Gun Dog Forum

I have only been around the Miller line of English Pointers and actually have one right now. But, I have read a lot about the Elhew line of dogs from time to time and am not familiar with the Elhew lines as far as temperment, range, nose, size, and etc. The thread about English pointer outcrosses raised my interest. I don't want to start any kind of a feud or fight about which line of dogs is best, I am just curious about the differences between the two lines since my experience is not much to speak of.

DB

Oh boy... You just opened a world into two very different "cults"... Then again, I'm a white-dog guy through and through

I know Ross is lurking somewhere just waiting to pounce on someone on this post.

I am also curious to hear everyone's opinion and experiences with the two different lines. I currently have an 18 month old male that that is 75% Elhew and the other 25% is mostly Miller. This dog seems intellegent, has an excellent attitude, loves to retrieve (land or water), and shows a good nose and will hunt very hard as long as he is down. I can correct this boy for an error in training and immediately after he is high tailed and eager to know what we are doing next. His biggest fault is his over "gunghoness" that I believe will calm down with age.

In reading past articles and forums, I would like to believe he is an example of the Elhew breeding but I have no personal experience with the lines to really know. Since I have started reading this forum, the Miller line appears to be extremely nice also. For all I know, the Miller blood may be shining through on this male. Either way, at times I wonder if it has just as much or more to do with the trainers and the dog's experiences than it does with the specific bloodline.

Thanks

Training I believe has some to do with it but specific bloodlines have to factor in somewhere or breeders would not pick specific lines to keep going back to and to improve on.

I can very well see your point. After all, there has to be talent for the trainers to bring out.

Well, I have had some nice White dogs over the years and hunted over and watched some nice Elhew dogs too. Both lines are popular for a reason and now both bloodlines can be found in a lot of dogs so the variabillity is quite wide, but if you want to narrow this discussion down to "pure" elhew vs "pure" miller, my opinion is the the Miller dogs will be in general a little smaller and a little more variable in there physical conformation and in general the Miller line is an All Age line so range on average will be greater with Miller dogs.......Pure Elhew will be slighly bigger and more robust, with more consistent conformation and they were developed by Bob Welhe to be a Shooting dog line so they will be fancier moving. Miller dogs can be somewhat harder to handle and Elhew dogs can be softer requiring a little more finesse to break...but there are great one in both lines.....In reality both have a common origin, Lexington Jake I believe, who Bob Welhe used at the start of his breeding program and Hoyle eaton's Riggins White Knight is out of a Lexington Stud. Bob did some crosses out of his Elhews to Hooks bounty hunter and Red water rex that he deemed very successful. HBH goes back to
Riggins White Knight and Red Water Rex's Dam was a littermate to Riggins White Knight. I know this stuff cuz I just bred a @#!*% I got from Hoyle 6 years ago to a linebred Fibber McGee dog. Before I finalized my decision to go with this stud I started looking into RWK/Elhew crosses and this is what I discovered. Here is what that looks like so far....Note...Puppy ranglin is a DANGEROUS job

The Breeder
Name alone does not make a quality bred dog

I have seen some breedings where a person spews out elhew names on their puppies pedigree which would make Whele roll in his grave and puke

In "vague" generalities...totally my opinion...if you want to add some style, high tail and handle - breed to an Elhew. if you want to ad run and some nails find a well bred Miller dog. That is a BIG generality. I agree that Millers are well known AA dogs and Elhew are great Shooting dogs. Again, BIG generality.

Seems that there are characteristics that people like in one breed (or line). I was curious as to the differences because my knowledge is limited to a few dogs, but what my white dog has shown me so far I like the Miller dogs, but that could change if I get around Elhew strains. Thanks for answering my questions.

How long have you had your white dog?

I have had him for a little over a year. He's 1.5 years old. I have to say that I think he believes he's GSP since that's the dogs he lives with. In fact the the other dogs tease him about his long tail.

Gentlemen,
You have pointed out the differences in the Elhew and the Miller as far as Ft games and Quail hunting, but the dogs in the Grouse woods are quite different when compared. The Miller dogs I have trained, that came thru Warriors Mark are usually a little bigger and very very strong, they adapt quickly to the Grouse woods and work quite well with their companion hunters, they retrieve downed Grouse on land and water very very well. They turn into Grouse hunting machines in a matter of months. The Elhew is a different kind of dog in the woods, the dogs I have trained are not as big or as powerful as the Miller dogs from Warriors Mark, they do not have the manners of a Miller dog, are somewhat spooky in the Grouse woods and work more out of control until they mature fully, their instinctive retrieving skills are weak. Both dogs find birds very well, however it took the Elhew dogs longer to adapt to the Grouse hunting discipline than the Miller. In fact one of my clients owns both aminals, the dogs got out one day, without their E-Collars, while he was at work. Took me 15 minutes to bring the Miller dog in, took 3 days to bring the Elhew home. The dogs were almost identical ages and had been trained in identical fashion, for hunting in the Grouse woods both here in Pa and NH were he goes each season. The man loves both animals dearly, but he has seen the differences in the dogs and knows the differences in the dogs
when they are hunting in the big Grouse woods. As the dogs have aged the Elhew has become a very good Grouse finder but no match for the Miller with its downed bird finding skill and instinctive retrieving ability. I know another older man who lives up in Ligoneer who has an Elhew that is larger and less spooky, hunts like a machine,
finds downed birds very well, and retrieves decently. The Elhew dogs seem to vary greatly in the Grouse woods, where all the Miller dogs seem to be constant in the Grouse woods. This may very well be because of the different breeds who supply Warriors Mark with the dogs.
RGD/Dave

Dave haw can this be, i mean miller dogs are the biggest running dogs out there today.not many Elhews get to Ames.Where does this fall in gentic imprint,im just asking.

I have both.. My Miller female has more tenacity, than my Elhew's. My Elhew's are more social with both humans and other dogs than my Miller. My Elhew's look better on point than my Miller, but at the end of an extrememly demanding day afield, my Miller is hunting every last inch of cover, when the Elhew's are seriously draggin butt. I like em both, each has their positive and negative traits. However I'd hafta say I'm an Elhew man thru and thru.

Funny My Miller handles like a dream, I had a elhew that would run to the moon and back if he could have......
My Miller dog is a lover, he is at home in the house and just loves people, that elhew dog liked his head patted
but otherwise he was more of a loner than my white dog.....

personal experience if very general unless one has seen a mess o dogs.

What kind of pointer bloodline would a person go to for a 75 to 100 yard range dog at most.I'm not talking that stuff about handling him to hold him in at that range,I'm talking a pointer that naturally hunts at a close range.I'm also not talking about that 1 pup out of a litter of big running dogs that just happened to hunt close.What I am getting at is there a bloodline to look for that consistantly produces a fairly close working,time and time again without the risk of getting a big runner?-Seriously not baiting anyone by posing this,I am honestly interested.I have mainly always been a setter man,but I have always liked watching an intense pointer point.I would in the future like to try a pointer,but I have absolutely no use for a big running dog.I could steer a guy on what to look for in a setter,but wouldn't know where to start for the natural range tendancies I spoke of in a pointer.Is there such a thing?

Try some AKC show dogs.

Red,
I know what you are saying about some of todays Miller dog, but the Miller dogs we are getting thru Warriors Mark seem to be a bigger than normal male Miller dog,
and genetically I can not explain this what so ever, they seem to be a throw back. I know most of you gentlemen who own both these dogs, hunt Quail or play FT games, I can only tell you what I have seen the dogs due, here in the northern Grouse woods, and the dogs seem to be acting somewhat differently in the big woods. As was stated also the Elhew dogs are very quick but after pushing thru snow in the mountains the Miller dog is still hunting strong, and the Elhew is sleeping in the cage until it regenerates itself. The Miller dogs we have trained for Grouse hunting are very loving dogs you can keep in your house, play with the kids and get under moms feet maybe to much. Once in the Grouse woods they become Grouse hunting machines, who love to hunt with their masters, they are very much like the old Miller dogs you once saw in Millers training videos, working with Miller as he shot bird after bird, as the dogs retrieved directly to his hand. I believe Birddog 68 has one of these Miller dogs from his latest post.
RGD/Dave

Dave, I am a Miller fan and like following this thread. I do not see any Miller (and only a little Elhew through the Front N' Center female) on the http://www.warriorsmark.com/kennels.htm site. When you say "...dogs we are getting thru Warriors Mark" are you referring to ones they breed? Or are they just going out and buying certain dogs to train and sell? Maybe I have the wrong site (would not surprise me) Don't get me wrong, I am on the White team, just am very interested to see these grouse dogs you reference.

Dave I was wondering the same thing, How much miller are we talking,.....That is why I say Pure Miller, like a bitch I had years ago was MIller top and bottom for 3 generations back....The elhews I saw were the same way Elhew from Bob Welhe top and bottom 3 generations back. Even in the pure strains you will get variabillity, but in general I would stand by my experiences.

I see more elhew pointers in the woods than any other lines but that can probably said about foot hunters everywhere.

what we have to remember is alot of breeders are saying there dogs are elhew breed and when you look at the pedigree there are only a couple of elhew dogs in 4 generations.

where as with miller bred dogs the man that made the line famous still has some influence on the best breedings coming out of that line.

just a thought

Gentlemen,
I am not on any team so to speak, I like both dogs very much. I am just relating what I have witnessed 1st hand, in the Grouse woods. In reality I do not know where Warriors Mark is bringing there dogs in from. I do not think they are breeding the dogs themselves, the owners I have worked with have some serious Grouse dogs, and please do not think I am putting down on either dog, as I indicated before they are both fantstic, just a little different. At this point if I had to choose one to put into my home Kennel I would choose the MIller dogs I have seen.
This does not mean all Miller dogs are going to act exactly like the ones we have trained, long ago I owned a Miller dog when I was in the military at Ft Hood, it was almost identical to the dogs Warriors Mark has been supplying, but it was not quite as big and powerful. Our Miller gun dog lived in our home with our real German Weimar and they got along beautifully. Of course the Weimar was bigger and much morre powerful than the Miller Pointer, both were male dogs and behaved themsleves quite well.
Having worked with many different breeds of dogs I tend to own certain kinds of gun dogs, all must be of very high quality for me to keep in my home kennel. Both of these Pointer dogs could fit into my home kennel without any trouble what so ever.
RGD/Dave

Wow this is the kind of information that I've been looking for. Thanks for all the responses. I figure I should post a picture of the dog that started all this. This is Doc on point last season when he had just turned one year.


This is Doc honing in on a pigeon during a training season last summer.

Cimarron,
Looks like your white dog is pretty fair sized.
RGD/Dave

Dave,

That is really interesting. Elhew bred dogs have excelled a lot in the grouse woods for many years. I just had 2 young dogs out of white stuff(I won't name the sire), but they were the worst two dogs i've ever had. I had to show them the same thing over and over. Zero brains!!!! They didn't have guts at all. While working out in the sandhills for a week the white dogs gave up on me. It was unreal. I got them thinking, they'll be tough with a lot of bottom. Couldn't have been more wrong.

With this question, one must consider what % of Elhew and Miller you are talking. My Elhew dogs are about as Elhew as there is out there. And these Miller dogs were as white as you can get.

When getting opinions on bloodlines from people you must find out if, just because Miller's White Powder was a great great grandsire, that doesn't make the dog a white dog. Or the same with Elhew stuff. JMO

A lot of interesting info though.

Vagas Mathiesen
Nella Kennels

ElhewPointer wrote:When getting opinions on bloodlines from people you must find out if, just because Miller's White Powder was a great great grandsire, that doesn't make the dog a white dog. Or the same with Elhew stuff.

Good point Vegas. This is like comparing a Tahoe to an Explorer. Put some time in and go see for yourselves what you like. Do not stop after one visit. See 10 Elhews run and 10 Millers run - from DIFFERENT breeders. Then YOU decide. Try telling Bruce Minard that Elhews do not do good in the woods. I'd pay to hear that conversation! Actually Bruce has a nice nick of both Miller and Elhew.

Vegas,
I sure understand what you are getting at, and for sure I did not review the pedigrees, and I do not know the actual breeders who supplied the animals.
However I do believe they came from the lines that were identified.

PntrRookie,
I fully agree with you, Bruce can come to the Grouse Camp any time he wishes, I would love to see each of his Pointer lines work in our Pa Grouse woods.

RGD/Dave

Any breeding in any line can throw duds....I suspect the breeding with the dud white dogs won't be repeated.

No bottom certainly isn't a miller trait.

I have had overall really good experiences with the Miller dogs. I haven't found them to be the biggest running dogs out there like some have expressed. I have found them to be very intelligent and pretty biddable. I know that hunters and walking trialers bought many of Ferrel's pups because they could get a handle on them, this threw off the highly touted number of pups produced versus number of winners produced argument that you will hear. They could adapt and be trained for several different types of hunting and trialing. I think their best traits are front running, intelligence and bird finding. Some of them haven't been the prettiest on point with an "S" in their tail and getting low in front and not everybody likes the looks of an all white dog.
I like the looks of some Elhew dogs, my current favorite has several Elhew crosses and she was overall easy to train and very easy to handle, she is soft and this made her tough to force break to retrieve. I would like her tougher and finding more birds but I am not easy to please. I haven't seen many of the more current dogs with Hanna's Elhew Lou breeding but they have obviously changed the line and the way they are percieved. In my area at one time there were Elhew Damascus/Fiddler's Ace cross dogs winning walking trials, guiding and hunting dogs that were nice. It appears that the best Elhew dogs have been bred recently and by someone other than Bob Wehle. My young pup is line bred Addition's Go Boy and Fiddler with several crosses to both, we shall see how this goes.

So I see that some general traits most people agree with in these two strains of EPs. I see that Addition's Go Boy other dogs witht the prefix Addition's in the pedigrees. What are the traits of these dogs that make them so appealing opposed to Elhew and Miller lines? Great responses by the way thank you.

up-hunter wrote:what we have to remember is alot of breeders are saying there dogs are elhew breed and when you look at the pedigree there are only a couple of elhew dogs in 4 generations.

where as with miller bred dogs the man that made the line famous still has some influence on the best breedings coming out of that line.

just a thought

I can see where some breeders might take offense to the aforementioned rash generalization in the opening quoted line. I'll leave it at that.

As far as still having influence, Ferrell Miller does, yes.. Bob Wehle is dead, not alot he can do about that.

I didn't mean to bring down anybodies breeding program and i have no problem with breeders who say they are building their programs off of the elhew program but claiming to be breeding elhew dogs is a different thing all together. I didn't mean to offend anybody.

I will say that there are many fine breeders breeding elhew type dogs or elhew prefix dogs.

up-hunter wrote: I didn't mean to offend anybody.

up-hunter wrote:I will say that there are many fine breeders breeding elhew type dogs or elhew prefix dogs.

None taken. And, yes there are many reputable kennels out there raising Elhew Bred dogs, Miller dogs, whathaveyou.

BTW, my brood matron has 20 Elhew PREFIX's in her 4 generations. She's an ok girl... thrown'n them meat dogs.

I stand corrected. (17) HOF NC Elhew Snakefoot, Fibber McGee and Kiwi are there twice.

DB,
I like a little variety in the kennels and my old Fiddler/Evolultion dog has gotten old. I wanted to try a Fiddler/Additions dog to take her spot in the rotation. I have found these lines tougher against the elements and sometimes tougher to train and handle. When the conditions are sand burrs, goat heads or freezing rain that ole girl was still going strong. Last year I guided the Youth Hunt for the local Pheasant Forever chapter, guided a few after season preserve hunts and hunted in four states. This presented many different challenges, terrain and weather conditions.

sounds like you have some really nice elhew bred pointers

"Elhew breeders" is a moot point. Everyone's opinion is different. I have quite a few "Elhew" bred dogs in my kennel. Even have Elhew prefixes in my kennel. Bob's dead, so is Elhew.

ElhewPointer,
Yep Bob and George are both dead, but everytime I see a dog in the Grouse woods from either of their great linage families, I know instantly where the dogs came from.
Glad Ferrell is still around to help supply the good stuff also. There are certain dogs that no matter where you are in the world, especially when you are Grouse hunting,
that sooner or later those Kennel names come up in converstation, and its usually, have you ever owned a Miller, Elhew or Ryman dog, did you ever get to Grouse hunt behind one. Yea Bob and George are both dead but what they both left for us, lives on even in the newest pups.

RGD/Dave

I agree 100% Dave. There are Elhew infuenced dogs, and some dang good ones. I like to think I have a few. But, for example, Matt Stucky(Oakcreek) bred his beautiful Elhew bred female to my Elhew bred champion. Produced a beautiful litter that I think both of those men would be proud of. However, without there eye for breeding practices, we can't call them "Elhew" dogs. Just my opinion.

It seems that at the end of the day each and Elhew or Miller strain of dog have certain charcteristics people prefer. I need to hold off preferring one strain over another because my experience is limited. The most important thing is that if the guy feeding and hunting with the dog is happy that's what matters the most.

I've been told my dog is a Miller dog, but I don't believe he is. Not really concerned about it. He does what I ask of him, and he does it well. I've never heard the term "white dog" as referring to a Miller dog, we just always called him 'white dog' because he *is*. He is bomb-proof, though. .. and if you let the 'reins' out on him, he'll run big. Sometimes he runs into town to check out what's happening, ... then he comes back after he's rolled in horse crap happy as a clam.

I picked him up for $200.00. He's the best dog I've ever owned and trained.

Pedigree is in the signature.

Nice looking dog. I am impressed with how he is built. I would have to say that $200 was well Spent. Does he retrieve?

Yes, he does. I didn't encourage it until the middle of last year. If he is pumped up, working in the field he will do so. When he is at home, he knows he is not allowed to touch my poultry... or I'll wring his neck!
ETA: He'll water retrieve, as well.

QuailHollow wrote:I've been told my dog is a Miller dog, but I don't believe he is. Not really concerned about it. He does what I ask of him, and he does it well. I've never heard the term "white dog" as referring to a Miller dog, we just always called him 'white dog' because he *is*. He is bomb-proof, though. .. and if you let the 'reins' out on him, he'll run big. Sometimes he runs into town to check out what's happening, ... then he comes back after he's rolled in horse crap happy as a clam.

I picked him up for $200.00. He's the best dog I've ever owned and trained.

Pedigree is in the signature.

I would say he is more Elhew than anything, not enough Miller in there to call him a miller dog in my opinion. Really doesn't even look like like a miller dog to me. No need to be concerned either As long as you like him who care what the papers say