It was thirty years ago, when he first invested in his so long interest in plott hounds, as becoming a plot hound breeder in Turkiye. However, back then he was caught up with the idea of creating a new concept of English Setters for Turkish hunters.
In 1986, he bought his first plott hounds, Trump and Jodie, from USA, but he was not satisfied with the dogs he got. That was when, he found Jim Crainer. He got three nice puppies from Jim. Then again, due to his English Setter and the woodcock hunting deed, he had to put the plott hounds under villagers’ attention. In the villages, due to the lack of responsibility, and careless handling the plott hounds were either lost, killed or cross-breaded with native hounds. Unfortunately, as their character requires plott hounds were no dogs for second place.
I was a little girl in the big boys’ table listening how everyone disagreed my dad. They all told him, that he was too idealistic to be realistic. He was challenging the stubborn and uneducated hunting society, whom claimed they were always ‘right’, they always knew the ‘best’.Ironically, now I hear the same exact oppositions against my dad in the same room about plott hounds as I did many years ago about English Setters. It always had been an opposition to someone who reads every possible information about the subject of matter, integrates that into action, asks questions to the professionals and unlike the rest of them did not rely on common sense guesses.
Beyond the words, if you ask any avid Woodcock hunter from Turkiye, they will acknowledge the fact that, he was the creator of the English Setter concept in Turkiye, today, as the primary bird dog race.
Today’s opportunities via Internet enabled him to contact plott hound breeders from USA, easily. Dr. Burkett of The White Deer Preserve Kennels supported his project of breeding plott hounds in Turkiye. His first dog from Burkett was our dear VON PLOTT, brother to Bengali Plott. Unfortunately, Von Plott was killed in action in November 15th, 2007. We carry his memory as a fortunate war scar on our hearts, as Burkett says it was an honor to have him.
Personally, since I was a little child we had so many dogs that I cannot count, some more special than the others.But something different about plott hounds, something special that is so hard not to see, something reliable about them, but most importantly incomparable to any other dog that I ever had. They do become a part of you, and “ A part of you dies with them”(Burkett, 2007).
For the Breeding scope; he brought three males and two females. Now, my dad is enjoying Russian Boars and our PLOTT HOUNDS.
Sedef Gunsiray
