Karen and Marvin Stout smile and laugh easily.
They laugh while reminiscing about their many years of dog breeding, the lessons learned, the road trips made. They’ve surely smiled often while exceeding even their own expectations in shaping a line of Brittanys that stand out in the field and the show ring.
Once upon a time they never imagined they’d be doing these things. Isn’t it funny how life turns out?
When Karen and Marvin Stout, and their three daughters, Jennifer, Julianne and Jessica, decided to get a dog in 1982, they wanted a hardy one that would enjoy playing outdoors, yet be temperamentally sound. They had one breed in mind — until they visited a Brittany breeder. It changed the course of their lives.
Almost 30 years later, a particular orange-and-white Brittany that almost didn’t survive being whelped became a Field Champion and won Best of Breed at the American Brittany Club (ABC) National Specialty he almost wasn’t entered in.
Everything that has happened in the decades between for the Stouts at their Country Road Brittanys kennel near Converse, Ind., is a product of family teamwork, unparalleled attention to detail, and, just maybe, from time to time, a dose of sometimes-it’s-meant-to-be.
In 1982, when Karen and Marvin admired the English Springer Spaniel of their daughters’ violin teacher, they figured the breed was as good as any to have as a family companion. Then, a work colleague of Marvin’s at the General Motors plant in nearby Marion, Ind., suggested the Stouts visit local Brittany breeder Barbara Scott. After doing some research, they contacted Scott, and the family began a lifelong journey with the breed, starting with CH Wincrest Russet Sunshine (“Rusty”).
Scott became a mentor to the Stout family, teaching them about conformation and grooming, and leading the three girls into Junior Showmanship. “It was really good for all of them,” Karen says. “Junior Showmanship teaches responsibility. It teaches about grooming and how to take care of and communicate with the dogs.”
Jessica retired the trophy for Best Junior Handler at the ABC National Specialty after she won the award a third time in 1989. All the Stout girls have since grown, graduated from Purdue University in Indiana, married and continued with their life ambitions. But Julianne returned to help with Country Road Brittanys, even if from long distance. After 11 years away from dog shows to focus on college, medical school and a residency in internal medicine, Julianne plays a vital role from her and her husband’s farm in Shelbyville, Tenn.
An eight-hour drive southwest of her parents, Julianne takes puppies to her home to start their field training. She usually conditions and trains them while riding a four-wheel all-terrain vehicle after long hours working as a staff physician at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
In northern Indiana, Karen spends at least five hours each day exercising, cleaning, feeding and grooming 11 Brittanys in the 11-run kennel attached to the barn next to their home. She has finished 55 show champions.
Marvin chooses the horseback stakes they attend, and drives their motor home to field trials and dog shows. For the trials, they tow a trailer for the two Tennessee walking horses they ride during events. Marvin tends to the horses, at home and on the road.
Karen and Marvin work together when a bitch is whelping a litter, using a heated whelping box to provide warmth to the newest additions to Country Road Brittanys. When 4 weeks old, the puppies are moved from the “dog room” in the house to the garage, with frequent outings to the one-acre backyard. At 7 weeks of age, the pups are temperament-tested. When they are 8 weeks old, they are ready to live in the kennel.
Over the years, Karen, who retired in 2001 from teaching high school biology and chemistry, and Marvin, who retired in 1991 as an accountant for General Motors, have focused their sights on Dual Champion titles for their Country Road Brittanys.
Dual-Purpose Dogs
For bird dog enthusiasts, the horseback stakes the Stouts’ dogs compete in offer excitement that couldn’t be more different than the well-heeled environment of conformation dog shows.
For example, at a field trial on a crisp fall morning in Iowa, “Cooper” (DC Country Road’s Rough Rider) runs with boundless energy, unleashed for an hourlong run on 1,000 rural acres. He races along the edge of the field alert for quail, fixing his path along a fence line, his nose searching for birds and his ears perked to hear the whistle of professional handler Bob Burchett of Argyle, Iowa. He maintains top speed, eventually ranging out of view of his handler, a judge and the gallery of spectators following on horseback.
When Burchett rides over the top of a hill, there is Cooper, like a statue, pointing amid knee-high switchgrass and brush, as his handler might have predicted, and certainly hoped. “That’s the most thrilling moment,” says Burchett, who has finished 64 Field Champions, counting 23 Dual Champions that include each of the Stouts’ four dual dogs. “It’s pretty exciting to watch dogs in a field trial, running at breakneck speed until they scent a bird and skid on the brakes to get on point. But it’s even better to come over a hill and see the dog there, rock solid on point, doing everything he’s been bred and trained to do, everything that is in his heritage to do as a bird dog.”
At the ABC Central Futurity in 2003, Cooper was entered in both the field and show competitions. Julianne had trained Cooper in juvenile field stakes, and Karen had finished his show championship. At the futurity, Cooper won the all-age field competition and Best of Breed in the show competition, and thus captured the Dual Dog Award. This event helped to sharpen the Stouts’ focus on developing Dual Champions.
The Stouts began working with Burchett, a professional dog trainer since 1985, when they sent Cooper to him in 2005. Burchett takes over training the dogs where Julianne leaves off. She teaches them how to choose a line and stick with it, how to negotiate terrain and streams in pursuit of birds, to develop confidence for the hunt. Burchett trains the dogs on birds, teaching them to become the “statues” on point he loves to see. He put the Dual Champion title on Cooper in 2006, making him Marvin and Karen’s first dual dog and the American Brittany Club’s 500th Dual Champion.
During a trial, in fields ranging from 680 to 3,500 acres, the Stouts, Burchett, and his wife, Christine, who has ridden as his field trial scout for 10 years, may cover four to five miles on horseback. The dogs will range considerably more in that time. The level of conditioning that is required is part of what has enamored the Stouts with the breed.
“The dual dog is a supreme athlete,” Karen says. “You’ve got to have the right dog, with the correct physical structure and temperament plus drive, desire and heart. He has to be able to endure training, roading, traveling and running in all extremes of weather conditions. Above all, he has to love hunting. He then has to be able to adapt from the field to the show ring, where he needs to be animated and controlled compared to running in the field.”
Country Road Brittanys typically are finished in the ring before competing in the field where scrapes and cuts could impact the dog’s ability to stand out in the conformation ring. That’s been the formula that has worked for the dual dogs in the Stouts’ kennel.
Along with Cooper, there is “Andy” (DC/AFC Country Road’s Navigator), both out of “Peggy” (CH Country Road’s Celebration, JH). “Roxy” (DC Country Road’s Razzle Dazzle) finished her Dual Championship two weeks after Cooper, her sire, finished his. A repeat breeding of Cooper and Roxy’s dam, CH Country Road’s Escapade (“Amy”), produced “Pete” (DC Country Road’s Boilermaker).
Dual Champion Wins Best of Breed
In May 2009, after handling Cooper throughout his show career and capturing Best of Breed from the Veterans Class at the Greater Indianapolis Brittany Club (GIBC) Specialty, Karen wasn’t sure she still was up to the rigors of the Group ring.
When Doug Tighe of Hope’s Kennels in Blairstown, N.J., offered to handle Cooper in the Group show at the Kokomo Kennel Club Dog Show later that day, Karen watched them take second in the Sporting Group. Afterward, Tighe suggested Cooper should compete at the ABC National Specialty six months later. When a scheduling conflict kept Tighe from being able to show Cooper, Nancy Morabito of Tonan Brittanys in South Bethlehem, N.Y., offered to do it. Last November, Cooper became only the sixth Dual Champion to win Best of Breed in the 66-year history of the ABC National Specialty.
“It was just so unexpected, and nothing we had ever planned for,” Karen says, laughing as she looks at the show photograph marking Cooper’s Best of Breed win. “Look at my expression in the photo. You can tell I was just shell-shocked. When Cooper won the National Specialty, it was overwhelming for us.”
Cooper had returned to the Stouts’ kennel only three weeks before the National Specialty, having spent the fall field trial season with Burchett. Karen had furiously worked Cooper’s coat, which is maintained at a shorter length for the field, to get him up to par for the show ring. Such is the life of a dual dog. Burchett and the Stouts have worked the scenario in a matter of hours when events combine field and show competitions in the same weekend.
Also in 2009, Cooper, at 8 years old, won the ABC Gun Dog Classic/ American Field Championship and was Runner-Up in the ABC Pheasant Classic/American Field Championship. In 2008, he won the ABC Prairie States Shooting Dog Classic/American Field Championship and was the ABC Tri-Tronics Shooting Dog Award winner. An outstanding sire, he has produced two Dual Champions, two Field Champions and 10 show Champions.
Cooper is fed Purina Veterinary Diets NF Kidney Function brand Canine Formula, even though the therapeutic diet long ago resolved his high levels of blood urea nitrogen and creatinine. “Following our veterinarian’s advice, we’ve kept Cooper on the Purina Veterinary Diets NF. We are pleased because it helps keep him at his best for field trials,” Karen says.
The rest of the Stouts’ dogs are fed Purina Pro Plan Performance Formula. “Performance keeps the dogs’ coats in good condition. It also helps them maintain their muscle tone and fuels their high energy levels,” she says.
Andy became a Dual Champion in 2007, the year he was GIBC Dual Dog/Adult Field Dog of the year. Roxy was the GIBC Dual Dog of the Year twice, in 2004 and 2006.
“Pete will be the next Cooper,” Marvin says. “He was a show Champion by 1 year old, a Field Champion by 2. He has a fantastic point — high and solid — and Bob has had Pete since a much younger age than when he took Cooper.”
“We have high hopes for Country Road’s Gold Dust, too,” Karen says.
“Dusty,” a Roxy daughter, is 2 years old. Then there’s 1-year-old Country Road’s Night Rider, sired by Cooper. “Bob says ‘Levi’ is the best we’ve ever sent to him,” says Marvin.
The line continues with 5-month-old littermates Country Road’s Hotshot (“Mack”) and Country Road’s Spitfire (“Gina”), sired by Andy out of Roxy. For Karen, especially, it’s all about continuing that line.
The Science of Breeding
As a former science teacher, Karen has viewed the genetics of line breeding as the path to success, supplemented by binders and binders of detailed record-keeping.
“I have always been really interested in genetics,” she says. “I loved to teach it, and it’s helped me to determine our breeding pairs.”
Country Road Brittanys’ breeding program started in the mid-1980s, when Marvin and Karen got their foundation stud from another mentor, Mary Benjamin of Twin Oaks Kennel in Williamston, Mich. In the late-1980s, the Stouts found their foundation bitch, a field dog Karen co-owned with Barbara Wade of Bay Arbor Kennel in Yukon, Okla. Karen began to handle CH Bay Arbor Dynamite in the conformation ring. After winning an Award of Merit at the National Specialty in 1989 with “Dyna,” Karen bought her outright from Wade.
“It is important in breeding to have a good bitch,” Karen says. “I really believe in the bitch line.”
For the past 20 years, Karen and Marvin have measured height, weight, length, bone and muzzle on every puppy in the one or two litters Country Road Brittanys produces annually.
“I can look at a puppy’s measurements and compare them at that age to previous litters and predict what the dog’s structure will be as he grows,” Karen says.
Those numbers are complemented by photographs that visually document the puppies’ growth. Photos are taken as soon as the pups are old enough to stand and be stacked by Karen for Marvin to shoot the pictures.
Karen emphasizes the importance of testing dogs for hip dysplasia through the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) before they are used for breeding. “For a breeder, OFA is crucial,” she says. “We breed dogs with ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ results, and I verify those ratings go back at least three generations.
“You can’t guarantee good or excellent ratings,” Karen adds, “but you can minimize the odds of producing dysplastic dogs.”
For Julianne, the doctor, the science of breeding is also of interest. “For us as a family, studying genetics and then breeding to amplify traits we like has been a lot of fun,” she says. “Then the proof is in the pudding. When we do well in competition, it validates what we’re doing with our breeding program.”
“Ultimately, the breeding choices are not about us though,” Marvin says. “When you study a pedigree, you’re looking back through a history of those dogs, their accomplishments, and the integrity of the breeders who bred them. We are the beneficiaries of a lot of other people’s work.”
“All of it has certainly made retirement very exciting,” Karen says.
“And it keeps getting even more so,” Marvin adds — with a laugh.