Thread: the Glencuan Team in alphabetical order.

Chris, Toften's Chris Pointer dog, by Astrup's Frijs X Huldertjernets Laila. Imported from Denmark.

Not that long after Basso arrived in Ireland I got one of those "it wouldn't ever happen to me" telephone calls. Alex Nissen, whose wife had sold me Basso, rang to say that his mother in law Liz Skov wanted me to consider accepting Basso's sire, Chris, as a present. Coming from anybody this would be an unusual situation but Liz is the daughter of A. P. Anderson, a founder member of the Danish Poiner Club in 1919 and the original holder of the Oksby prefix. The careful consideration needed took all of five seconds and the result is Chris, who blows completely out of the water the idea that if anything sounds too good to be true it usually is...................too good to be true.
When I attended the Dansk Pointer Klub's 90th anniversary trials in 2009 I heard a bit about Chris. If anybody was stuck for a dog they borrowed Chris, the result being that his head of game count must be huge, if not obscene. There was no plan at this time for him to come to me or none that I knew about, this information came to me when I was asking about Basso's parents.It wasn't all plain sailing. Chris would hunt with you for a good long while but he always had the capacity to "do a Danish one" as we called it. His two hundred yard either side pattern would become six, or seven or maybe even eight hundred yards either side. We eventually got the handle on him and did manage a 2nd in an Irish Kennel Club Open Stake but Chris' forte is shooting.
This really is some piece of kit. At eleven and a half years old he will only be doing half days next year but half a day with Chris is worth a week with a lesser dog. His game sense is as good as any other dog I've seen, his drive is fantastic given the ground he works and his age and his retrieving is second to none. He is also hell of a well bred, the main dog being Ob's Try and he has sired a Danish Dual Champion DKCH, DKJCH, Astrup's Dirty Dancer.
If there was a category for my Dog of a Lifetime Chris would be in it. Somewhere. Maybe not the top one but well up.