Amante has been busy! Seeing she needed time to grow up and mature, Judy decided to "hold her" until she was ready to show. Proving to be an excellent plan we brought her out when she was ready and she went on to easily win her AKC conformation (show) championship title in just 10 weekends of shows. She was shown exclusively by her owners/breeders, Mel Reveles and Judy Hetkowski.

And finishing that conformation title was a HUGE relief. Every time we put Amante down in the field we hold our collective breath and pray she comes back out without an injury. She is a manic in the field. When we're not biting our nails hoping she doesn't take herself out, we've got goosebumps from the intensity and drive she shows in the field. This is her true passion. She IS a bird dog with all sorts of hard-charging style!

In her "puppy" and "derby" years, she only ever ran in 4 trials. Of those, she took 2 placements, one of which was a derby win worth two points toward her Amateur Field Championship (AFC) and Field Championship (FC) titles! Amante has been exclusively owner trained and handled in the field as well.

As Amante's puppy/derby phase came to a close, we started working on steadying her for her upcoming "finished bird dog" competitions. In the coming years, we'll work on getting Amante's AKC Senior and Master Hunter titles as well as running her in gun dog stakes in field trials.

Amante continues to provide us with much needed comic relief using her eyes and ears to deliver and endless combination of messages. We would not laugh half as much as we do if it weren't for Amante.

As she did when she was a just a puppy, Amante still believes in living life BIG and with GUSTO! We wouldn't have it any other way.

Amante is Lola's niece. She was born a little over a month after Lola died. As you can imagine, we weren't in the right place emotionally to think about bringing a puppy home with the grief of losing Lola still so massive. From the beginning, Judy knew Amante was a special girl so she decided not to place her (although there were a couple close calls!). As a pup, Amante reminded Mel of Lola in many ways. After all, genetics are a powerful thing. Judy allowed Amante to stay with us whenever we wanted and needed a little puppy-love. Mel's attachment to Amante came quickly and a strong bond was formed between the two. Amante lightened Mel's grief and through her silly, happy, puppy ways helped Mel start the healing process. Lola's death was traumatic for us both but because she was Aaron's girl, his grieving process took on a different level of intensity. Where Mel found comfort in Amante's resemblance to Lola, Aaron found sadness.

Eventually though, Amante's charms began to work wonders on Aaron too. He began to truly enjoy her visits and the pure affection she offered. With Amante around, we just didn't have a choice but to laugh at her curiosity and antics.

In addition to Amante's awesomely intense personality, she began showing with each training session that she just might make one helluva good bird dog. With that, we decided we couldn't bear to see Amante be placed in home other than ours or Judy and Edj's. So, an idea of "time-sharing" Amante emerged...

Amante will live with, be loved, cared for, and trained by the four people who adore her the most: Judy, Edj, Mel, Aaron. Those who know Amante can appreciate that it takes four of us to keep up with her!

Amante the up-and-coming field star

We've worked Amante on birds a handful of times since she was a pup, but only toward the end of 2007 did we give her more bird contact. Early on Amante showed strong prey drive. As a pup she wasn't eager to hit a point, but was very excited about the birds and even more eager to chase a flushed bird into the next county. As should be the case, we saw her drive steadily increase with each training experience. In Nov 2007 is when the light bulb switched on with her desire to point. Judy and Edj brought their crew to our annual Rend Lake pheasant hunt and Amante was treated to lots of bird scent. Even more importantly, she had the opportunity to work coveys of wild quail. Her first noseful of the quail she slammed into an intense point. It was very cool to see her hit such a stylish point as if she had been doing it since was a little pup. She held while we kicked around trying to flush the birds. Too much kicking and she would decide it was time to come in and help. As you know, this is to be expected in a young dog.

Her Rend Lake experiences really took her to the next level. She continues to thrill us in the field each time we have her out training. She's holding her points now for quite awhile and ranges out very nicely. We were so confident in her range, intense style, and ability to find birds that we decided to enter her in 3 weekends straight of hunt tests and a field trial.

She ran each brace with exactly the gusto we've come to expect from Amante. She qualified easily and completed her Junior Hunter Title in four tests in a row with scores of perfect 10's in her second qualify. In between her hunt tests, I drove to Lincoln, Nebraska with a friend and fellow Vizsla guardian, Janice, to run her in a German Wirehaired Pointer horseback field trial (it was Janice's idea to enter the trial--she was entering her own very talented boy, Monte). I entered her in the Amateur Walking Puppy and Amateur Walking Derby stakes and she came home with a 4th placement in the AWD stake. To say we were thrilled with the placement is an understatement considering she was running against several other derby dogs who had been trained and pushed off horseback.

Keep an eye on this young up-and-coming star. We're confident she'll be bringing home her share of placements!

A very silly Amante "mousing!"

A very intense Amante hunting!