Last night, Rosemary called me, and Christine emailed me with congratulations. Well, actually, first Rosemary called to ask me to confirm that Cooper had 3 passes in Senior-level retriever hunt tests in 2011. And then Christine emailed me to say that I would probably get some good news, but that she couldn’t tell me what it was.
Well, OK. I love good news. And getting good news this way is a little like Christmas. You know something good is probably coming, but you have to wait. And just in case something good ends up not coming, you reserve yourself a little for protection. And besides, with the excitement and many hours of lost sleep due to Tooey’s new baby puppies, I was exhausted. It’s hard to feel too excited when you’re exhausted.
But then I actually got the good news itself. Rosemary called me to say that Cooper had won the Top Retriever Hunt Test IWS for 2011 award* from the Irish Water Spaniel Club of America. And then Christine emailed me with congratulations.
Cooper with duck
So it’s real, after all, and very cool. This is the first year this award has ever been given, so Cooper will go down in the club history books as the first one to win this.
And since I actually got a few hours of sleep last night, I can now feel EXCITED!
Hooray! Go Team Cooper. And many thanks to Russ for persevering. And thank you to Tim, Rosemary, Christine, and Elissa for putting this award together.
*Top Retriever Hunt Test IWS for 2011 – Presented to the IWS who while competing in AKC Retriever Hunt Tests amasses the highest number of points as a result of passing tests in the Junior, Senior or Master Retriever Stakes in any one year. Bonus points to be awarded for completion of a title, qualifying for the Master National and/or completion of the Master National (Retriever).
For some reason, Facebook isn’t allowing me to “Like” or comment on your post there. In any case, let me be the first here to congratulate you, Russ and Team Cooper on this outstanding achievement. You should be very proud!
Congratulations to Cooper, Tooey, Patrice and Russ plus the ten new members of the Dodd family. Does that make 14 IWS (& lovers) in one family? I think I see a Disney movie in your future.
Awesome accomplishment!!!
What a truly amazing achievement for the “new kinds on the block”. My sincere congratulations to Team Cooper for your tenacity and perseverance, and especially for doing it the “hard way” and for not choosing to go down the electric collar route! I salute you. Brilliant. Best wishes from all at Cúboglach.
To be completely accurate, I will add that Cooper was initially trained using an e-collar. And he often wears his e-collar when we’re out training now. We just don’t use it very much, very rarely in fact. And when we do use it, it’s on the lowest settings. If we find we need to use it for some reason, then we know that we need to take several steps back in the training, using rewards as much as possible.
Sorry for the typo “New kids on the Block!”.
Incredible, congrats to you both and Cooper, what an accomplishment.