The Spaniel Annals

The past few weekends have been promising dry runs for some big shows coming up in August: in the 3rd and 4th weekend of this month, Reardon will debut in AKC Open, Journey will debut in Utility at the IWS specialty, and both will show for the first time in a freestyle competition.  Yikes!  I wouldn’t typically choose to have so many big events coming up in one month, but that’s the way the calendar has fallen.

To prepare and proof Reardon for Open, two weekends ago he competed in a UKC (United Kennel Club) obedience trial in Open for the first time, with 2 runs in 1 day.  He did a wonderful job, earning 1st place both times and a 197.5 and 197, respectively.  All the things we’ve been working on–halts on the heeling, better attention, holding the dumbbell and straight fronts–are starting to come together.  No problems with the stays.  My biggest concern was how stressy he was (in this show and the previous one), when I’ve been doing a fairly good job of controlling my nerves (more about that in another post).  He pants quite heavily and his eyes get that whale-eyed look that communicates high stress.  Recently we’ve lowered his thyroid dose to match his lowered prednizone dose.  I’m wondering if we lowered it too far, as the adrenal glands have everything to do with handling stress.  I’ve raised his thyroid medication back up .1 mg, which is entirely safe to do.  We’ll see if it makes a difference in the AKC shows coming up.

Meanwhile, Journey and Gael participated in the Scottish Highland Games, and Journey surprised me in several ways.  We were asked to do a Utility demonstration in morning, which I was not prepared for and hadn’t brought her scent discrimination articles.  A person with shelties handed me her teeny-tiny articles and said, “Here, let her try these.”  I had no idea whether Journey would work with articles that weren’t hers.  She completely surprised me and did her articles perfectly!  And did her signals too!  In a very different, very busy environment(see photo on the right)!  This kind of “fast-tracking,” where I see Journey make sudden leaps in her understanding, is new in my experience with dogs.  I’m told border collies exhibit this style of learning frequently, but I’m hoping it’s a characteristic of Irish Water Spaniels as well. It certainly seems to be a characteristic of Journey’s.

That same afternoon was Journey’s very first performance of her freestyle routine.  She faced two strong distractions: some chukar that the pointing folks had brought in for their pointing dog demonstration, and the arrival of her breeder, whom Journey loves.  Journey and I had an eyeball-to-eyeball chat before we went in the ring about how I needed her to watch me.  I swear this dog understands English, because Journey put in a wonderful performance.  This is the very first time we put the whole routine together again after breaking it down into smaller pieces, and Journey handled all the transitions and more complex movements well.  I was so pleased.

Meanwhile, Gael got to follow cookies around to demo her baby freestyle routine.  We danced to Bill Whelan’s “Caracena” and while I felt like we were being repetitive and rather silly, the crowd loved it.  Next year we’ll have something more advanced to show everyone.

Bring on the Big Shew!  I guess we’re ready!