The Spaniel Annals

The first week of a new school quarter really slowed my blogging down.  I’m catching up with some photos of a wonderful Thursday during spring break spent visiting a local retriever trainer who is the choice of many Irish Water Spaniel folk: Andy Fontenot of Waterdog Kennels.  He is respected for his patience and understanding of the temperament of the Irish Water Spaniel–quite different from the Lab–and for his ability to treat every dog as an individual and tailor his training program to that individual. 

I got to see three Irish Water Spaniels at work: two at the beginning junior level, and one working the  much more advanced and challenging senior/master level.  The two junior dogs are Jezebel and Journey.  Joey is the advanced IWS, currently working on his senior hunt test title so he can then move to master, the highest level in hunt tests. 

Here’s Jezebel first.  You can see she’s working with birds thrown by an assistant off to the right of the photo.  Andy said this was her first experience with someone other than him throwing, so it took her a few minutes to get the idea of marking a different thrower.   There will be a person standing fairly close by at the hunt test, so she’ll need to get used to him.  Once she gets the idea, she heads out with confidence and speed:

This is another retrieve in the same area.  You can see the rain is beginning to fall.  The dogs could care less; it’s the humans who are complaining!

Jezebel’s a good girl and brings her bird right back. 

This is yet another retrieve photo where the thrower has moved slightly, and just a bit further out.  Jezebel is continuing to show a lot of enthusiasm for her retrieving.  All in all she had about 10 retrieves.  A less driven dog would have lost interest after 5 or so, but Irish Water Spaniels tend to be dedicated retrievers.  Jezebel is no exception.  Andy says she’s a soft girl, but very enthusiastic and willing about her work.

Jezebel brings back yet another bird.  She’s showing all the willingness of a natural retriever–desire to retrieve over and over again, and willingness to bring the bird back to Andy.  (See my earlier post about the natural retrieve.  It gets more complicated when the object is a highly desirable one, like a bird!)

Now it’s Journey’s turn.  She’s taken to the training well, and brings her birds back with style and speed:

This photo shows you that Journey is working slightly longer distances, using a mechanical thrower.  That’s Andy in the foreground, so his position gives you a sense of where the retrieve started.  Andy says Journey is “taking her marks well,” meaning she is noting the fall of the bird well from a distance, and is able to pinpoint where to go easily. 

This next photo shows Journey heading into some light cover to complete a retrieve.  She’s marking that the bird fell into cover, and will head into the high grass to find the bird.

Good girl!  Journey finds her bird and brings it back.

Another piece of the finished exercise is that the dog brings the bird all the way back to heel position, at the same time lining up for the next “mark.”  Journey has this one down, as she returns with her bird to Andy’s left side. 

Joey is the real star of the show.  He’s training at the more advanced levels, and his work is quite impressive.  He’s working much longer distances, with multiple marks, meaning 3 birds thrown out in different areas, and he has to remember where they are.  Here you can see him “taking the mark” of one of the birds at Andy’s side.

Here’s Joey returning with one of his first birds.  The rain is starting to come down again.  Joey pays it no mind.

Here’s Joey heading out on his second mark (that he has to remember from prior to his last retrieve).  You can get a sense of the greater distance of Joey’s retrieves; he will get to the light brown cover in the distance before he recovers his bird.  This is over twice the distance of the retrieves of Jezebel and Journey.

Here’s Joey retrieving the bird in light cover.  A bird buried in cover also requires Joey to use his nose to find the bird’s fall.  From a distance, he can mark the general area of the fall, but once he gets there, his nose goes to work.   Good boy, Joey!

After Joey has retrieved his three marked birds, Andy sets him up for one last blind “dead” retrieve.  In this exercise, the dog has not seen the fall, and must follow the trainer’s direction to find the bird.

With this next photo, I was hoping to catch Andy whistling Joey to a sit, so that he could more effectively direct Joey to the bird.  Instead, I caught Joey just slowing down to take Andy’s command.  You can get a sense of the impressive amount of distance.  Joey had even farther to go–almost to the treeline–to find the bird.  He sat on command numerous times, followed Andy’s direction, and find his bird.    Good boy!

This photo essay ends with one more photo of Journey just because I love her enthusiastic return.    It’s clear with all three of these Irish Water Spaniels that they love their birds and they love their work.