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In 1991, I was contacted by Gun Dog magazine requesting my cooperation for an article they wished to write about my setters and the history and heritage behind them. Prior to this time however, I had begun receiving what would ultimately amount to a sheaf of correspondence from Lee J. Stellrecht of Bliss, New York. (Click on image to the right for a larger version.)Mr. Stellrecht had begun writing to me in an effort to breed his setter, Oldfield's Blue Breeze ("Breeze"), to one of my dams. However as I rarely breed outside my own bloodlines and kennel, and even then, only after I have personally observed a dog in the field in actual hunting conditons on wild birds, I never even hinted at cooperating with Mr. Stellrecht's intentions.
Time and again, I requested that Mr. Stellrecht send me photos of his dog in actual hunting situations in the field, however the only answer I received from Mr. Stellrecht was excuses as to why he could not send me said photos, including stating that he thought he had sent the photos to "someone else."
I did finally receive three photos from Mr. Stellrecht, all of them of his dog at the end of a chain with blaze orange reflector surveyor's tape hanging from the dog's collar ~ of course, not at all what I had requested and I immediately returned those photos to him by mail.
I also repeatedly invited Mr. Stellrecht to bring his dog and visit with me for a few days so we could take the dog out to hunt and I could personally observe the dog in the field under actual hunting conditions. But again, I received numerous excuses from Mr. Stellrecht as to why he could not come and visit, the last excuse in the December 1989 letter published below. Shortly afterward, however, Mr. Stellrecht told me that he and his dog would arrive at my place on the morning of New Year's Eve 1989, however after I waited up until 3 a.m. on New Year's Day, Mr. Stellrecht still had never shown up and had not called.
I did not hear from Mr. Stellrecht again until March of 1990, at which time he sent me a short note asking how I was doing and telling me he had never heard from me. I understandably did not return a letter to Mr. Stellrecht at that time and did not hear from him again.
Gun Dog magazine published their article about my dogs in the April/May 1991 issue as scheduled. After the article was published however ~ and unbeknownst to me a later time ~ Mr. Stellrecht wrote a letter to the editor of Pointing Dog Journal, claiming "controversy" over the article that had been written about my dogs in Gun Dog magazine ~ and telling them that they should publish an article about Ellen Calkins (whom Mr. Stellrecht called, "Mrs. English Setter").
Shortly after this letter from Mr. Stellrecht was received by Pointing Dog Journal, a mutual acquantaince of Mr. Stellrecht and mine gave me an actual copy of the letter Mr. Stellrecht had sent to the Pointing Dog Journal. The party who gave me this letter was a long-time hunting companion of mine and had inside access to the Pointing Dog Journal. He was aware of the lengthy correspondence to me that Mr. Stellrecht had previously engaged in and considered the letter Mr. Stellrecht wrote to the Pointing Dog Journal as a grossly under-handed attempt to undermine and discredit the Gun Dog magazine article about my setters.
Pointing Dog Journal subesquently published the article about Ellen Calkins entitled "Mrs. English Setter" ~ and the article in fact does NOT hold water and is based on blatant falsehoods as relayed by Ellen Calkins to writer Ryan Frame.
For instance, Ryan Frame writes that Ellen Calkins told him that George Ryman "destroyed" any and all setters with "body patches." While one can perhaps understand that Ryan Frame would not question anything told to him by Ellen Calkins, and did in fact tape the interview with her, this is just one small example of the misleading and false information contained in the Pointing Dog Journal article.
To verify this as a false statement, we have many pieces of correspondence, photos and film footage of and from George Ryman with his personal dogs, a number of which do indeed have body patches. Why Ellen Calkins would make this (and other) false statements as relayed by Ryan Frame is anyone's guess.
However we wholeheartedly and absolutely stand behind the April/May 1991 Gun Dog magazine article as written about our setters and the history and heritage behind them. To further verify the true facts in the matter, we will be publishing here on the "Fetters Setters ~ Testimonials" page actual corespondence received from Maurice H. and Jean Ryman ~ Maurice at the time, being George Ryman's only living son.
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It should also be noted here that in the letters published below, that while Mr. Stellrecht subsequently claimed in his letter to Pointing Dog Journal that he had known the Calkins since the early 1970s, that he wrote to me in 1989 that he believed the Ryman dogs no longer existed and had in fact, vanished. Mr. Stellrecht in fact, later befriended the Calkins and enlisted their help to establish his own "Bold Return Kennel" using the Calkins' bloodine. However by that time, Carl and Ellen Calkins had sold off their dogs, had no personal dogs of their own and so Mr. Stellrecht's efforts at establishing his own kennel came to naught.
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In the meantime however, below are some of the actual letters sent to me by Mr. Stellrecht along with the copy of the letter he subsequently sent to the editor of Pointing Dog Journal. Click on each image for a larger version ~ some letters are in multiple parts for ultimate legibility.
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Below in four parts, letter sent to me dated May 8th, 1989.
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Below, in two parts, letter sent to me dated June 5th, 1989.
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Below, in two parts, letter sent to me dated July 15th, 1989.
Below, in three parts, letter sent to me dated August 3rd, 1989.
Below, letter sent to me dated October 14th, 1989.
Below, in two parts, letter sent to me dated December 18th, 1989.
Below, in three parts, letter sent by Lee Stellrecht
to Pointing Dog Journal dated October 28th, 1993.
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