The Spaniel Annals

Not many people would consider a rainy, somewhat cold spring day a “lovely” morning, but for my springer/setter pack, it was perfect.  Before an afternoon of grading, I took Reardon, Gael and Kani to some public grounds near North Bend.  This particular field isn’t huge, but it’s large enough for one regulation track and one baby track.

Gael’s baby track consisted of two turns, 225 yards total and aged 20 minutes.  Reardon’s track was about 400 yards with 3 turns, aged over 1/2 hour.  Both dogs ran their tracks beautifully, handling their corners well and never getting lost or distracted.  I am getting used to Gael’s tracking style, which is more energetic, intense, and somewhat stop-and-go as she has to check out the various smells around the track.  This tendency to “hunt” the area might go away with more experience, and when she gets back on track, her indication is very strong.  I was quite happy with both of them.

Then it was Kani’s turn.  Kani was not here to track.  It was her first day doing some preliminary work for Master Hunter.  A lot of this has more to do with getting her back into shape after a long illness.  We’ll have the summer to work more intensely and specifically on various exercises.

You see, Kani has had a miraculous recovery.  There’s truly a bit of miracle healing involved, with a lot of detective work.   I hope I can now say she will never be ill again–until old age finally stops her–but for now I’m just grateful for today.

As she initially began to recover a few months ago, my mind instantly went to getting her back into the obedience ring.  However, as we began to play with the exercises, I sensed some tentativeness with her, a slight leveling of enthusiasm.  After my first excitement about working her again for a UDX and possibly an OTCH, I began to wonder about how much baggage might surround the obedience ring for her–how much stress having to perform when she wasn’t feeling 100%, how many failures that had undermined our confidence.

So for now, we’re turning to the master hunter work that we had started several years ago, but never completed.  She does have some notion of hupping on the whistle and the flying bumper.  She’s also a great little retriever.  We’ll take this summer to play with it, get her back into shape, and see what the future holds.  We’ll also develop a 2nd level freestyle exercise for  a competition in November (she has her “Beginner Freestyle Dog” title, which is the 1st level).

Beyond that, who knows? She’s 9 years old, but as we walked out of the vet’s office for her recent recheck, the vet exclaimed, “She’s like a 4-year-old!”  Today we did some quartering and hupping to the whistle, a few doubles at about 50 yards (thanks to my lousy throwing arm) and a few memory retrieves.  She did beautifully and ended the session with her tail wagging madly.  That’s my girl!