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 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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Cooper’s new water bowl

Cooper got a new water bowl over the weekend. He’s a gentleman, and besides, Tooey considers that anything belonging to Cooper must also belong to her, so she gets to drink out of it, too.

The Oregon Hunting Retriever Club awarded Cooper this bowl at the club’s annual dinner. We weren’t able to attend the dinner, so we really weren’t paying attention to what might occur there. So when our friends Hank and Holly, who had been at the dinner, handed us this nicely engraved bowl at a training day last weekend, we were both very pleasantly surprised.

As you can see, the bowl is engraved with:

OHRC 2012
Cooper
Patrice & Russell Dodd
Senior Hunter

With that very nice bowl, the OHRC recognized Cooper for having earned a Senior Hunter title in 2012.

Cooper’s having earned his hunting test titles has been recognized with this bowl, a lovely plate and a wonderful whistle lanyard from the Irish Water Spaniel Club of America, a plaque from the Irish Water Spaniel Club of Puget Sound, ribbons from clubs putting on the tests, and certificates from the AKC. I am proud of what Russ and Cooper have achieved together, and I enjoy having and looking at each piece.

But what I enjoy even more is the going out and doing the fieldwork as a family and with friends. Working outdoors with the dogs, and in Cooper’s case, doing something that the dog absolutely adores doing. Whether it’s hunt tests or real hunting, there’s nothing like hiking outdoors, doing something together that makes everyone happy. The dogs are happy and my husband is happy, so I am happy.

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Train first, THEN bathe

Saturday evening we had guests coming, so Saturday morning I got busy brushing and combing the dogs. It always takes a while. Tooey gets mats behind her ears and between her toes, and Cooper’s coat collects a sample of every bit of vegetation he wanders through.

So by the time our guests arrived, the dogs were relatively neat, and our guests were mostly charmed. (Perhaps they got a little tired of Cooper’s frequent offers of a soggy tennis ball, and Tooey did her stand-offish bit for a while…)

Then Sunday morning, after our guests went off for the day, and it being an absolutely and uncharacteristically beautiful, warm, and dry October day, we decided to go field training.

Tooey bringing Russ the bumper after a 100 yard retrieve

Russ being very pleased with Tooey’s 100 yard retrieve through 2 foot cover

We had a lot of fun. We always do. We did walking singles and lining drills, and both dogs did pretty well.

The dogs also collected hundreds and hundreds, nay thousands, of seeds. The field was covered with 1 to 3 foot grass cover, all of it ripe and waiting for some force to come along and help distribute the seeds. My dogs were happy to be that force.

And distribute the seeds they did. I could have planted an entire meadow with the seeds my dogs collected, even with the dogs’ short field cuts. I pulled seeds out from between their toes, from under the eyelids (thank you Rod for your advice about checking the eyelids), and from around the ears (though none got into the ears, thank you Martyn for your advice on ear grooming).

Brushing didn’t get all the seeds out, so both dogs went into the bath, which got out a lot more of seeds, and then got blown dry, which got out almost all the rest of them.

So, I guess I could have (should have) waited until Sunday to do all that brushing and combing. The dogs probably would have liked that better. But the extra brushing didn’t hurt. And they’re clean now. For at least a while.

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Tooey has three retriever legs

On this cool almost-Autumn morning, Russ, Tooey, and I ventured over to Carnation, Washington to compete in another retriever Junior Hunt Test, this one put on by the Puget Sound Labrador Retriever Association. (Cooper came, too, but alas! to his sorrow, he didn’t get to compete — he just had to listen to gunshots and duck calls all day, poor boy.)

Tooey was in the Junior B group, which started with the water marks first while the Junior A group was doing their land marks. The Junior B judges decided to use the same marks that the Seniors had had the day before, only as singles instead of the double that the Seniors had done. (Later I heard that the Junior A judges simplified the water marks for their group.)

The start line for the water series was located on a bank maybe 6 feet above a long channel of swimming water. The right-hand mark was down the bank, across the narrow width of the channel (maybe about 10 yards wide), up the opposite bank, and then about 40 yards farther to the area where the live flyer would most likely fall. (You can never tell exactly where a live flyer will fall — it all depends on how far the duck flies before it gets shot.)

To the left along the length of the channel, there was an island topped by weeds, brambles, and grass. A dog swimming that water to the left-hand mark would go down the bank into the channel, swim the length of the channel past the island, hopefully ignore the decoys at the water’s edge, and climb up the opposite bank onto a grass-covered promontory where the bird had landed.

Tooey ran third — enough time for Russ to see what some of the difficulties might be. On the right-hand mark, while they were down in the channel swimming, some dogs lost their mental picture of where the duck had landed. On the left-hand mark, some dogs got sucked in by the island, thinking, as they swam near it, that the island is where they should get out and look for the bird.

The right hand bird was first, and Tooey’s performance was pretty straightforward. Down the bank where she hesitated briefly, swam the water slowly (Russ joked that there must be a “no-wake zone” down there), climbed up the opposite bank, and trotted the distance to the bird. She grabbed it up and brought it back. She did drop it on the bank near the start line, but then picked it up again to adjust her grip, and delivered it nicely to hand.

Tooey returning with the live flyer

Tooey delivering to hand, lined up facing the left-hand mark

The left-hand bird was tougher for many dogs, but Tooey handled it beautifully. She swam past the island only getting up onto the submerged edge of the island at its far end. She then swam the rest of the way, got onto the shore, briefly sniffed the decoys, and then climbed up to the promontory to find the bird right away. This bird she delivered without dropping it first, halleluiah!

Tooey returning with her second bird, swimming past the island

With such nice work, we were not surprised that she was called back to the afternoon land series. The land series was held at the back the property just east of a nice stand of tall cottonwood and oak trees (so the gallery and dogs could wait in the shade). The marks held in a long grassy area bounded by blackberries on the left, a gradual hill in the middle dotted with fallen-over decoys, and which then fell into a swale on the right. The first bird was another live flyer that fell into the right-hand swale at about 75 yards. The left-hand mark was very short — pretty close to the blackberries, about 50 yards out.

The live flyer was first. The gunners threw the duck, which then hooked right, was shot, and fell right behind the gunner’s station, out of sight of Tooey, the judges, and the handler at the line. The judges offered Russ the option for a “no bird,” which would mean he’d have to go back in line about three dogs. Tooey was amped, though, so he declined the offer. The gunners retrieved the first bird, threw another, and shot that one. That duck had flown a better pattern and landed in the swale where they had intended the flyers to land.

Tooey going out at full speed to retrieve the land series “live flyer”

Tooey zoomed out, disappeared briefly into the swale, and then reappeared as she went straight to where the first bird had fallen, right behind the gunners station. Ignoring the gunners and finding no duck there, she then went back up the hill to the decoys. No duck there, either, so she went back down into the swale and along its length, out about 150 or so yards.

I could see Russ touch his whistle, thinking about getting ready to try to handle her to the bird, but he stopped himself and waited while she worked it out. Tooey then turned and started coming back toward the line on her own. On her way, she must have winded the bird. She trotted over to it, grabbed it up, brought it back at a deliberate pace, and delivered it to hand (without dropping it first, again halleluiah!).

Tooey emerging from the swale with the bird

Retriever ribbon #3

The left hand bird was much more straightforward. A short out and back, done and thank you. She and Russ did a great job during this test, and I am very proud of them both. This is her third pass of a retriever Junior Hunt Test. If/when she passes one more, she’ll have her Junior Hunter title.

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Fan mail again!

This blog’s Favorite Photographer got fan mail today. So appropriate since said FP’s favorite beers are usually the dark and hearty porters and stouts.

Card by Bryn Parry

This card will definitely go into the collection. The sender got the card in the UK on a trip there recently. The artist is Bryn Parry. Although his studio has a website, I didn’t see this card listed. I guess we’re just very lucky to get one.

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Tooey x Cork Puppies at 44 Days

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Right before the pouring down rain

Hank and his Standard Poodle, Taura, met Russ and I (along with Cooper and Tooey, of course!) out at one of Hank’s favorite training grounds. A very large, mown (and rare) field with trees, out in suburbia.

It was a short session. We knew the rain was coming, and wanted to get our work done before that started.

While we were waiting for Hank to arrive, Russ ran Cooper on some blinds. He ran it in a narrow V-pattern, each leg about 75 yards long, with one blind about 30 degrees apart from the other. The pictures below, taken with my very stupid smart phone, don’t show the V. The birch tree in the top photo is the left blind, and the V-shaped birch in the second photo is the right blind.

By the time Russ and Cooper were done with blinds, Hank had arrived, and we set right to work. First we ran some 30 yard blinds for Taura and Tooey (who was disgusted that there were only bumpers to pick up, and not birds).

Then we dreamed up a long double for Cooper. He ran two very long doubles through the trees and into two small clearings. The two legs were about 125 yards and 85 yards long. The area of the fall of his long mark was very strange — in fact, we used that as the area of the fall for all three dogs, and all three of them got confused.

In and amongst the trees in this field are very wide, tall clumps of blackberry bushes. For this long mark, the thrower stood in front of one clump and threw the frozen bird over in front of another clump. From 125 yards away (for Cooper) and 80 yards away (for Tooey and Taura), all three dogs thought that the bird had fallen on the far side of the clump. They all ran around to the back of the clump, searching for that bird. Cooper stepped on his bird on his first time out to this mark, but then lost it the second time. Tooey had to be helped a bit by the thrower, who simply took a few steps toward it. Taura had to search for quite awhile all around the clump, but she finally found it.

It was a puzzling view for me, too. When I was sending Tooey out to this mark, it looked like a flat plane of blackberries, simply two clumps right next to each other, with a clearing in front. When I got out there to throw for Taura, though, I could see that the area was actually sort of circular. What looked to me at the line to be flat was actually kind of a half-circle of brambles around the clearing.

It’s always a lot of fun to watch the dogs work, which is why I keep doing this.

• Cooper is like a laser. He doesn’t always get it right, but he always wants to retrieve — birds, bumpers, balls — whatever you want to throw. And he doesn’t want to quit — Can we have just one more throw, please? That’s his motto.
• Taura is elegant to watch, full of energy and grace. She doesn’t always know what she’s doing, but she does it with enthusiasm. When she finds a bird, she sort of pounces on it with a “Oh, goody! There it is!” kind of happiness, and then runs back with it, full out.
• Tooey is out there to be included in the game. Birds are definitely better than boring old bumpers. And today, she was riveted on Russ, who threw her first bird. She kept looking at him, wanting him to throw all her birds. I had to actually kind of hold her muzzle and point it in Hank’s direction, so that she could see him waving him arms and and making quacking sounds, getting ready to throw her second bird.

And then we were done. And just as we were loading up the cars with our dogs and equipment, the rain came, cold, wet, and pouring down. But the car was warm, and by the time we got home, we were all happy, dry, and ready for a snack.

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Mats on the ears, knots in the toes

That’s what you get when you don’t comb out your Irish Water Spaniel for two weeks: mats and knots.

Especially if that Irish Water Spaniel is Tooey.

Cooper, now, he’s easy. For whatever reason, his coat is not thick. That has its down sides, like not being thick enough to protect the skin between the pads of his feet. But one of the up sides is that he’s easy to comb out.

In his grooming session earlier this week, he was so easy and fast to comb out that I had it done one morning before I went to work. I found one measly little mat between a couple of toes on his front feet. So small that I could work it out with my fingers.

Tooey, the sweet darling, is another story.

Her coat is so thick that if I don’t keep up with her grooming — if I don’t comb her out completely every week — then I pay. And so does she. I end up having to spend at least an hour, or more, combing, brushing, or cutting out the mats and knots, and she has to put up with it. And neither one of us likes it much at all.

Her last brush-out and bath was the day we got home from our last hunting trip. That morning, she’d rolled delightedly in something not visible. It wasn’t poop, but it probably was urine of some kind. Stinky, musky, pervasive, and she loved it.

So without even letting her out of the car, I quickly unpacked the car, whisked her to you-bathe-it place, and got her clean. That was 15 days ago.

I spend the intervening time procrastinating. I should have known I would pay.

So last evening, I spent a good 1-1/2 hours working with the detangling spray, slicker brush, pin brush, poodle comb, and regular comb, working out all the knots and debris.

She had knots behind each ear, more between her front toes, and one or two in each arm pit.

She kind of likes getting her ears brushed and combed. That spot in the back of her head, where the ear is attached to the skull — that’s one of her favorite places to get scratched. So the combing probably feels good to her.

But her feet and armpits? Brushing, and combing especially, appear to be torture. I spray the detangler liberally on those spots, brush it through, and then go on to less sensitive areas while waiting for it to do its job.

But eventually, I have to get the knots out between the toes. That is a battle. At the least pull on a mat, she starts trying her best to get her feet away from me. If I can’t get the mat out quickly, I usually resort quickly to scissoring them out. She’s not a show dog anymore, so it’s okay if the coat on her feet looks slightly misshapen for awhile.

The underarms are almost worse. Last night, I laid her on her side on the grooming table, and had Russ feed her treats while I combed her armpits as gently as I could. When I got all the knots out, I clipped the fur under there with the hope that this will cut down on future mats.

But really, the only cure is to brush her once a week. No excuses. No procrastination. I know better — I just need to follow my own advice. And we’ll both be happier.

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My dog ate Your home work!

I have always wanted to say that, and now I can. I teach a variety digital arts at the Art Institute of Portland, and I take in home work assignments on a variety of digital mediums. I normally download student assignments onto my laptop or portable hard drives — but occasionally I will accept a small thumb drive that I can download at a convenient time.

This morning, as I was getting ready to head to school for the last day of the Fall term, I heard a distinct crunch coming from the next room. Something was not quite right. I went to investigate, and there was Tooey, lying on the bed with 2 GigaBytes of digital illustrations and photographs in front of her, as shown below. Did you ever wonder what was inside those small portable thumb drives?

No data was ingested, just 2 GigaBytes of photography made inert with just a few bites from an Irish Water Spaniel.

2GB Thumb Drive: exploded view

 

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Coopercam: The Director’s Cut

Cooper is a versatile boy. I have tried teach him how to make espresso coffee, but he is limited to drip only. Cinematography might be a new venue for his talents. I recently built a new collar out of steel and neoprene that is a camera mount for the GoProHD video camera.

In the video that follows, I felt it necessary to slow it down to half speed because Cooper’s motion is so quick, that the visual shakes would be too disturbing to watch at regular speed. Even then, when he shakes off the water, be prepared for some visual disturbances.

Cooper wearing his stylish GoProHD video camera

We spent this morning at St. Louis Ponds with the Northwest English Springer Spaniel Club at their monthly club training day. After a few drills, I stepped over to one of the ponds with Cooper and his new camera to record a bit of video. In fact, it is the very same pond that is in the photo at the top of blog, the one with Cooper leaping into the water.

Patrice and Tooey are away this weekend in Canada at a Retriever workshop on Vancouver Island, so us boys are staying home and doing boy things with our toys. Over time I will adjust or modify the collar to help stabilize the image a bit. But I think Cooper has a future in producing some bird hunting videos.

Now if I can get him to perfect those espressos . . . .

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Attempts to video attempts at training Sit!

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that Cooper has had a very rocky time staying in the Sit-Stay position. He is SO tempted to run after and retrieve anything moving, even when we’ve told him to stay. And it’s just gotten worse over time, especially at hunt tests.

I really want him to pass one more Senior retriever hunt test, so we are going back to the beginning and working on Sit-STAY in the living room.

And, coincidentally, I just got a new little video camera that needs to be tested out, and voilá: a marriage made in, well, somewhere (probably not heaven). So, here are early attempts at video-ing an early attempt at training stay. (I know my photographer husband, brother-in-law, and friends will be kind, right?)

We’ve been working for a couple of weeks at just staying in a sit while I go put the food bowl down across the room. Then I added a tennis ball rolling across the far side of the room. Then I added a tennis ball rolling past Cooper.

Then day before yesterday, I tried a small bounce of the tennis ball. That didn’t work. He broke his stay and went after the ball. So yesterday, I went back to just rolling toys across the room, with some success.

Take a look:

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Tooey’s a chick!

Good news! Tooey’s a chick. (Well, we knew that.) To be less cute about it, Tooey has a CHIC number.

That means that she’s taken all her pre-breeding health tests, and that that fact has been published by the Canine Health Information Center (CHIC). These tests are specified by the Irish Water Spaniel Club of America to help breeders make sure that the dogs and bitches they use for breeding are healthy.

Having a CHIC number does not mean that the dog is healthy enough to be bred. Take Cooper, for example, who also has a CHIC number. He’s had all the tests. But he also has a number of disqualifying health issues, like a cataract and mild elbow displaysia, not to mention SLO. So he won’t be bred. (Poor boy. He’d really like to be.)

Tooey, on the other hand, is beautifully healthy:

http://offa.org/display.html?appnum=1477416#animal Accessed 7/12/2011

Next step: Deciding who the lucky dog will be.

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How to spend $75 in 3 minutes

How to spend $75 in 3 minutes:

1. Take your dog (whom you been training to be steady at the line for many months) to a Senior hunt test.
2. Watch your very excited dog zoom out to the start line in nowhere close to the heel position.
3. Call your dog back to the heel position at the start line. Tell him, “Sit.” Then tell him “Sit,” again.
4. Watch the first bird go down while your dog jumps forward 4 feet.
5. Watch your dog break and race out as the second bird goes up before the judge releases him to go.
6. Watch your dog retrieve the second bird before it even bounces the first time.
7. Watch your dog come back with the second bird and proudly deliver it to your hand.
8. Leash your dog, say “Thank you, judges,” walk back to the car, and drive home.

For an additional $6, you can then pour yourself a very nice glass of McCarthy’s Single Malt Whiskey, even if it is 8:30 in the morning.

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