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: training
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A long time ago, one of my springers was chronically ill due to his liver’s portal shunt, which would at times send him into crisis. He would become very weak, with vomiting and diarrhea, and his blood values would sky-rocket. The vet would pump him full of antibiotics and prednizone, and he would slowly recover,…
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As Gael gets ready in earnest this summer to enter obedience competition, I’m fussing more than usual with her equipment: which collar to show her in, which toy to get her focused on me outside the ring, which dumbbell size (especially to reduce her mouthing of it). After spending way too much money on a…
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Gael is currently on a no-food-during-training diet, and the results have been promising and fascinating. This training “diet” will go on for another week, and while I’m not seeing the brightness I get when I train with food, I’m certainly seeing commitment to the task and willingness to keep going. We had one terrible training…
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Since December my focus has been on getting my house ready for sale, in hopes of down-sizing to a more manageable property and mortgage amount. Beyond that, my goal is to find a property with a shop/garage that I can use as a training building. Needless to say, this has turned my life and my…
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This is not the world’s greatest video, but it is evidence that Gael can indeed: halt fairly straight and take some responsibility for doing so; stay when she’s told; do a slow-paced heel without scooting her butt along the ground (which Gael’s own take on the change of pace); retrieve a dumbbell with some finesse; hold a dumbbell…
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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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Not many people would consider a rainy, somewhat cold spring day a “lovely” morning, but for my springer/setter pack, it was perfect. Before an afternoon of grading, I took Reardon, Gael and Kani to some public grounds near North Bend. This particular field isn’t huge, but it’s large enough for one regulation track and one baby…
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Sometimes accomplishments (or should I say “attainments”?) in dog training take months and even years to come to fruition. This is especially true in obedience trialing and another sport we’ve been working, tracking. In a remarkable synchronicity, Reardon has made some big leaps recently in both sports. In his obedience work, our challenge in getting…
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Yesterday Gael made a major transition in her training. It might sound like a little transition, but not to me and Gael! In the past several months, Gael has developed a phobia about training at shopping centers. I routinely train at places like outlet malls and shopping strips because they provide distraction and usually have a…
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A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore– And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over– like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does…
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