About Us
We use German Shorthaired Pointers and German Longhaired Pointers for everything from falconry to wildfowling, stalking, rough and driven shooting and picking up. Both breeds are superb game finders and pointers, as well as being excellent retrievers both on land and in water.
Our love of dogs and working dogs especially, goes back as far as we can both remember. As soon as we were married we bought our first puppy. He was an adorable cocker spaniel. Although not from a working line he did a passable job and loved to carry home the odd rabbit that was shot on a local dairy farm where David helped with the rabbit control.
When rough shooting became a bigger part of our leisure and the old cocker was getting on a bit, it was time to have another dog. The ideal opportunity presented itself when David was due to be away on a training course for six months. The plan was that I would train a new puppy for the start of the shooting season, by which time David would be home during the week again and he would have a trained dog that winter.
I had in mind a Labrador or a Retriever, but David had been reading about the Hunt, Point and Retrieve breeds that were becoming popular with rough shooters and he wanted one. In the Shooting Times I found an advert for a German Shorthaired Pointer and although there were no puppies from that litter left, I was given the name and phone number of a breeder in Essex.
So after a few phone calls we went off to Saffron Waldon to look at two 10 week old puppies that were for sale. I rather fancied the dog, but David preferred the bitch. We came home that day the proud owners of Feltimores Red Poll, or Jess as we called her.
We soon found out you simply can't train an HPR dog in just 6 months and when David came back from his course, Eileen was doing so well with the new love in her life that he wanted one of his own. Trolanda Common Tern, or Jenner, the daughter of Show and Field Trial Champion parents, Sire Swifthouse Tufty and Dam Mathams Dark Claret of Trolanda, joined the family. All four of us went to training classes and considerable success followed.
David took over the field work with Jess and she was awarded a third place in the first trial that either David or the dog had been to. Eileen was awarded a first with Jenner the year after; also the first field trial either had ever been to. That was the start of many field trial awards for Questor dogs.
Feltimores Red Poll (Jess)
Niki puts another grouse in the bag
Jenner retrieving a goose
"McNabbed" - Orrin does it again.
Working GSP's opened new doors and introduced much loved and interesting friends who all share that one passion, both here in England and on the Continent. A trip to Holland to watch some Field Trials in the late eighties gave us the opportunity to see dogs of all the Hunt, Point, and Retrieve breeds and in particular introduced us to the German Longhaired Pointer.
We were fortunate enough to meet the owners of some of the top working Longhairs and very soon we were making enquiries about importing our first dogs. The Kennel Club were quite properly not in a hurry to register another breed and it was not until 1997 that Longhairs were accepted.
Our First bitch came over in April 1996. She was Iris V.D. Kreppelse Heidi, a Dutch Field Trial Champion and she was in whelp by a Belgian Champion, Mannix Van't Marrehof. She had 8 puppies, two of which were Anna Hollandse of Questor and Alfie Netherlandse of Questor. This was the start of the Questor German Longhaired Pointers.
Anna Hollandse of Questor
Alfie Netherlandse of Questor
The puppies came out of quarantine when they were seven weeks old but Iris had to stay for another four months. She came home on 15th October 1996 and the next day, as a special treat, we took her out shooting. She pointed bird after bird but as we only wanted to shoot cock birds the hens were left. She looked a bit disgusted when they were not shot for her but managed to find us three cock birds and a partridge in an hour.
Iris's first day out of quarantine
Our next obstacle to overcome was to get the breed registered with the Kennel Club. This was granted in 1997. Together with Sheila and Richard Kuban (Austringer) and Rob and Theo Gould (Wamilanghaar) we produced a constitution for the German Longhaired Pointer Club and in 1999 the 'Club' was granted provisional status. After submitting a translated version of the FCI Breed Standard in May 2000 the Breed Standard was adopted by the Kennel Club and we were allowed to exhibit Longhairs in Imported Breed Classes. In January 2006 the Kennel Club transferred Longhairs to the Breed Register and they can now be shown at Championship Shows where classes are scheduled for the breed. Crufts 2007 saw Longhairs exhibited for the first time. These milestones took over ten years from the day Iris came into the country.
The Questor family at work and at play.