined and minimal throatiness at the "throatlatch," coat not too fine nor extravagant but still soft with feathering on ears, neck/chest, belly, legs, and tail.

• Temperaments: Adaptable, versatile, biddable, even, charismatic, loyal, intelligent, sweet, sociable, tough but sensitive & responsive, and quick-thinking. Gentle, confident, and bold. Active and job-orientated. "Kid friendly and tolerant."

• Pedigree: RLS dogs are currently lined in order of amount increasing to decreasing: Dashing Bondhu, Bomber, Gladstone and Tony-O, and Blizzard. Royacelle lines will be introduced shortly and Gladstone increased, thru Remi. Should we learn of any line/dogs that may be carrying undesired genetic traits, it will be determined whether or not avoidance will be worth the function and health of the breed. While certain traits may be more characteristic in certain lines, we feel it is more important to look at the specific parent cross and individual than focus on the pedigree bloodline.
  

The above goals are what RLS is striving for, as they describe our idea of a bird dog that is the "Total Package." It is likely that we may alter/improve some goals with time and experience.

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Background
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The Other Four-Legged Family Members

Levi, aka "Mr. Kitty" to the dogs and pups.

Levi is our fifteen year old house cat that we all love very much. He's very social, cuddly, demanding, and playful and has been thoroughly spoiled. Of course, he thinks he's quite a bit better than the dogs, but he tolerates them pretty well. And admittedly, he is a gentle, firm teacher for the pups when it comes to manners around kitties.

Orion

This is my (Chelsea's) 16 yr old OT Thoroughbred gelding. He's a big, sweet guy that loves company. He's not too sure of the world around him but is an awesome horse, nonetheless. He's taught me a lot about riding and horsemanship.

Member/Regional Vice-President of

Proud New Members of

Green Valley Hunting and Retriever Club

Regional Vice-President of North American Llewellin Breeders Association.

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