Puppies redux?

On the left is Ch Whistlestop John Jameson “JJ”, and on the right is my sweet Ch Stanegate Second Thoughts RN JH WD “Tooey”.

And yes, they are doing It. Clearly, JJ and Tooey both thought that today was the perfect day to try to start puppies.

Tooey went into season on April 23, so this would seem like the right time, just looking at the calendar. But there are no guarantees.

Tooey’s progesterone blood level has been checked every couple of days for the last week, and it is just not rising the desired levels. The vet said that it seems “stalled” at 3 ng/ml. Reading around on the web, I find a lot of variation on what the recommended level is for breeding, but most say that ovulation occurs at 5. So…

On the other hand, we can consider the analog method of making these determinations. While the potential sire is interested in the whole idea nearly the entire time the potential dam is in season, she is supposedly interested only when the time is “right”. Blood test? she says. We don’t need no stinking blood test.

Even so, another blood test will be done tomorrow with results available on Friday. So who knows? Maybe a mix of science and intuition will give us good news soon.

———

Note added on May 10: another tie today. Bloodwork be dammed!

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Miss Tooey (and Cooper) in Print

A while back, Colleen, Tooey’s co-owner, contacted me about replying to a request for photos and information about training and hunting with Irish Water Spaniels. Gun Dog Magazine was going to run an article about the IWS breed, and so it was time for me to dip into my photo archive and share some images and insights, otherwise known as opinions.

To my delight, my written responses where quoted verbatim and in context. And of the photos I shared, the magazine chose for it’s June/July issue, one of Tooey from our December hunting trip in central Oregon.

Tooey graces the introductory 2-page spread for the article, but unfortunately she is misidentified as Cooper. This is unfortunate, but if you’re going to misidentify a hunting dog, Cooper is a good substitute.

If you get a chance to read and see the article, there are several IWS pictured, all appropriately with birds securely being held while retrieving. (Photos and content were also supplied by IWS experts Susan Sarracino-Deihl, Colleen McDaniel, and Elissa Kirkegard.)

Pages 34-35 of the June 2013, Gun Dog Magazine

We also contributed to another article for the April issue of The Canine Chronicle. That magazine shared similar comments and quotes, but included a favorite image of mine showing Cooper and our hunting partner, Matt, under a winter rainbow while duck hunting on Sauvie Island, Oregon. You can read a mostly text version of this article on their website, or look at a PDF of the article.

Cooper and Matt in camo on Sauvie Island

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Tooey goes to the spa

My girl Tooey came into season last Tuesday, so she went up to the Spa for Hot Girls today.

This is Tooey yesterday in her pretty girl pants.

Or at least that’s what Cooper thinks. She’s an especially pretty girl right now, and he’s been panting.

And howling, and not eating, and following her every move with his nose. It’s kind of pathetic and also funny. This last week, we would take Tooey for a walk first, bring her home, and then take Cooper. He’d howl the whole time she was gone. And then when it was his turn, he insisted on following her exact trail, stopping where she has stopped and peeing where she has peed.

But now Tooey is gone to the spa for a couple of weeks. I hope Cooper starts eating again soon.

And who knows? Perhaps Tooey will find a healthy, beautiful boyfriend while she’s there.

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Newspaper retrievers

Back in 2007, we knew that 8-week old Cooper was a natural-born retriever. We played all kinds of retriever games with him, not the least of which was “fetch the newspaper!”

We hadn’t really noticed the same affinity for retrieving in Tooey. She didn’t seem to enjoy retrieving games very much.

But recently, she’s been working on fetching and holding a dumbbell for her competition Obedience work, and she just got her Junior Hunter title for which she retrieved birds, so when we started getting the newspaper again, I had an idea.

Every morning, I get all excited: “Tooey! Let’s go get the newspaper!!!” She jumps up and, now that we’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks, runs to the door, dashes out, locates the newpaper, and fetches it up.

By this morning, we’ve gotten to the point where she’ll hold onto the newspaper until she gets across two rooms and onto her rug. When I catch up to her (after closing the door after she comes back in), I wait a few beats and then, standing in the “Front” position, put my hands out and tell her to “Drop”. When the newspaper falls into my hands, she gets a piece of homemade chicken jerky and an enthusiastic “Good fetch!”

I know she’s liking this game because, when I get the plastic-covered newspaper in my hands, the plastic bag is all wet with drool. She’s working for that yummy treat, which I am happy to pay her. And I can also tell because her tail starts wagging at “Tooey! Let’s go get the newspaper!” and doesn’t stop until she gets to her rug.

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Absence is the mother of invention

Russ usually is the one to walk the dogs in the morning. He’s quite efficient at it — he takes both Cooper (off leash) and Tooey (on leash) early every morning for their tour of the neighborhood.

I’m guessing he’s chosen this leash configuration to avoid tangled leashes. Tangled leashes are a pain when you’re walking two big, energetic dogs. And tangled leashes is inevitable when said dogs stop in different places, sniff different things, cross the sidewalk from side to side at different points, walk at different speeds, and generally have different ideas of what should be done during said walk.

(Yes, we could and do teach the dogs to heel. But I don’t really want them to have to heel for a whole walk — that defeats the purpose of just going out to enjoy ourselves.)

But I can’t do what Russ does. Having a dog off leash would just make me crazy with worry about what can happen in a neighborhood where there are cars and bikes and kids and squirrels and other dogs also out on the city sidewalks. As it is, it takes quite a lot of concentration to think about and watch out for two dogs at the same time.

But still, that tangled leash thing is a pain.

And since Russ is away for a number of days, I’m doing the morning walk. (I usually do the evening walk, and that one is easier because I’m not rushed to get out the door to go to work, and I can walk the dogs one at a time, which I prefer.)

So, I came up with this solution. It’s made out of two dog-seatbelt harnesses, two 4-foot leashes tied together, and one 1-foot leash hooked to the 4 foot leashes.

(Yes, I know I could buy a commercial version of this. But I already have quite a large leash collection, and the thought of buying yet another leash didn’t appeal.)

It only took a few blocks for the dogs to get the hang of it. And the beauty of it is that they are policing themselves. Cooper likes to lunge forward, which he can’t do very easily with a 65 lb. weight holding him back. And Tooey likes to dawdle, which she can’t do with a 65 lb. weight pulling her forward.

So they mostly walk side-by-side, stop and sniff together, wait at curbs together (which we have managed to train them to do), and generally just behave themselves.

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It’s official: March was wonderful

The AKC website confirms that March was truly wonderful. I still smile whenever I think about it.

First Cooper got his Rally Excellent (RE) title:

And then Tooey got her Junior Hunter (JH) title:

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Another lesson in physics

What do these two photos have in common?

They both show the results of Irish Water Spaniels exploring the world of physics, specifically demonstrating the laws of momentum and the conservation of kinetic energy.

When a 25 Kg dog runs at a speed of 10 kph and is impeded by a stationary object, kinetic energy is transferred to the object, which in turn alters the object’s position in space, depending on its mass and any additional forces that affect its position, such as gravity and friction. In the case of a couch, the kinetic forces of a jumping dog combined with gravity result in a change in position of the couch. As illustrated in the top photo.

In the bottom photo, a female Irish Water Spaniel was accelerating (after a squirrel), and the stationary fence absorbed the kinetic energy of the moving squirrel and dog. This energy exceeded the elastic qualities of the cedar fencing, and the molecular bonds of the cellulose fibers where not enough to prevent the destruction of a section of fence. (E_k=1/2mv²) Both the squirrel and the IWS were adept at changing their vectors of force and velocity, and so escaped unharmed. The fence has since been repaired.

Observing science through canines is always a treat. Tooey is especially gifted at demonstrating Newtonian physics. The force of squirrels upon Irish Water Spaniels is still being examined.

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Irish Water Spaniels as Gundogs

Irish Water Spaniels were developed specifically to assist hunters with guns. And while the people in the British Isles generally have a bit more restrained attitude towards firearms than those of us in the U.S., they are uninhibited in acknowledging that this whole group of working dogs are classified as “Gundogs”.

From the Kennel Club web site:

The Gundog Breed Group: Dogs that were originally trained to find live game and/or to retrieve game that had been shot and wounded.

Some folks in the U.S. are exuberant promoting our second amendment rights, but we are also too politically correct at times, so the AKC refers to this group as “Sporting Dogs”. Other than chasing tennis balls, Cooper doesn’t do sports. He is bred to be a gun dog. He is a gun dog.

That being said, not only is he trained to find and retrieve birds, he is trained to work around shotguns. He responds to the direction they are pointed (at birds) and respond to the big noise they make (time to go get birds). He is even moderately good at recognizing people handling guns and knowing when to turn in the field and work within the range of the gunners. He is a gun dog. Sporting dogs chase frisbees.

Cooper is delighted to go hunting with a Browning Citori 20 gauge!

Owning and training gun dogs is not cheap. Among other things, a well trained gundog likes the status of working with nice ($$) shotguns. If the dog is not flushing birds quick enough, finding downed birds, and delivering promptly to hand, then the problem may be that the gunner is using an inferior firearm. While this is a subtle distinction, many gundog trainers are constantly trying to find the perfect shotgun for their dog just like a show handler goes through jeweled show leads.

Cooper teams up with a Benelli Super Nova for some Chukars

In the quest for perfection, Cooper is on his 4th shotgun. Being an IWS who does waterfowl retrieving and upland hunting, he requires a different gun for ducks, pheasant, partridge, quail, etc . . . . (so far he does not know about geese, grouse, or doves).

Cooper admires Trice’s precision with a Remington 870 Wingmaster

Cooper, following Norm’s lead with a Beretta 686 28 gauge

Friday, he got to field test a Benelli 686 and a Ruger Red Label. Both seem acceptable at this point and he located the birds and delivered the pheasants to hand. To date he has worked with Benellis, Berettas, Brownings, Rugers, Remingtons and Stoegers.

Sitting proudly in front of his Ruger Red Label 20 gauge

Preferences? Nothing definitive yet, as the list of shotguns Cooper hasn’t tried is still quite long.

Tooey scanning the sky for ducks with Norm and his Browning BPS

Tooey did mention that she would look good working with a B.Rizzini 28 gauge. (She just earned her AKC Junior Hunter title, and so I may have to reward her for her success.)

It’s all about the dogs and our effort to make them happy.

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Tooey Junior Hunter

Just under two years ago, on April 3, 2011, Tooey started her retriever hunt test career at the Marin Retriever Club 2011 Spring Hunt Test. Today, she completed her retriever Junior Hunter title with a pass at the Greater Pacific Northwest Retriever Trial Club 2013 Spring Hunt Test. (The spring in between, she was busy having puppies.)

Tooey — CH Stanegate Second Thoughts RN JH WD

Tooey does have a few idiosyncrasies:

• Tooey likes working with Russ, but she likes me to be there to watch her. She just runs better for him — more focused, more willing, and more energetic going out to get the bird and bringing it back in. But she wants me to be there to watch her. While she’s moving from holding blind to holding blind on her way to the line, she looks around until she finds me. That has meant that I must go find some place in the gallery to stand, call out to her so she knows where I am, and then stay standing there in that very spot until the series is over and Russ brings her to over to me.
• She doesn’t like wet hunt test birds, whether they are retriever hunt test ducks or spaniel hunt test pigeons. If they’re wet, she puts them down and then picks them back up before bringing them in. On the other hand, in actual hunting, she’s perfectly happy to crash into whatever water there is to bring back something Russ has brought down.
• It’s better if you can practice a few weeks beforehand at the hunt test grounds, and have that practice include strangers out in the field throwing birds. That way, when strangers pop up out in the field during a hunt test, Tooey doesn’t have to stop and sit in the middle of her run to wonder, “Who ARE those people and WHAT are they doing here?”

Tooey coming back with the 1st land bird

Tooey and Russ getting ready for the 2nd land bird — a live flyer
photo by Norm Koshkarian

In a pinch, the land series could have stood in for a water series. The field was crossed by numerous ditches filled a foot or so deep with water. The line was set up just on one side of one such ditch, and for each of the marks, the dog had to splash through (or leap over) at least one ditch. From the dog’s point of view, the ditches were camouflaged really well, and several dogs stopped at them as if the ditches were walls. Conditions were great: overcast or sun breaks, light breeze coming down the field toward the line, about 45 degrees F.

The land marks were straightforward. The field was interspersed with patches of 2 foot cover, but was generally only about 1 foot or less. The first was about 65 yards, and the second, a live flyer, was generally about 85 yards, except when the bird decided to hook back over the road rather than out over the field.

Tooey marked her birds really well. She trotted pretty much straight out and straight back, with very little hunting. And on those land birds, she did a beautiful delivery to hand from the heel position.

Tooey delivering the 1st water bird
photo by Norm Koshkarian

So, Team Tooey went on to the water series. Russ was clever. The trek out from the parking lot to the pond was about 1/4 mile. Because he was slated to be the #4 dog, he arranged for me to take Tooey to just outside the test area while he attended the handler’s meeting at pond’s edge. That meant that since dogs #1, #2, and #3 weren’t there yet, he and Tooey were ready to go first. And that meant that Tooey’s birds would start out dry. Later dogs could easily get birds that had been used in the water once already, and so were likely to be wet to the skin and stinky.

Like the land marks, the water marks were clear cut. Both birds landed with a splash into the water, with the first one being 40 yards out and the second one about 60 yards out. The second bird was a bit tricky because it landed next to the bank in a dark shadow cast by the surrounding trees. But again, Tooey went straight out and straight back.

All was happy going until she dropped her 1st wet bird on the bank and proceeded to bop it with her nose several times. After only a few moments, she picked it back up, carried it a few feet, and then dropped it again. And then, after several long heartbeats, she picked it up and delivered it to hand. She pulled exactly the same routine on the 2nd water bird, only this time with maybe one fewer drop of the bird.

We didn’t know exactly what this bird-dropping would do to Tooey’s chances, but when all the dogs were done, after a long wait, Tooey’s name was called and Russ was handed that beautiful orange ribbon.

So now Tooey is done with retriever hunt tests. She has her show championship (CH) and her retriever Junior Hunter (JH) title, so next we’ll tackle the Obedience Companion Dog (CD) title. It would be great to have two All-Around IWS in the house.

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No bird Rally

There she was, doing a quick heel around the cones in Rally class, when suddenly, a duck started quacking. Tooey stopped in her tracks, her attention totally off me, looking toward the area where the quacking was coming from.

The quacking stopped. After a few beats, I got her attention back, and we started heeling again. Then the quacking started up again: “Q-u-a-c-k, q-u-a-c-k, quack, quack, quack, quack.” Just like the mechanincal quacks that are used on wingers during hunt tests.

Tooey stopped again, focussed on the area where the quacking was coming from.

I could not get her attention. That quacking had her rivetted.

Finally, the right command came to me. “No bird,” I said. “No bird.” She turned and looked at me, as if to say, “Oh… No bird. Are you sure?”

The quacking stopped just then. Why? Because the owner answered her phone. She’d had it set to quack when that particular caller called, and being an obedient phone, that’s exactly what it did.

And Tooey and I got back to heeling.

Who knew we’d have to proof against quacking in the Rally ring?

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The dog days of March

Yesterday had to turn out well, no matter what happened. How could it not with a sunny, warm and dry day in March out with the dogs?

We started out at one of our favorite training grounds with a picnic hunt test put on by the Greater Pacific NW Retriever Trial Club. This is the same site where the club will put on a real hunt test later this month, and we want to help Tooey get comfortable in those surroundings should we decide to enter her in the test.

As the morning progressed, she got better with her marking. Russ had to handle her to the area of the fall on her first bird, but by the afternoon, she successfully trotted through the the area of her third bird to get to her fifth bird, which landed in line with the third, but 25 yards further out.

Tooey is not a naturally confident performer, so we were happy to see that she didn’t let the fact that there were a bunch of strangers hiding out in the field faze her. (Strangers being out in the field has been a problem in the past.)

I ran Cooper in the field. Or at least, I tried to. I had resolved that if he broke at the line, I’d march him back to the car. Sigh… I gave him several chances, but Cooper spent most of the morning in the car.

After field practice, we drove about 30 minutes to the building where Cooper’s next Rally trial will be held. Fortunately, yesterday the owner was sponsoring “tickers” — short bursts of time when you can take your dog into the ring and do whatever you want within the provided setup. We arrived in time to run Tooey twice through a Rally Advanced setup and Cooper twice through a Rally Excellent setup.

Tooey did okay with a lot of enthusiastic encouragement, and Cooper did great. In fact, except for the fact that he didn’t jump the high jump the first time I asked him to, all of the mistakes were my mis-reading or forgetting the signs.

The contrast between Cooper’s field work with me and his Rally work was striking. Out in the field, he was completely not aware that I even existed. In the Rally ring, he gave me lots of really impressive (for him) attention and had a lot of fun.

I feel pretty good about our chances of qualifying in Rally Excellent next weekend. I’ll have to study the signs again and bring my cheat sheet with me, but at least Cooper will be familiar with the venue when we get there.

But the dog day didn’t end there. We finished up with a bath. Never Cooper’s favorite, but necessary. He was so dirty that the shampoo turned brown.

After all that, I was tired. Tooey lay down in that sweet spot where she could keep an eye on both me in the dining room and Russ in the kitchen. But not Cooper. No. When I finally got to sit down with some scotch and my book, what did I find at my feet? A tennis ball and a hopeful Cooper smiling up at me.

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Fieldwork is teamwork, part 1

Bright blue skies, bright white powder snow, bright blaze orange worn by the people and dogs. That’s my impression now, looking back on it. That, plus sage brush, stands of juniper, and tall clumps of grass scattered along the field. Breathing hard, trying to keep up with the dogs, pulling through a foot of powder with every step, tramping along ruts cut in a small road, down hills, into a cattail- and willow-filled, half-frozen stream along the bottom of the draw. From time to time, the sudden flutter of wings as pheasants were flushed from their hiding places. And the dogs, each one in turn, panting with excitement and effort, themselves becoming more and more bespangled with heavy white balls of snow.

Just as it was getting light yesterday, Tammy, Russ and I, plus three Irish Water Spaniels, left Portland and drove east along the Columbia River and then up and over the Deschutes River into the high ground above Maupin, Oregon. We were there to hunt pheasants. Unlike Tooey, Cooper hadn’t had his share of the bird hunting yet this season, and his brother Mowgli wanted a chance to fine-tune his bird sense.

With three dogs and three people, we quickly formed working teams, each with two gunners, a dog handler, and a dog. We started out with Tammy handling her Mowgli, with Russ and I gunning. It didn’t take long, maybe only 10 minutes of quartering back and forth, road to draw, when Mowgli flushed a pheasant. The bird flew right into range of Russ’s gun. Russ downed the bird, and Mowgli, true to his retriever training, marked the bird’s fall, retrieved it, and delivered it to Tammy’s hand.

The three us covered the length of that field, and Mowgli did his job, flushing up three more birds. We shot at two of them, but we gunners were apparently not warmed up enough, because we missed them all. Mowgli tried to help the situation by running down into the draw, across the pond, and up the opposing hill, chasing after one that got away. But when it became apparent that he would never catch it, Tammy called him back.

By this time, Mowgli was carrying at least 5 pounds of snow on his belly and legs. So we turned and headed back.

After we rubbed as much snow off Mowgli as we could and put him up in the warm car with a bucket of water and some food, we got Tooey out for her turn. Not that we expected that Tooey would get any birds from the area that Mowlgi had just worked, but we did have to give her a turn. She hates being left out, and this way, there would be at least the appearance of fairness.

Russ handled Tooey, while Tammy and I held the shotguns. Tooey, unlike Mowgli, didn’t quarter the field, but spent most of her time in the draw. The stream had dammed up a bit at the beginning of the field, and the resulting pond was frozen. Too bad for Tooey, who loves to swim. She continued to work in and around the willows and cattails, getting birdy a few times where some of Mowgli’s birds had been. Toward the far end of the field, she found the unfrozen section of the stream, and went in and out, washing off the snow that was accumulating on her belly and legs. Finally, we turned around, walked back along the road, back to the car. We spend a few minutes rubbing Tooey to get the snow off, put her up in the nice warm car, and then had some lunch.

After lunch it was finally Cooper’s turn. I’ll cover that in the next post. Stay tuned…

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Tooey provides Christmas dinner (with the help of friends)

A white Christmas in Oregon with your dogs and friends is about as good as it gets. With sunny skies and a fresh cover of snow, the weather yesterday was perfect for day of chasing pheasants in central Oregon. Tooey and I joined up with Norm and his Boykin Spaniel, Scarlett (many posts about them over the last few years), plus Norm’s son Kent, who is visiting from Illinois.

Tooey, admiring the fine 28 gauge shotguns carried by Norm and Kent

Bagging birds when we go hunting with Norm is almost a sure thing if there are birds to be bagged, and with the addition of Kent (a world class clay shooter himself), it is a virtual guarantee that if there are pheasants flushed, then there will be birds brought home. And because I was flanked by two amazing shooters, I got to carry just a camera and a dog whistle while working with Tooey.

Tooey, who has two legs of her AKC Junior Hunter Upland title, is still an enthusiastic rookie. She has often been suspicious and easily distracted at hunt tests with all the strange gunners, judges, and an audience watching from the gallery. So working with gunners she knows and trusts is a great confidence builder for her. (Cooper on the other hand, never met a person with a shotgun who wasn’t his best friend.)

Tooey immediately found a scent and started tracking through the snow. With head down and nose to the ground, she soon became oblivious that we were supposed to be working as a team. Tooey had pushed well out of shooting range when she flushed up her first bird. But in no time at all, she was able to locate another rooster, which she flushed up right in front of Norm, who got in a good shot. One down, retrieved, and in the bag.

Tooey’s second flush and first bird of the day delivered to hand

Her third flush flew fast and low, straight away over the horizon. Norm and Kent let that one go rather risk just wounding the bird. As a handler, I did let Tooey roam a bit too far out at times, but for the most part, she systematically inspected and pushed through heavy cover right in front of us. Of the birds flushed that were remotely in range, only one bird was missed by the gunners.

Tooey’s next flush and in range of Kent’s great shooting

Tooey’s 2nd bird, ready to be delivered to hand

Mea culpa as a photographer. The above image was my last photo of the day because my camera battery was soon exhausted in the cold, and my spares were safe and warm at home.

Tooey’s final count was 5 birds flushed, with two shot and delivered to hand.

To her dismay, we then put her up in Norm’s truck and headed back to the field with Scarlett. This time I traded my dead camera for a shotgun, while Norm handled his little brown bird-finding machine. Scarlett’s first rooster was caught asleep at the wheel, and Scarlett delivered the live bird to Norm. All other birds took note and flew. Scarlett’s score was 4 delivered to hand. Collectively for both dogs and the gunners, there were 10 flushes, only one miss, and all shot birds (6) retrieved and delivered.

Upland hunting with Spaniels is best, in my opinion, with one dog and two gunners. Due to logistics, I had to leave one of my 2 pups behind. Because Cooper got to go duck hunting recently, he drew the short straw this time. Patrice was away on Christmas family duties, so Cooper got to spend the day at Norm’s house being entertained by Carol (see her amazing work on this post).

Where’s dad?

She made this photo of the boy scanning the horizon waiting for our return, just knowing we had made a mistake by not taking him. I had tried to trick him by leaving his truck behind so he would assume that I had stepped away for just a moment, but I’m guessing he figured out the scam pretty quick.

Not to worry. In two days we will be out there again, this time with Cooper along, too.

Merry Christmas

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Do what you love

Sometimes, things go to hell. This week has been one of those times. In addition to the tragedies of school children and mall goers being killed en masse, there are also more personal disasters. This week’s was being laid off from my job.

It happened on Tuesday. I was escorted out of the building with a packet of papers to sign. All I could think of was, thank God I didn’t cry until I was locked in my car, driving away. That first day went by in a fog of shock, bewilderment, and fear. (Not anger. Anger came later.)

On Wednesday, the morning dawned cold, but to clear skies with white puffy clouds. A gift in usually-grey December. So I decided to go out and do what I love — walk with my dog at the Delta.

Starting east down the train toward the Cascades in the distance

It was like a meditation. I didn’t think of anything except walking the paths toward the ponds Tooey loves, enjoying the bright blue sky, the golden fields, the bare tall cottonwoods. I walked, and Tooey trotted along mostly behind me, stopping to sniff the ground for critters and horse poop. But sometimes, especially as we got closer to the ponds, she dashed ahead. That girl loves swimming. Even in December, her thick coat protected her and kept her warm. Watching her do what she loves kept me warm as well.

Here are pictures, in order. They don’t tell a complete story, though. There’s a whole section missing, where we walked a narrow path through a grove of cottonwoods. But often I didn’t want to take pictures. I just wanted to walk and enjoy the feeling of moving forward, with the sun in my face, watching my girl love her life, trying to keep loving mine.

On the other side of the power lines are duck hunters shooting. Note Mt Hood in the distance at right.

Swimming in December. I wait and watch for many minutes while Tooey cruises the pond.

Almost to Tooey’s favorite pond. Come on! Hurry up! Let’s go!

Tooey retrieving a stick. More of an excuse to swim than anything else.

Oh, do we have to go already? I’ve only swum in three ponds, and I haven’t gotten to this one yet! Can’t we stay just one more minute?

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Oonagh — not last and not least

Ms. Rainbow is the youngest girl, and she was the smallest puppy in Tooey’s litter of pups. Every week, when I went up to Colleen’s to visit the puppies, I took a special interest in Rainbow. Sometimes she shivered, and I put her under my shirt. She often spent time off in a corner by herself — her own girl. Sometimes, another puppy would be fooled by her size and try to tell her what to do, but Rainbow held her own.

Whistle Stop’s Pick Me, Pick Me “Oonagh” (Ms. Rainbow) at about 5 months

As you can see from the picture, Oonagh is very beautiful. Her people say that along with that beauty, she’s also an intelligent pup, perhaps even a little too much for her own good sometimes! Of course, she’s a teenager, so that’s to be expected.

Oonagh is also very lucky for a Water Spaniel — she lives on the Oregon coast. Her people say she loves the Oregon coast and the rain! And they say she loves to bring it all in the house with her. Well, her mom also loves the ocean and bringing it all home. Love to see the legacy continue.

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