The Spaniel Annals

working and living with performance spaniels

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I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
I’m an English college instructor by trade, a dog trainer by vocation. And lifelong baseball fan.

Category: heeling

  • The Enumclaw obedience trial: too hot to handle!

    After four wonderful novice performances, Reardon and I bit the dust at the Olympia Kennel Club show in Enumclaw.  I just can’t seem to handle heat these days, and in 85+ degree humid heat,  with a swampy brain and sweaty legs, I couldn’t handle Reardon properly in his novice class.  We had 2 no-sits (which…

  • Just A Bit Obsessed

    Sometimes I realize to what degree the sport of obedience trialing requires an almost obsessive love for delayed gratification.    The video below presents Reardon’s debut in the Novice Obedience ring.  He did a wonderful job, winning the class and earning a 196 out of 200 points, and ½ point away from the High in Trial…

  • Rozzie stars at the rally match

    Rozzie happily surprised me today by being the star of the rally match held in Auburn, WA.  I took all three dogs, as I’m hoping both Rozzie and Reardon will be ready to compete in rally obedience by our National in October.  (Rally is an obedience competition where the dog and handler team perform exercises…

  • New Year’s Day Training

    New Years’s Day was a perfect day to spend with a training buddy of mine, Terri Pope.  We rented an obedience building in Olympia for a few hours and helped each other with our dogs.  Today I wanted to see how Reardon’s heeling was coming along, so we made a video.  Videos help immensely with seeing the…

  • I’m ready!

    The rest of my life (“real” life? “unreal” life?) has stalled our training and my blogging: fighting to get my energy back after surgery, then catching a cold, then the pressure of getting final writing portfolios graded. Meanwhile, Reardon and Rozzie are clearly saying, “I’m ready!”  Through many physical behaviors (their primary language after all),…

  • A typical training evening

    Last night after my day of teaching, the springers and I headed to our local outlet mall for some attention training on their heeling.  I try to vary what we do each day, so none of us gets bored.  Other nights we might be doing full run-throughs of Kani’s exercises for the obedience ring, or working on details of…