Our Dogs

Bustin’ Water Kennels takes great pride in competing with our dogs to prove their ability to give back to the breed. All our dogs are extensively health tested and field tested! See their results on their own bio’s.

Meet Pearl - FC AFC HR Esprit’s Grade A Pearl (Bustin' Waters 1st to FT title!!)

Bustin’ Water Kennels added Pearl to our fine line of competitors at 20 months old. She had all her training up to that point done by Mike Moroz in Georgia. Gary had seen Pearl listed for sale and couldn’t get her out of his mind! Always had a draw to the Esprit’s Out of the Woods X Scan’s Nick of Time lineage and knew she could be a great fit here! A quick roundtrip to Georgia (during shelter in place orders) and she was ours! Pearl came to us with a HR title in UKC and 5 derby points! Great expectations for this little girl!! WON her first Derby attempt after joining Bustin' Water Kennels! Pearl finished her derby career with 24 points and ended up 8th on the Purina High Point Derby List for 2020!  Peal currently has 36.5 AA points.  We are having a great 2024 FT season with a couple Open wins, and few other placements in both Open and Amateur, for 18.5 AA points with hopefully more to come!  Pearl ran 8 series of 10 in the 2024 National Amateur in Maine in June!  Pretty proud!!  Pearl is qualified for the 20214 National Open in Giddings November 9-16!!  

Meet Maggie- Bustin' Waters Special Power Shot QA2

Maggie is a fire breather and really likes to work, better be on your toes at the line!  She has finally calmed down in the house!  She had her young dog and transition training done by Dynamic Retrievers and has all the tools for progressing.  Maggie has really come into full swing of things, with 1 Derby JAM in 2 trials and Qualifying WIN, 2nd and JAM and is QA2!  It is now spring of 2024 and Maggie has recovered from materinty leave and has started training for the AA stakes.  

Meet Ozzy- Bustin' Waters Shot In The Dark QAA "Ozzy"

Ozzy is from an older pedigree of FC Pike of Castlebay and FC AFC Seaside's Issheit.  Ozzy had his basics started at home using the Dynamic Retrievers DIY with Gary doing the work and continued on with Dynamic Retrievers thru transition.  He is back at home from the winter trip with Rorem Retievers and is doing great.  Ozzy is tall, powerful and great looking dog with natural talent! Ozzy won his first Qualifying!!  Ozzy will continue training for the All Age and return to competition in July.

Meet Quinn- Bustin' Waters Quintessential Marker"

Quinn is from our own breeding of FC AFC Razor's Buckshot "Shooter" x FC AFC Esprit's Grade A Pearl "Pearl" litter which produced our 100th puppy (so had to keep at least 1!).  Quinn was trained here until pattern blinds then went south with Dynamic Retrievers for the winter to keep moving along!  She is FULL of energy and desire!!  Excited to see what the future holds for this young one.  Quinn has littermates with 19 Derby Points, Qualifying JAM, Derby JAM's, Junior Passes and Senior Passes.  Plan to break her out in September in the Derby!!

Meet Vanna - Bustin' Waters Wheel of Fortune SH

Vanna is from our 2019 breeding of FC AFC B. Bumble (Stinger) X Bustin’ Waters She’s No Mirage QAA MH. Vanna is shared with Bob Vorwerk of Go Bird Retrievers.  Bob and Vanna have gone 5/6 in Senior test for her title!   Link to her pedigree.

Meet Josie - Bustin' Waters She's No Mirage QAA MH MNR

Josie is a very easy dog to run in both hunt tests and field trials and is a pure joy to stand next to at the line. Josie is shared with our neighbor Kelly who wanted a yellow female but our litter with Stinger to Indy did not produce any so she asked me to look around for her. Well I found one in Wisconsin that I wanted to be a part of and so the journey began with sharing Josie. Josie has been in training with Dynamic Retrievers off and on over the years and is always ready to train! To date she has a pass rate of 18/19 in Master tests and 2/2 in Master National tests. She has run quite a few Qualifyings with 1-2nd place, 1-3rd place, 2-4th places, 2 Reserve Jams, and 6 Jams. We have moved her out of the Qualifying and started in the Amateurs in 2019. Josie suffered a cruitiate tear in spring of 2020 and was taken out of competition.  We thought she would be good to go again in 2021 but tore the other one as well and semi-retired her.  She enjoys bumpers and hanging out with Kelly's family now!

Meet Nikki- Bustin' Waters She's No One Hit Wonder

Nikki was kept from our litter of FC AFC Hockley Creek's Switch Hitter to Bustin' Waters She's No Mirage QAA MH18 MHR.  She was the only pup so goes without saying she wasn't leaving Bustin' Water Kennels!  As luck would have it, Nikki's cartilage didn't form right in her knees so she is going to live with friends and be a pet.  

Meet Mikko - Bustin’ Waters Center Of Attention

Mikko is from our first Fisher X Flo breeding and shared with my cousin and lives with his family mainly for pet and hunting. Miko at 7 years old is still actively hunted by Brad in the fall and few spring snow goose trips.

Meet Kokomo - Bustin’ Waters Kokomo Monkeys Around

Koko is from our second litter of Fisher X Flo and lives with Katie’s parents Kirk and Roseann. She is a great house dog and companion! She knows what time breakfast and dinner are to be served and not shy about reminding them!

Meet Indy - Bustin’ Waters In It To Win It

We kept Indy from our NFC AFC Boo x Grace litter. She is a sweet, loving, little pocket rocket! Indy lived with us until last year and was a great mother and companion and now lives in Hinckley on a farm with lots of room to run like the wind!

Meet Libby - Bustin' Waters Lady Liberty MH

Libby has a lot of go in her and I need to be very fast on the whistle!! She loves her birds as much as she does her snuggles with our daughter on the couch! Libby has been in training with Dynamic Retrievers for 2 winter trips and just started running events consistently in 2019. She went 4/4 in Junior, 4/5 in Senior and 5/8 to achieve her Master Title. Libby had just produced a litter of puppies in Winter of 2023 and just after weaning pups one of her mammary glands swelled up, we thought mastitis and began treatment.  After antibiotics did not touch it, we did a biospy and found it was very fast moving cancer and within a couple weeks it had taken control and we had to put Libby to sleep.  May all her birds be pheasant flyers!! RIP Libby!

Meet Grace - Amazing Grace SH

Grace is currently 13+ years old and spends most of her time in the Lazyboy recliner when I am not in it! She leaves plenty of glitter(hair) all over and is so sweet. She was a bit of a trick to run events with as she believed all birds were HERS and had a terrible habit of breaking on the honor bird after smashing the marks and blinds!

Meet Flo - Bustin' Waters Go With the Flo 8/17/2009-2/21/2020

Flo was from a litter I had been watching and wanted to get a puppy! I knew Katie would not like the price on the litter so quietly passed. About 8 months later I found a classified ad for a black female from that litter that didn’t quite have enough drive for the current owner/trainer and wanted to sell her! I hemmed and hawed over the decision to buy her for about a month, well the ad reappeared and I couldn’t pass again. Flo was shipped up on a plane and quickly became my daughter’s favorite as she was much calmer than Grace and Harley.

Meet Casey “Bustin’ Water” Metzger SH 2/23/2003-12/15/2006

Casey was our first purebred Labrador and bought for hunting. When Katie and I got married in 2001 she had a lab/chessie named Abby and I had a Vizsla/Lab named Britney. Abby was gunshy and Britney really didn’t like the cold water duck hunting but did great on pheasants. Casey was 100% Amateur trained and despite my lack of dog training knowledge did very well. I was told about these “fun trials” and decided to give one a try. It was February 2004 and was well below zero that morning, spent all day there and took 3rd place in the puppy, well that was the beginning to the hunt test and field trial obsession!!