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: Uncategorized
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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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Our church has a Blessing of the Animals on St. Francis Day every year, and this year we decided to just take Kerrie. She behaved herself pretty well for a 1 1/2 year old adolescent, despite a cattle dog in the next pew enticing her to play, and the organist doing distracting things nearby. It…
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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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It’s been an eventful October, and the best part was Rozzie turning 14 on October 5th. As far as I know, she is, sadly, the last living dog of her litter of 5 springers. She’s had a wonderful life, and continues to amaze me with her energy and brightness. Several times a week she does…
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I was very pleased yesterday to get a great practice session with Brian in a local park that he has struggled in before. At our last visit, for instance, pretty much all we accomplished was some focus work and work on platforms and pivot disks. He’s a young, environmentally aware spaniel (as his genetics say…
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Today we said goodby to Gael, so the vile cancer could no longer rob her of her joy of life. We had all kinds of wonderful adventures together; they’re just not evidenced by lots of titles. Gael always liked to do things her way, and often they didn’t align with AKC regulations. I will always…
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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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