About Us


A picture of us taken in 2009.  The pickup is a 1946 Dodge that belongs to Craig Gunning who lives in Lansford, ND.  In order in the back with me is Amos (Bailey), Emma, Hella, Cole, Flora, Ina (Ilka), Ben (Dabo), and Cali.
My name is Rick Hartle and along with my wife (Jan) we run a Deutsch Kurzhaar kennel in North Central North Dakota.  We are located in Grano, North Dakota near Lake Darling Wildlife Management area. Our first Deutsch Kurzhaar litter was whelped in  the Fall of 2001. This litter was out of Hella vom Eichelspitz. As our kennel name we chose vom Gänsehimmel (goose heaven or goose skies) since we are on one of the major migration routes for waterfowl.
Our second  female was Ilka vom Osterberg, she was the back bone of what we are building off from to form our own kennel line. I have ran numerous dogs in the testing system and still have so much to learn in this area.  But I found that it is very addictive and that I enjoy it so much. Just as important is that my wife Jan enjoys it. We have ran dogs in the Derby, Solms, HZP, VGP and NAKP and I would like to go further some day and run dogs in the  IKP, or Kleemann and even VJP and a SW, but that is down the road
Since being formed in 2001, we have learned a lot about the Deutsch Kurzhaar and have developed a sound program for us to operate with.   I will not breed a litter that I would not want one of the pups myself.   This means we don't have a lot of litters, and that we look hard at what we are doing.  

We have found a line of dogs we are comfortable with they have primarily Osterberg and Pöttmes bloodlines.   We are finding strong abilities in these dogs, and easy to work with.    They are meant for the everyday hunter and first time handler.  Requiring minimal training to hunt the first year, and easy for somebody to handle that wishes to run them in hunt test.   Because of this we try not to breed dogs that would be considered high prey drive, instead look for a combination that will suit the average hunter were everything is in balance.   Their prey drive (desire) will please most hunters.  More on Breeding on regular site...

Our Deutsch Kurzhaars are meant to be in line with what the German's original reasons for developing the Deutsch Kurzhaar   a versatile gun dog (one that can do any hunting task) and still be a joy to have in the home.   We do not wish to produce a dog that is meant to be in a kennel and not part of the family.  

As stated elsewhere on this web site we do not have AKC bred dogs.   We do not agree with the AKC thought of what a breeding is and will not contribute to this style of program.   We embrace the German system which involves proving each dog and generation.  They must be proven in their abilities and form, this is done through testing of field abilities and conformation testing.   Our goal is to test each dog to the highest level possible giving us the best indicator of each dog's  ability.   The dogs are also ran in conformation test which is not only a DKV requirement but also important to us helping us to see the short comings in our dogs as well as their strengths.