The Spaniel Annals

working and living with performance spaniels

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about

I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
I’m an English college instructor by trade, a dog trainer by vocation. And lifelong baseball fan.

Month: January 2010

  • A weekend at the dog show

    Last weekend kicked off the first “cluster” of dogs shows for the new year.  In our area, they begin at the Puyallup fairgrounds in mid-January, and then during the following weekend move down to Portland for 4 days of shows.  Because these two weekends cluster several days of shows, many professional handlers and big-name dogs come…

  • The Sunday Morning Ritual

    For the last several months, it’s been our Sunday morning ritual to attend handling classes.  Handling classes provide a training environment for us to practice the game of the conformation ring, where the dog is judged on his structure (conformation) and movement.   Here’s the ritual: 7:30 am: Reardon gets a feathering bath.  He needs one once-a-week anyway for…

  • New Year’s Day Training

    New Years’s Day was a perfect day to spend with a training buddy of mine, Terri Pope.  We rented an obedience building in Olympia for a few hours and helped each other with our dogs.  Today I wanted to see how Reardon’s heeling was coming along, so we made a video.  Videos help immensely with seeing the…