The Spaniel Annals
working and living with performance spaniels
recent posts
about
I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
- agility
- Behavior
- competition
- conditioning
- dockdiving
- dual champion
- English Cocker
- English Springer Spaniel
- Fetch!
- field work
- Freestyle
- Gordon Setters
- heeling
- heeling journal
- Irish Water Spaniel
- match
- mental preparation
- new freestyle behaviors
- puppy training
- rally obedience
- retrieve
- scent work
- TEAM
- tracking
- training
- Uncategorized
- Utility obedience
Category: competition
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Sometimes it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate the results of all the training my dogs and I do together, and so often it comes in clusters after a long period of hard work. It’s work that I love to do! But it can still have challenges, frustrations and setbacks. Brian has had a wonderful few…
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I got some lovely photos of Brian and Kerrie in the obedience ring from the last weekend in January, thanks to Nina Sage, so wanted to share them here. First are some photos of Brian jumping in the Open ring. I can’t help but post multiples, since we’ve worked long and hard on his jumping…
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The end of 2024 brought some initial disappointment when I assessed my dog training goals for the year. Neither Kerrie or Brian achieved the titling goals in obedience that I had laid out, ones that I thought at the start of the year were quite achievable. In AKC obedience, I expected Kerrie to finish her…
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Recently I stewarded at an obedience trial, and was struck as I always am by the unstructured, unfocused way many teams enter the ring. Often the handlers will rush in to the ring, completely disconnected from their dog, and then suddenly attempt to get the dog into heel position, after the dog has been pulling…
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There’s always the first time of taking a dog into the “real” ring that all the matches can’t really imitate, where there’s a real judge, an audience (however small), and the requirement for all the aids to disappear, at least temporarily. I’ve learned to make these first times very targeted in my goals, and typically…
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Ruckus’ development from rally novice to obedience novice trialing has required a few major changes, the biggest one weaning him off my cheerleader voice. He got too dependent on my voice in rally, which was not really his fault when I was using my voice (overusing, I think) to build up his animation and intensity.…
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The end of a dog’s working career is always extremely difficult for me to face, in ways that might be hard for a non-trainer to understand. For years, usually from puppyhood, any particular dog I’m training will work with me several days a week. I’ll plan out her daily training carefully, take her to classes,…
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For some reason the semi-annual shows at the Puyallup fairgrounds have been very good to us in recent years. This surprises me as the building is not always considered friendly to obedience dogs; many people complain of the floor literally shaking (it’s on the second floor), and with large entries the spacing can get tight.…
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Two Sundays ago Reardon and I hit a milestone in his tracking career: earning his TD! In winds up to 20 mph, he completed a 455-yard track that had been aged 35 minutes. Here’s the judge’s map: The 1st, 3rd, and 5th legs of this track had crosswind, and I was very impressed with…
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Yesterday on the morning of Reardon’s obedience trial in Lynden, WA, my mantra was: We’re double winners! I like mantras; Jane Savoie, the Olympic equestrian competitor and author of many books about the mental game, encourages adopting words or phrases to chant the weeks before a competition and on that day. How are we double winners? …
The Spaniel Annals 