Mountain View CurTM Development
By Michael J. Bloodgood

 
     We obtained our first pair of yellow Mt. Cur pups in 1973. They turned out to be good tree dogs but lacked the nose to be great tree dogs, so they were sold and replaced with hounds.

     After owning, raising, and training some outstanding coon hounds under the Black River Kennel name for over 20 years and finding it harder and harder to find hounds that handled well, we tried to locate some good curs that could keep up with, but would handle better than our great hounds of that time.

     In 1987 the Mountain View Cur Kennel was formed in Afton, New York and was owned and operated by Michael and Marie Bloodgood, now of Bonnieville, Kentucky.

     The search for curs that could fit this bill, proved to be a difficult and challenging task. Always liking a challenge and having a good paying job as an Aerospace Machinist, we spared no expense and tried 56 Mt. Curs, only finding 6 that we considered to be top tree dogs. We found that 4 of the 6 were of a certain stock or ancestry. When checking our records, we found that half of the 56 Mt. Curs tried were of the same  breeding ( Kemmer bred). That’s 4 out of 28 dogs tried. I know of another breeder in Canada that tried the Kemmer Stock and only got 1 out of 29. So we knew it probably wasn’t just us.

     We concentrated on these 4 registered Original Mt. Curs,  three females and one young male, because they were all related. One female was culled because her grand sire was later a found to be a Pitbull and she produced ill tempered male pups, and another female because her pups lacked brains and ability, leaving one exceptional female (Mtn. View Dance) and one exceptional male ( Mtn. View Gold Nugget) for our foundation of the Mountain View Curs. That’s 2 out of 56 OMCBA registered, or 2 out of 28 Kemmer bred.

Later another outstanding  male cousin to Mtn. View Gold Nugget (Mtn. View Buckshot) and an outstanding  female (Mtn. View KY Lady)  was added to the breeding program. All of the IPDBA registered dogs today carry some or all of these dogs in their blood lines. A few other select Mt Curs had been added over the first few years, to widen the gene pool, but were all were found to be producers of pups that were not of the same high percentage nor quality and the registry was closed.

     In 1992 the Kemmer Stock Breeders Association Registry was started, and in an effort to keep the line pure as possible, we registered our curs with them. When the KSBA began they started with all pure Kemmer bred Mt. Curs. But many practice breeding non-proven tree dogs (some culls) and continuing to register other stocks of curs (Busher, York, Streak, etc.) regardless of breeding and crossing one stock with another was becoming the norm. While serving as KSBA President and Director, I tried to get the club to follow its own Constitution to preserve this breed, but most of the leadership was more interested in making  money, buying land and building  a club house at that time, than in preserving the dogs and improving the breed.

     Realizing that the MOUNTAIN VIEW CURTM quality was unique from most other KSBA registered dogs and fearing of loosing this natural treeing and outstanding reproducing qualities if we stayed, eleven dedicated breeders including myself resigned from the KSBA.

The Mountain View CurTM

     These eleven founders felt that we should register our dogs as a separate breed and with a registry that would certify tree dogs before they would be used for breeding, and would assure us that no other stock could be registered in the breed.

     In  April of 1995 the American Squirrel and Night Hunters Assoc. was chosen to hold the registry. The name Mountain View Cur was chosen for two reasons. One was that founders knew of the great reputation of Mountain View Kennel and it being well known in the cur dog world. The second reason was that Mrs. Kemmer asked us  not to use their name or to give them credit. Since the Kemmer's didn't want credit for all 28 including the 24 bad ones, the founders could understand why.

     Because of  policy changes after they were registered in the ASANHA to no longer certify tree dogs before they could be used for breeding, the Breed Advisors felt that the Mountain View Cur® should find a registry that would certify the dogs as tree dogs as ASANHA had originally promised them. So in the fall of 1996 the Mountain View Cur Registry was formed as a subsidiary of the International Progressive Dog Breeders' AllianceTM(All breed Registry) until enough Mtn. View Curs were registered to be eligible for IPDBA registration. In 2001 Mountain Curs were then eligible to be registered with the same strict policies of certification in the International Progressive Dog Breeders' Alliance 'IPDBA' registry.  IPDBA recognizes over 550 dog breeds around the world and has over 4 million dogs in it's data base.

The MOUNTAIN VIEW CUR trademark is owned by Michael J. and Marie A. Bloodgood, of Bonnieville, Kentucky and  may only be used with their written authorization and is not to be use by any other dog registry, or persons. Permission to use the MOUNTAIN VIEW CURTM  name has only been given to the International Progressive Dog Breeders' AllianceTM (Registry) to assure certification will be inforced before any MVC can be used for breeding. The MOUNTAIN VIEW CURTM is an established purebred, no longer recognized as a family line or stock within a breed, but a separate unique breed that will stay a pure unique breed.

  Our motto has always been to breed for Quality not Quantity on Ability not Myth.

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