1771 Roble Grande RD 
Alpine, CA 91901 
(619) 659-9393 
(619) 659-5966 (fax) 
Email: marysarmiento@sandiegosportingdogclub.org

GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING
Wednesday, February 10th
7:00PM
Animal Medical Center
600 Broadway, El Cajon

Bob Smith from the San Diego County Wildlife Federation will be our guest speaker.

Training Day at Sarmiento's
We will be focusing on yard training without birds.
Saturday, February 13th
22050 Japatul Rd. 

Shoot to Retrieve
Saturday , February 20th
Hollenbeck

Turkey Tune-up
Saturday, February 27th
Lake Sutherland

Sporting Clays Shoot
Sunday, February 28th
Lemon Grove Rod & Gun Club
see their website for details.

Ronnie Smith Seminar
March 5-7
Details in this newsletter.

GSP Club of San Diego AKC Hunt Test
March 6-7
German Shorthair Pointer Club Premium PDF Link

Trained Retrieve Seminar with Sharon Potter
April 16-17-18
Details in this newsletter.

Upcoming Events

Location: Sarmiento's, 22050 Japatul Rd (on the corner of Japatul Rd and Lyons Valley Rd) 8AM.  The focus will be on yard work (obedience, check cording, whoa post, e-collar conditioning). There is also room to throw bumpers, so we can work on retrieving too.

RSVP to Mary at 619-659-9393 or mary.sarmiento@sbcglobal.net 
I would like to get an idea of how many people are going to attend. 

Shoot to Retrieve - Saturday, February 20th
Location: Hollenbeck, 8AM.  $65 entry fee.  Rooster pheasant to be used.  Contact Mary and let her know what dogs you will be running and what gauge shotgun you will be using.  Those wishing to volunteer please also contact Mary.
RSVP to Mary at 619-659-9393 or mary.sarmiento@sbcglobal.net  

First let me clarify by saying that the seminars are not geared towards dogs that have a lot to learn, they are geared towards dog handlers that have a lot to learn. Both seminars are geared to teach you how to teach the dog. They are both interactive in that you bring your dog and handle your dog through each exercise under the guidance of Ronnie or Sharon.

The Ronnie Smith Seminar is a 2-day seminar (Friday evening introduction, full day Sat, and full day Sunday). He starts out by teaching you to be the alpha, the chain gang, the command lead, then goes on to check cording and overlaying an e-collar, to the whoa post, and then touches only slightly on the force fetch. It has been held in the past at Rancho Jamul. It is going to be held on March 5th - 7th. The cost is $350.00. You can find all the info on www.huntsmith.com

The Sharon Potter seminar is 100% the trained retrieve, or force fetch. We set up 3 training tables here in my yard. It’s you, the dog, and Sharon. There is a Friday evening introduction then it’s all day Sat, and all day Sunday. Cost is $350.00. The seminar dates are April 16, 17, 18th. The timing is perfect for the summers around here. Since the training is scaled down due to the heat, foxtails, and snakes, we do all of our force fetching during the summer. There is more information about the process on her website at www.redbrachkennels.net

The annual Turkey Tune-Up sponsored by the San Diego Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation and the City of San Diego is set for Feb. 27 at Lake Sutherland. There will be seminar speakers, vendors and a lottery for turkey hunts at Sutherland. A game warden will explain hunting regulations and rules. John Massie will talk about where the turkeys are located these days. There will be turkey hunting and calling seminars, a Jakes calling contest and a raffle. Hunters may sight in their shotguns or bows on two ranges. Check sandiegoturkey.com.

Recent Events

SDSDC Banquet was held January 16th at Seau's. The banquet was a lot of fun and a great success. Two foundation members, Casey Kurpiel and Frank Bell graced us with their presence. It is always good to see them! Mary & Steve Sarmiento brought a slide show of old SDSDC pictures that was very entertaining. We had some great raffle prizes donated by members. The General Raffle was ran differently and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Special thanks go out to some members who helped make this a success:

Mary Sarmiento
Steve Sarmiento
Wendy Greenwell
Rick Greenwell
Rich Vergara
Donald Flanagan
Pam Felgenhauer

A really big thanks to Lenice Lopez who donated the cake!

The SDSDC would also like to thank the following members and companies that donated raffle prizes to this years banquet.

The San Diego Sporting Dog Club held a shoot to retrieve on Saturday, January 30th, 2010

First Place finishers Bill Cox and Scout work the field

We had a good turnout for our first Shoot to Retrieve of the year with the following members and their dogs making runs. 

Bill Cox with Trip
Rick Greenwell with Gretta
Mike Moran with Roxi
Mike Linville with Kaia
Ed Marr with Koda
Mike Moran with Katie
Rick Greenwell with Sophie
Bill Cox with Scout
Pam Felgenhauer with Decoy
Bryan Bonas with Roxy
Ron Dotson with Josie
Randy Domingos with Wyatt
Mary Sarmiento with Jag
John Segoria with Dakota
Jimmie Phillips with Rio
Rich Vergara with Boomer
Dan Denhart with Tika
James Reichstadt with Ember
Mike Moran with Annie
Matt Johnson with Buck 

                                                                             Mike Moran and Roxy
Results

First Place: Bill Cox & Scout 3 birds 3 shots Time 6:33

Second Place: Bill Cox & Trip 3 birds 3 shots Time 7:20

Third Place: Mike Moran & Roxi 3 birds 7 shots Time 9:25

Bill Cox and Trip	Thanks to all the participates who also volunteered to make the event a success and a special thanks to Steve Sarmiento, Chris Logan, his sons and Steve and Dora Rameriz who did not run dogs but took the time to volunteer for the event.
	Wyatt and Friend
James Reichstadt with Ember
	Matt Johnson with Buck

You will soon be getting raffle tickets in the mail for our annual gun raffle. This year we are raffling off the following two guns; one 12 gauge and one 20 gauge. They are as follows:

Remington SPR310 Over/Under Walnut stock 28" barrel 4 chokes Auto selective ejector Chrome lined bore Vent rib Additional details will follow.

Matt Johnson was approved as a member by the Board of Directors at the SDSDC banquet January 16th. 

Biff Ellington's membership application was approved by the Board of Directors at their February 6th meeting.  Mr. Ellington is a previous member of the SDSDC.

SDSDC Trailer Repaired

The club would like to thank Steve Sarmiento for the repair work he did on the club trailer.
Thanks Steve!

Volunteers are needed for the competition rules committee.

Rick Greenwell is heading this committee to update our rules for our competitive events.  Our bylaws dictate that the committee must consist of at least three members.  Chris Logan has volunteered but we need at least one more member.  Please contact Rick if your interested in helping out.

Membership Dues

Your 2010 Membership dues delinquent after February 15th. If you haven’t paid your dues already, please do so and join us for another year of fun with the dogs. 

Newsletter and Website

You may have noticed the newsletter has changed a bit. I’ll do my best to make future issues informative, fun and accurate. Any suggestions for improvements will always be welcome. Contributions of articles are encouraged but I reserve the right to edit as needed. 

The Newsletter will be published prior to the monthly general meeting in PDF format and posted on the website where it can be downloaded, and delivered via email to all current members. If you do not have a computer or email I can mail a paper copy to you. Paper copies will be sent out prior to the General Meeting, delivery time is completely dependant on the USPS and I make do guarantees you will have it prior to the General meeting. The club does also have additional costs for newsletters and postage, as the newsletter grows so do the costs. Because of this I encourage all members that have a computer to use the electronic version. I have set up a Gmail account for the sole purpose of delivering the newsletter. All current members that have been getting the newsletter via email were sent the newsletter in January via the Gmail account. If you did not get the January newsletter please contact me at doktari@cox.net and I’ll get it sorted out. Those members that have been receiving paper copies already do not need to contact me unless they did not receive their January newsletter.

I encourage you to use the Classifieds in the newsletter. Please email any submission and include how many issues you would like the ad to run. You are welcome to resubmit an item after it expires, it’s up to you to renew. Please let me know if you sell your item so I can delete your ad.

I commend all of our members who worked on the Newsletter and Website in the past. It is a large commitment of time and effort to generate and maintain these projects. Our website has grown over the years with various different tools being used to create it. For the most part it worked fairly well for the user. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well for the administrator. After spending 4 hours trying to get the Board Members page changed it became obvious an update was needed. 

A new website will be up shortly. It will continue to be under construction over the next few weeks but will be useable. The site will have the same feel as our old site but is different in many ways. Our old photo gallery will be all that is original from the old site. Although difficult to update, it works good and would be way too much trouble to change. Joining our existing internal links will be a members area that will house our bylaws, event rules, an event calendar, our pre-existing photo gallery and our new event photo gallery. When complete the content of the Members Only area will be password protected for use by current members of the SDSDC giving additional value to your membership that non-members do not enjoy. We have some excellent photographers in the club so I’ve created a featured gallery outside the members area in the public site. This will be used for high quality photos of our dogs, events and members. This will give the public and prospective members a good feel for what we’re about and generate some interest in the club. Once all the pages are up I’ll have all the templates ready to go for the site and we can easily update the look of the site or make further changes mid year. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Minutes from the SDSDC Board of Directors meeting held February 6th 2010.

Present were Mary Sarmiento, Rick Greenwell, Wendy Greenwell, Randy Domingos, Ron Dotson and Joe Artes.  Pam Felgenhauer, Bill Cox and Ernie Lopez were unable to attend.

Old Business

The 2010 Banquet
With few exceptions the 2010 SDSDC banquet was a success.  The exceptions being the manager at Seau's split the room in half for the playoffs even though Seau's event manager had made sure we would have the full room.  If we decide to use Seau's next year we will schedule our event for a different date to avoid the playoffs or seek a new venue for the banquet.

February General Membership Meeting
Bob Smith from the San Diego County Wildlife Federation was confirmed as our guest speaker.

Rules Committee
There is no update from the Rules Committee at this time.  Committee members are still needed.

Gun Raffle
The club will be purchasing two Remington SP310 O/U shotguns for the gun raffle.  One 12 GA., one 20 GA.  Cost will be $420 each plus fees.  The guns will be purchased when our bank issues are resolved.

Birds
Steve Sarmiento has been directed by the B.O.D. to locate and obtain our birds for 2010 and 2011.  Our first choice is for pheasant for our Fall Classic and chukar for training birds.  The birds will be purchased when our bank issues are resolved.

Bird Boxes
Our replacement bird boxes will be purchased when our bank issues are resolved.

Website
Our updated website will be up before our February general meeting.  The online application form will be replaced by a printable PDF and directed to Pam, our membership chairman.  The new site will not be fully updated for for a few more weeks but will include a calendar, our bylaws and various updates.  Once up, members are encouraged to offer suggestions for changes for the future.

Safety Shoot
Lemon Grove Rod and Gun Club does not have many open dates for the Safety Shoot.  Rick will let the board know when a date is available.  Possibly in April.

Newsletter
Future newsletters will be published as close to the first of each month as possible.  The events calendar will include upcoming AKC hunt test information.

New Business

Membership
A vote was taken to approve Biff Elingtons membership.  All B.O.D. present voted yes.

Bank Account
Pam and Wendy went to Bank of America to transfer Wendy onto the bank account.  After being told Mary would have to be present, Mary then drove to the bank and then they were told a letter was needed from the club secretary to add Wendy to the account.  This is not the first problem the club has had with B of A.  They seem to not know what they're doing or care if they have our business.

The following action was taken by the B.O.D. to resolve this problem.  A letter was composed and signed by Randy Domingos, club secretary, instructing B of A to include Wendy on the signature card.  Mary, Wendy and Pam looked into other banks as an option to move the account.  A motion was made to open an account at Point Loma Credit Union.  As per our bylaws all members of the executive committee will be authorized signers.  All checks will require two signatures.  Our funds will be transferred to Pt. Loma Credit Union but we will maintain the B of A account until we are certain we are happy with the change to Pt. Loma.  This will be a priority as the club has major purchases that need to be finalized.  A vote was taken and all B.O.D. present voted yes.

Shoot to Retrieve
At the suggestion of some of our general members a Shoot to Retrieve was added for February 20th.

Membership Bylaws
The Bylaws were discussed concerning junior members.  The question being should junior members be allowed to join the club as long as he/she had a club sponsor or mentor.  It was decided that the best way for a junior member to join the club was to have his parents join as a family member as allowed in our bylaws.  Allowing juniors to join individually would require a meeting with an attorney to sort the legal ramifications and an amendment to the bylaws.

The next B.O.D meeting will held March 3rd, 7PM at the Greenwells house.

Treasurers Report

For 1/1/10 - 2/5/10

Over the years I’ve explored much of our public lands in the southwest. One of my favorites is the Panamint Mountains on the western edge of Death Valley. The majority of the area is governed by the BLM with the top of the mountains being inside the Death Valley National Monument. Before I go on let me say that this is a very remote, isolated area that offers many dangers. There is no cellular service. From the top of the mountain the nearest phone is over an hour away in Trona. The nearest hospital or vet is over an hour and a half away in Ridgecrest. The Jeep trail up Pleasant Canyon climbs over 6000’ in 8 miles so it’s very steep with lots of opportunities to cut a tire on sharp rocks. Be sure to air down your tires. Full size trucks with 4x4 can make up there in low range but will have a much harder time than a mid sized 4x4. If you try to take your car up here you will not be coming home. I always travel with a second vehicle when I go. This year the second vehicle broke on top of the mountain. The clutch master cylinder failed. When this happens up there you have to fix it yourself. We lost a full day pulling the part, driving to Ridgecrest to buy the new part and replacing it. It could be your vehicle that breaks so I strongly recommend you go with a buddy up the mountain.

This is one of my favorite areas for camping and hunting so if I’ve scared you from going my work here is done.

Now for the fun stuff. If you decide to go you can stay in Ridgecrest, park your RV in the ghost town of Ballarat for a small fee, or park your RV or camp off of Indian Ranch Rd outside of Ballarat on BLM land for free. The other option is to stay at the World Beater cabin in Pleasant Canyon. It’s a BLM Adopt-A-Cabin available for public use on a first come first served basis. The wooden cabin offers Spartan accommodations with a nice wood burning stove (bring your own wood), a table and an outhouse. Bring everything you need to camp and don’t forget mousetraps.

To get to Pleasant Canyon follow the sign east out of Ballarat. After a quarter mile or so you’ll come to a split in the road. The right fork is the low route that takes you directly through the canyon. The trail eventually goes through a spring with running water and heavy brush that will scrape the side of your vehicle for a couple hundred yards. The left fork is Very steep and reconnects after the main part of the canyon after the stream, so pick your poison.

Once your past the stream chukar can be anywhere along the route. There are some ruins of an old mining mill site and the mountainside to the north can be climbed if you’re extremely fit and want to look for birds. The birds really like the rocky hillsides. The footing is treacherous for man and dog. If your dog goes without boots it’s just a matter of time until he injures a foot so go prepared.

We hunted large coveys of chukar everyday. You have to go searching for them but they’re there. Shots are long so a full choke worked best. Some birds held there position if you used a hawk call to scare them. When spotting birds from the vehicle keep the dog controlled while you prepare for your hunt. The birds usually will not fly until your first shot; they’ll just run up the mountain. After the first shot, birds fly in all directions. Wyatt was best used for retrieving although he has found birds hunkered down in the past. The birds really like to feed in the bottom of the canyon and will come back down after a while. It’s possible to quietly wait for them if you wish. There is a second spring at the top of the mountain just outside the Death Valley Boundary. This is also a good spot for birds. Do not hunt inside the boundary, it’s illegal.

The World Beater Cabin surrounded by chukar country.

Pleasant Canyon is part of a loop through the mountains that drops back down to Panamint Dry Lake. The loop is a favorite of Jeep guys and motorcyclists. The loop is very rugged and dangerous. Once you enter the pinion forest at the top of Pleasant Canyon you’ll find Rita’s Cabin. Don’t go beyond that point. Return back down Pleasant Canyon. Because this is a multiple use area and very popular, your hunt will be disturbed by other vehicles. Weekends are the worst. Keep an eye on your dog, Pot Licker, the dog at the store in Ballarat came walking out of the mountains. If your dog gets lost up there he may not be so lucky. Early chukar season has many hunters up there and the snakes are still out so be careful.

Wyatt and his days catch.

Happy Hunting!

If you would like to share a hunt or hunting area with fellow club members please email Randy Domingos at doktari@cox.net

An easy, delicious, and sure fire recipe that can utilize quail, chukar, pheasant, or a combination. Boil cleaned birds (quail 6 min, chukar 8 min, pheasant 10 min) in water, debone, and cut into desired sized pieces. In a slow cooker, combine meat, onion, oil, garlic, broth, diced tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. Cook in slow cooker on high 1 hour, then on low for 4-5 hours. Add can of beans and can of corn 30 minutes prior to serving. If desired, top off individual servings with sour cream and shredded Mexican four-cheese blend. Makes 6-8 servings.

3 boiled, de-boned & chopped chukar (can substitute 2 pheasants or ~ 5 quail)
1 medium onion, diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
3 1/2 cups chicken or turkey broth
1 (10 oz) can diced tomatoes and green chilies
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (15 oz) can chili beans
1 (11 oz) can yellow corn with red & green bell peppers, drained

Using a crock-pot I followed Jess’s recipe with the only deviations being fresh bell pepper and I used a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes with garlic since my market did not have tomatoes with peppers. I used pheasant since I brought two fresh ones home from the Shoot to Retrieve.

This recipe is awesome! I give it a 10 out of 10. The cheese and sour cream topping pushes it over the top. With side dishes of corn bread and a green salad it makes for a great meal.

Thanks Jess!

If you would like to share a recipe please email Randy Domingos - doktari@cox.net 

E-Collars Information:
If you are thinking about getting an e-collar, go to this link
  www.gundogsupply.com/dog-training-collars-buyers-guide.html 
for a lot of  information.

Training Opportunities:
Pam and Mary are holding obedience classes in Alpine, North County and Lakeside. Basic obdedience for puppies and adults, behavior issues, rescuced dogs, AKC Canine Good Citizen classes and Puppy Star classes. Also availbe for private in home lessons. Call for details 619-659-9393 or 619-442-5354 or email muscat54@gmail.com.

Dog Portraits (and other art):
Have your best friend and hunting partner immortalized in a commissioned painting. Visit the website of SDSDC member Ron Dotson.
  www.rondotson.com

For your shooting needs:
Hi-Pass Sports 2435 Alpine Blvd #B Alpine, CA 619 445-4039. 
  www.hipasssports.com

FOR SALE: English Setter Puppies, 4 males born 8/1/09, Orange and White, current shots, de-wormed, dew claws removed.  Field Dog registered.  $100 OBO each to good homes.  Contact Cindy Toothacre 858-663-2234 or email - ctooth@sdcda.org

FOR SALE: Command Leads and Leather Collars – Call Steve Sarmiento for details. 619-701-2089

FOR SALE: SportDog ProHunter 2500 e-collar with 1 ½ mile range. Retail: $299. Discounted to SDSDC members. Call Steve Sarmiento 619-701-2089

FOR SALE: Rooster Pheasant training birds for sale $15.00. Contact Steve Sarmiento at 619-659-9393

© 2010 San Diego Sporting Dog Club, Inc. All Rights Reserved.