The Dogs 1st Hunt!

Some of our pure Dashing Bondhu Llewellin's Setters all on their 1st hunt ever! Opening day, Dogs were 13-15 months old without any pervious training at all. All pointed their 1st bird/s and retrieved to hand, and backed NATURALLY! No birds were flushed by a dog, they ALL held their points until one of us flushed the bird. Total birds taken: 20 Bob-white quail, 9 Chukar partridge and 6 Cock Ring neck Pheasants, taken by three hunters. We won't mention how many birds were missed :)

Welcome to Mountain View KennelTM

We specialize in hunting and raising the most natural close working foot hunting pleasure hunting Setters found in the world and the first kennel solely dedicated in raising and preserving the purest "Dashing Bondhu" Llewellin's Setters bloodlines remaining in the world! 

As you can see from the photo above, they are born natural bird dogs. These young dogs at only 14-15 months of age had no help from other dogs and NO training before hand. Pictured are the results after their first time being exposed to ANY birds. All dogs naturally Pointed solid , Retrieved to hand, and even Honored (backed) each other faithfully. They were first worked and shot over a lone and then hunted together and did an amazing job for any dog, never mind for one's on their first hunt. Absolutely, NO force training or electric training collars were or are EVER are used in their training or for any of our pure Dashing Bondhu Setter's training. ALL birds were POINTED NATURALLY and NONE were flushed by the dogs.

They continue to amaze us season after season and amaze everyone who has hunted with them. Last couple of years we have often seen points up to 40 YARD (120 FT) even on single wild native quail. Please see our many hunting photos and Testimonial webpages linked below. 

A brief history of the Dashing Bondhu bloodlines are as follows: The Dashing Bondhu bloodlines were personally developed by Richard Purcell Llewellin, Esq. (1840-1925) of Pembroke shire, South Wales, who spent over 50 years in their personal development and in their perfection of his own unique personal strain he personally named as "Dashing Bondhu" (Bondhu means "Heart of Oak"). All of the other Llewellin Setter strains registered were not "developed" by Mr. Llewellin himself.

The main difference from the Dashing Bondhu line from the many American lines, is that the American lines came from several English breeder's as well as a few from Mr. Llewellin first early attempts at breeding, that were sent to America prior to 1900's or early on and then developed by North American breeders who were mostly Field Trailer's and they dominated North American Field Trails. 

Selection was very different even among American breeders and soon many different bloodlines were being developed and recognized in North America. Each kennel bred for different standards and traits such as size, color, markings, temperament, ability, health, hunting range, etc. resulting in each line becoming very different from one another. Even dogs originating from the same strain could be slightly different from one breeder to another.

The Dashing Bondhu line was Mr. Llewellin's personal bloodline that he personally developed and perfected in England for over 50 years of his life and were not developed from the same crosses that were sent to the States. On Mr. Llewellin's passing in 1925, he left his respected close friend William Humphrey, also an outstanding Setter breeder in England, all of his personal Dashing Bondhu Setters to continue their breeding to Mr. Llewellin's high breeding standards. 

Mr. Humphrey SOLD ALL his Setters he owned at the time, so he could dedicate himself to preserving and continuing Mr. Llewellin's pure "Dashing Bondhu" Llewellin's Setters for another 38 years, producing 41 foot hunting Field Champions in the process. Mr. Humphrey also worked closely with Father Brannon (Irish Priest) who owned Scinn Amach Kennel in Ireland, who also bred them in Ireland for 30 more years after Humphrey's passing. Many feel that Humphrey and Fr. Brannon even refined or perfected the Dashing Bondhu's even further. They selected only the most "natural born bird dogs" without the use of electronic collars, planted birds, or any force training generation after generation. This genetically locked in their natural traits, making them dominant or natural traits, while removing any and all genetic faults in them. This resulted in the best foot hunting bird dogs ever created in the world!

Our Dashing Bondhu Llewellin's Setters today are direct decedents of mainly the 1960's direct imports from Humphrey's kennel, a 1988 direct import from Fr. Brannon's kennel, two outstanding gentlemen that Mr. Llewellin entrusted his personal bloodlines to and another direct import in 1990's from Madam Marie Thérèse à Goës of Belgium (close friend of the Humphrey family) of 100% Humphrey's breeding. 

Because of breeding their generations 8-10 years apart, many of our Llewellin's Setters we own today are still only 2-6 generations from the original English, Irish, and Belgium imports from these great breeders, without any other strains being added what so ever.

For a complete detailed history and photos of the Dashing Bondhu bloodlines, please go to our Dashing Bondhu History webpage.

These are also the same exact pure Dashing Bondhu bloodlines that produced the famous "Hank", registered name "Henry Princeof Pause", from Outdoor Life Network's Number "1" Sporting show for a number of years, OLN's TV series, "Hunting with Hank",

and also Hank's famous son "Dash" registered name "Hank's Dashing Bondhu", who has stared in OLN's following TV Series "Upland Days with Dash". 

If you would like to see how our wonderful pure Dashing Bondhu Llewellin's Setters hunt, please order from the hundreds of high quality DVD productions of your choice of episodes of "Hunting with Hank" and/or "Upland Days with Dash" available very reasonable at HWH DVD's . These are the most high quality, professional videos of bird hunting ever produced in our opinion.

"Hank" aka Henry Princeof Pause was also entered in the Bird Dog Foundation's Hall of Fame. These two great dogs are not only all out of the SAME 100% exact combination of pure Dashing Bondhu bloodlines that we own and specialize in, but "Hank" aka Henry Princeof Pause can even be found as the grand sire and great grand sire in most of our dog's pedigrees and in pups we offer and "Dash" aka Hank's Dashing Bondhu, is the sire of our stud "Hank's Champ Bondhu". In fact, Mountain View Kennel is home to more "Certified Gun Dogs" of OLN's Hank's and OLN's Dash's bloodlines found anywhere else in the world.

Also, congratulations to Henry Princeof Pause aka "Hank" and Hank's Dashing Bondhu aka "Dash" for receiving their IPDBA Gun Dog Certifications!

Look for this symbol!

We are not the only people Gun Dog Certifying their pointing dogs, but so far we are the only Kennel that is Gun Dog Certifying ALL our Setters before breeding them.

Please be aware that there are several different recognized bloodlines of Llewellin Setter's being bred and advertised today as Llewellin Setters. Because they are so different, these bloodlines are known by many different names like Blizzard, Roycelle, Gladstone, Bomber, and Tony'O are just some examples of Llewellin Setter lines that are not found at all in our pure Dashing Bondhu Llewellin Setter pedigrees.  If any of these names are found in a pedigree, you will know they were not Llewellin's personal strain of "Dashing Bondhu" bloodlines that we specialize in at Mountain View Kennel. Ours are "Llewellin's Setters" and those are "Llewellin Setters", so to speak. The difference is amazing. 

Unfortunately, some breeders have taken advantage of FDSB easy registration policies of the past, allowing breeder's to simply hand write papers at will for over 100 years. In fact, I'm sorry to say, the "Straight Creek" (Bob Baily's) lines cannot be trusted and has been totally banned from registration in IPDBA. It is very doubtful that any of them can be trusted as pure Llewellin Setters, never mind of the Bondhu, Count, and Otho bloodlines as they advertise. This unfortunately includes many FDSB pedigrees with ANY dogs with Straight Creek in their name or, Dashing Iron Cody, Dashing Iron Buster, Count Toby, and ALL their many decedents of many names being commonly used in FDSB Llewellin Setter kennels today. In fact, IPDBA has been turning away 2 out of 3 FDSB transfer applications. Since we have posted our warnings about this, we have seen some kennel's remove or shorten their dog's pedigrees or kill the link to their pedigrees, so not to show their ancestry.

When we met the Straight Creek owner Bob Baily many years ago, he told me to my face when I asked him if he knew of any Llewellin Setters around, he responded "that Llewellin Setters were extinct" and that he had good English Setters (field trail type) for sale, but just a few years later, his kennel changed from an English Setter Kennel to a Llewellin Setter Kennel while having the same dogs and he started to advertise that he had been breeding "his Llewellin Setter strain" for 35+ years. Funny, that his neighbors and even close friends remember it the same way we do. 

Seems it was very profitable for many years to purchase whole litters of English Setter pups out the the local classified papers for $100-$200 each and sell them for $500.00 each as Llewellin Setter pups. The Lord only knows how many were done this way. Even a Llewellin Setter he named Roadside, was named that because he was found on the roadside. But my good friend owned the dog before and still had his English Setter papers. So buyer MUST beware and so must the whole Llewellin breed. The sadist part of this is that FDSB no longer has breeders who keep the strains pure and are left with a bunch of kennels hybridized and some with Setters with these unknown ancestry and false pedigrees. 

It is not our intention to knock FDSB, other strains, or other breeder's of  Llewellin Setters. It was difficult for us to post the above info about a fellow man, but we have first hand knowledge and have had so many come fourth willing to testify, we could not just stand by watching these false pedigreed dogs being bred into the Llewellin Setter breed. We are also sorry if you already have one of these Setters, but the truth is what it is. 

All the DNA parent testing today will never change the facts of the past. In fact, it was our main reason we left FDSB in 1996 and registered all our dogs with IPDBA. The Straight Creek dogs are banned from registration in IPDBA, see IPDBA Llewellin Setter Registration Rules. Only pure bred Llewellin Setters are allowed registration in IPDBA. IPDBA won't even register them as English Setters, because they are of unknown ancestry and their true pedigrees have been lost for ever. Unfortunately, other registries like AKC, UKC, NKC, NSTRA and others that recognized FDSB Llewellins, but as English Setters, also have the false pedigrees now registered in them. 

Also, please BEWARE of Kennels advertising or promoting that their dogs are "DNA proven to be pure Llewellin Setters". This is an out right LIE as DNA parenting ONLY proves that the "parents" of the dog are a very close match and has NOTHING to do with the purity of the dog. Anyone, who makes that outlandish statement is either trying to MISLEAD you or does not have a CLUE what they are doing. DNA can NEVER be used to check the PURITY of the Llewellin Setter breed, simply because NO DNA is available more than just a few generations back and the Llewellin Setter pedigrees are the oldest in the dog world. It is kind of ironic that breeder's are attempting to use the fact that FDSB continues to not trust ANY of their current breeder's without DNA proving each generation's parents, as a good reason to purchase their pups.

We also feel that not all Llewellin Setter's were developed by Mr. Llewellin himself for over 50 years and are not the same and it has been our first hand experience that each strain can be very different from one another. Also, that crossing of those strains can have very mixed results, especially in future generations. The point is, if you want to own dogs that are as much like a certain strain that produced genetically sound, foot hunting dogs like OLN's Hank and Dash for example, or that were bred personally by Mr. Llewellin's high ideals for most of his life, then it is best to stick with the same pure strain that produced them. It has taken us many years to save them, but we are now the largest kennel of Gun Dog Certified pure 100% Humphrey bred Dashing Bondhu Llewellin Setters in the world.

By the way, if in your search, you can find any Llewellin's Setters here or abroad, other than ours or our good friends Al and Drenda King's as pure Dashing Bondhu as ours, please let us know. We are always in search for other pure Dashing Bondhu Llewellin's Setters from around the world.

We feel they are the best pleasure hunting BIRD DOGS ever developed in the world and because of our strict selection, we feel our dogs are producing the BEST pups available in the world and is why we provide a 100% Satisfaction Life-Time Guarantee on every single pup we offer!

We hope you enjoy our extensive website, it has taken many years of research to produce. Please follow the links provided below and enjoy.