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.
- 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: English Cocker
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Good things are happening with Kerrie and Brian as they continue to show the fruits of their training. I’m more and more engrossed with the world of freestyle, which combines training, connection and musical creativity. In early November, Kerrie earned her very first leg in a video freestyle competition in the “Entry” (a required pre-novice…
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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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Once Brian and I progressed to moving circles in his heeling, a lack of clarity emerged in his training: his commitment to heel position. Small dogs especially tend to heel wide, to get away from those big human feet and to be able to look up and see the handler/trainer’s upper body. I’ve been sloppy…
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I spent an entire winter quarter telling my creative writing class to blog more consistently, and yet here I am coming back to my blog after a long break. Oops! Brian has shown promise as a tracking dog since puppyhood, and here is today’s track, consisting of two 100-yard legs with 1 open turn. We…
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Just a catch-up on Brian’s heeling in early spring of 2021. While sometimes I feel like we’re behind where my past dogs have been at this age, I have to remind myself that I’m trying a new approach with him (much more shaped and almost no luring), so taking it slow to watch out for…
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Brian has been a student in the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy “TEAM” program, a program that teaches and tests fundamentals online. I highly recommend it, and while any dog/handler team can participate just through the program itself, Fenzi’s classes are superb in their level of instruction and feedback. We took the Level 1 course with…
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I traveled to the spaniel clubs’ hunt tests in Oakville, WA to run a cocker for a friend, and Robbie and Brian came along. My favorite memory from this trip was watching Brian run in a big field, which we did in the evening after the tests were done. He loved chasing some cocker friends…
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First things in a dog’s life should be commemorated. So here is Brian’s first toweling. Toweling is pretty typical for spaniels after a bath, to tighten down their coat while drying. I haven’t done it before with Brian, since it involves horse pins. I figured this first time he might wear it for just a…
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We’ve been tracking twice a week all summer, and Robbie is starting to show improvement on his turns, although his start is still a work in progress. Meanwhile Brian is running tracks of about 125-150 yards with one turn. He loves it and shows a lot of drive! Thanks to my tracking partner Martha for…
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Brian is getting Second Dinner right now (some of his dinner in a food toy), so we can have a quiet dinner to ourselves to wind down our evening. But Rozzie, at 12 years and nearly 11 months, thinks she also should get Second Dinner. I have promised her that if she will make it…
The Spaniel Annals 