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: Irish Water Spaniel
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Our house has seen dramatic change in the past year, with one dominant personality leaving us last November with Reardon’s passing, and then we lost Journey in March, after a valiant battle with cancer that was diagnosed in January. For some weeks it was clear she wanted very much to stay with us, but in…
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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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A day at Marymoor Park, with Gael and Journey just being dogs.
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It’s been far to easy to quickly document dog happenings in the past few months in short bursts on Facebook. That’s a bad habit if I really want this blog to be a journal of my life with dogs. Time to stop that! August was a wonderful month. Reardon earned two legs on his Open…
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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…
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Today I pushed the restart button on Journey’s freestyle routine. First, I won’t be asking her to put any of the sequences together for at least another week, while we work on the individual pieces of the routine, trying to build her confidence and speed. Those pieces are: rightside heeling, spins in different positions (in…
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Journey’s never gotten a professional win photo with me. I vaguely remember reasons why; when she got her CD, I was quite ill with thyroid disease (heading into surgery). We pretty much finished the title and she returned to her breeder. Then she’s been bounced back and forth since then, although she’s now here to…
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The first obedience trial weekend of the year at the Puyallup Fairgrounds affirmed the mental and physical training I’ve been working on the past few months. Lanny Bassham, founder of the Mental Management program and an Olympic gold medalist, described the difference between accomplishment and attainment: “accomplishment” is the fulfilling of external goals. “Attainment” is…
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I’m feeling exhausted but happy from a demanding schedule of 3 trial weekends in the last 5 weeks, occurring at the end of a school year. Roz finished us up with a bang, by earning her second novice leg yesterday at the Puyallup shows and a 1st place! Her score was a very respectable 196. …
The Spaniel Annals 