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I have become part of the multisport group, Team Blazeman. My goal is not just one single event but a year of marathons, duathlons, eco-tris and triathlon in an effort to raise awareness and funds for this dreaded disease.
I think all of us completely under-utilize and under value the great gifts we have been given by God of our mind and body. I think endurance sports exemplify what we can truly do with these gifts. Every year I am brought to tears watching the stories from the Hawaii Ironman. I follow the great athletes of the Tour de France, and I try to challenge myself every day to never waste these gifts, but I am guilty of being wasteful.
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We HAVE to win this battle. There is an answer, an earlier diagnosis Learn more here: Blazeman Foundation for ALS To contribute online visit my contribution page at: Spoo’s War on ALS Fund Raising Page If you are uncomfortable contributing online drop me an email at Despite 20 million people dying from ALS since 1869, there hasn’t After we reach our first milestone of $1,000 I will After our initial goal is reached, for each $100 additional contribution Please make my life miserably busy with training and website work |
Okay, after a couple of month hiatus I think Gundogdoc should be back online with current content. I know I’ve made those claims before, and while I’m not consistent you’ll have to admit I do keep coming back. This year dog training dominated my free time and we have been swamped at the clinic. Tomorrow we have a new veterinarian joining our staff, and I hope that will mean more free time to devote to the site again.
This year has been different for me because thankfully the dogs have not taken a back seat and their training is coming along wonderfully. Lily and Belle will be running at their respective Master levels come fall. Lily continues to amaze me with her ability to learn and her drive:
We have added some updates to the site today and they should just be the tip of the iceberg. They include:
A Music Video Review from last year HERE
And
A New Ask the Vet HERE.
In the weeks to come stay tuned for a photo gallery from the HRC Spring Grand. I was fortunate to be able to conduct bitch checks all but one morning and spent three of the five days chasing the dogs and handlers with my camera. In addition I have two audio podcast interviews that need edited and posted. As a teaser one will include a giveaway of one of the most exciting new e-collars on the market.
I’ll start this post by apologizing for the lack of content for the last two months. With that out of the way I’ll share the story of where we’ve been and why.
I’ve alluded to the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of training with Lily. Exactly a year ago I attended a cocker field trial in Minnesota and immediately knew this was a dog game I would be playing. From the beginning I took a different approach to Lily’s training than any dog I have had in the past. She received no bird work early in life, I worked obedience until we both were sick of it and I’ve utilized only positive training methods. This meant attempting to train to a finished level with no collars, and other than a brief 1-2 week period of utilizing the check cord, I didn’t even have a strap collar on during training.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression I’m anti-collar. Heck I have about a dozen of them, but I wanted to see how far I could take a dog without one. I cannot take any credit for this novel approach. When I decided on a spaniel I scoured the literature on British methods and learned as much as I could from these techniques. The biggest influence on this decision, though, was the time I’ve spent with Lily’s breeder Paul McGagh of Glencoe Kennels. I have spent a lot of time with dog people from all over the country, and I don’t mean this as a slight to any of them, but the times I’ve spent with Paul have been some of the most amazing dog training lessons I have ever witnessed. Paul truly has a gift when it comes with his relationships with these amazing animals and it was seeing this first hand that made me want to alter my approach with this dog.
Lily’s training has been a very positive experience and I feel it has forced me to learn, as a handler, more about the canine thought process. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a number of these training sessions would end with me contemplating adding the collar to the mix in order to smooth out the process. And to be completely honest I can’t say we won’t go down that path eventually.
My plan had been to run her first trial the weekend of April 25 in North Dakota. The week leading up to the trial found us still struggling with steadiness to flush and so I elected to scratch her from the trial in favor of three days of training, with the hopes she would be ready for the Minnesota trial the following weekend. This proved to be a very wise decision as the switch went off for the little dog and outside of the rare break on a low-flushing bird she was bringing it all together like a champ. The Wednesday night before the trial we had a near perfect training session and Thursday I ran her birdless simply to work on control in the field.
Friday I loaded up the truck and headed to Minnesota to watch the first day of the trial in hopes of gaining some insight before our big run on Saturday. The day was filled with incredible dogs. A huge number of dogs were carried over during each series in the open. There was a puppy stake on Friday, smaller than Saturday’s, but with many of the dogs running both days I was able to see some of the competition. After the first two puppies had run I turned to one of the other spectators to inquire about these dogs’ runs and more specifically, what would have kept them from not getting called back in the open…his reply, “Oh, nothing, they would have done fine in the open.” This made me sick about Saturday. When I had first signed Lily up for these trials I thought puppy actually meant puppy; however, in spaniel trials it meant dogs that were under two years old. At 10 months old Lily was truly still a puppy, but the realization sunk in that she would be playing a big dog’s game.
Saturday morning’s alarm sounded much too early and I knew judgement day, literally, was upon us. The puppy stake is usually run after the first two series of the open. Two days of wind and somewhat dry conditions resulted in a number of dogs being dropped during the open, but regardless it felt like it was dragging on forever. Finally the last brace was ran and the trial broke for lunch. We were now about a half-hour from making our debut on the trial scene.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous. It had been suggested by a number of people to take some Immodium with me, and while I didn’t have to resort to that I was pretty worked up. I watched the first couple of dogs run and then decided to get her out of the kennel. We were the last dog to run and so I thought having her out on lead for a while may help settle down her nerves…that proved to not be the case. The longer we waited the more anxious she got. I was beginning to think I had made my first blunder.
It was looking like we were going to start midway through the course and so we walked towards the line as the handler before us sent his dog into the field. His pup put up a bird early and it was dropped, followed by a nice retrieve. Blunder number two had just occurred as Lily intently marked the fall since she was so close to the shot. We followed the action up the course waiting our turn. After the pup’s second bird content the judges decided to head back to the beginning of the course for our run rather than to pick it up where the previous dog ended. By this time Lily was a wild banshee at the end of her leash and raring to go and I was going over every conceivable worst-case scenerio in my head.
After some brief instructions the judges allowed me to take the course. I hupped Lily, stroked her head a few times, told her she was a good dog, removed the leash and we were on our way. Immediately she headed for the area of the fall from the previous dog. I was worried we were in trouble as I could not whistle her out of the area. Blunder number three, in hindsight I should have just left well enough alone, allowed her to hunt it out and swallowed my whistle. As it was I’m sure I got dinged for some whistle refusals and lack of cooperation. After what seemed like an eternity she gave up on finding the bird and started hunting like the dog I’d come to know.
The first bird contact went like textbook with a retrieve to hand. The second bird gave us a run for our money. She put it up and immediately hupped. The bird caught the stiff wind and came right back at the judges and me, hovering over us for a few seconds before landing about two yards in front of me with Lily about 20 yards further beyond. The judge asked me to release her and the pup came charging at me like she was shot out of a canon. She hit the bird, rolled it on the ground before it took flight and she once again hupped, was steady to shot and made the retrieve. I handed the bird to the judge and leashed Lily up. Just like that our first trial run was over In my constant negative view of the world I spent the walk back to the truck dwelling on the first minute of the run as she hunted for a non-existent retrieve. I kept thinking, if only I had kept her away from the line longer, if only I had left her in the truck, if only I….if, if, if.
As I walked back with my head down everyone I met on the walk had nothing but compliments to give on Lily’s run. They were impressed with her style, her steadiness and of course her looks. Every time I brought up the start of the run it was dismissed as her just being a puppy and an insignificant part of the performance. The first few times I heard this I thought it was just people being nice to the rookie; however, the more I heard it the more I thought maybe we had a chance. As I shook off the negative thoughts clouding my judgement I had to admit that I could not have been happier with her bird performance that day.
With a mountain of work waiting for me at home I decided to skip out on the last series of the open as well as Sunday’s amateur. The four-hour drive home gave me ample time to reflect on the events of the day, and I knew I had been stricken by yet another addiction to add to my list. Regardless of the judges decision this cocker trial thing had gotten in my blood.
Later in the evening, after the truck was unpacked and the steaks were on the grill my phone rang with news that Lily had taken second. I couldn’t believe it. The little dog had come through. All the hours of researching breeders, the training books and videos and the endless hours of training had all come together.
For those of you who know me also know that I have a competitive side and I may have been known to note in the heat of battle that second place is the first loser. I like to think that in this case Lily had a first place performance that was downgraded by an incompetent handler, that, and had I won right out of the gate I may not have had the incentive to come back for more. Ok, maybe I’m making a little much out of a puppy trial, but we all have to start somewhere.
For a photo gallery look at the first two days of the trial check out the pictures HERE.
In typical Gundogdoc fashion I had hoped to bring a stream of consistent new content, only to have my real responsibilities take over, causing the website to take a back seat. I’m still planning on making regular updates; however, I think they will be more sporadic over the month rather than weekly.
I don’t want to give the impression that it’s been all work and no play around here. Earlier this year I mentioned that I was going to take up decoy carving, which I did. The new hobby is not progressing as quickly as I had planned, but I am hoping to have a few decoys to hunt over this fall. Here is my first attempt, from start to finish, on a mallard:
I had grand plans to chase the snow geese this spring, and the snowline to the north and conditions around here were setting up to make that seem like a productive proposition. Unfortunately just as the birds were starting to show up, Mother Nature delivered one last burst of subzero weather, which send the geese back south. When they finally had the weather to allow them to move north they just kept going, beyond the areas I typically hunt.
All was not lost, as I kept the vacation time and used it to train Lily and Belle for five straight days. Andy Schoeberl of High Caliber Labradors recently relocated to the area and we’ve been helping each other out with the dogs. Lily has been progessing unbelievably well, and as a result I haven’t been carrying the camera when working my dogs…it’s been another story when the Labs are in the field though:
If all goes as planned, and the weather cooperates, we’ll be back out this week and hopefully with pictures of my girls. Until then stay tuned to the site, as I’ll try to get back on track before the end of the month.
I had promised a bunch of updates starting in February, and I delivered…barely. In addition to the updates that I posted earlier in the week I just added a bunch of new ones today:
New Book Review: Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg.
In the last year or two I have read a couple of books that explore the
world of animal intelligence, and I recently finished one of the best
reads I’ve found on the subject. Some of you may be familiar with the
life of Alex the African Grey Parrot. He was an exceptionally
intelligent bird that was the subject of numerous articles, news
segments and a television show. At the most basic level Alex was the
30-year research project of Dr. Pepperberg. Very early in the book you
realize there was certainly much more to this pair than that of
researcher and subject. READ MORE
New Case of the Month: Better than a Stick in the Eye? I’m guessing this GSP thought most things were better than a stick in the eye after we removed it. READ AND SEE MORE
New Featured Link: Wolfe’s Sporting Collectibles
I’m a sucker for anything sporting history related. The reason my first
dog was a Chesapeake was because of their tie to waterfowling history.
Our house is adorned with sporting art and memorabilia. Dennis Wolfe’s site is an unbelievalbe source of sporting collectibles. For someone with my “addiction” to this lifestyle, such a site should be illegal. To borrow from the homepage: This is a site designed for like minds who enjoy and Collect Antique Hunting & Fishing Collectibles. I hope you will find some things of interest so get comfortable in your chair and take a look around. Visit the site HERE
New Ask the Vet: When a front leg lameness is difficult to identify what’s next? Read More HERE
It will come as no surprise that fall is my favorite time of year. Much of what I enjoy occurs during the fall, and I spend the rest of the year longing for, planning for and training for the next fall to come around. That being said, spring places a close second in my rankings of the seasons. As I get older I certainly have started to dread winter more and more, but no matter how rough the winter is, I don’t think I could live in a part of the country that doesn’t experience it. Without winter’s extreme temperatures, and the frozen, snow-covered environment it creates, spring would not seem so glorious. This last weekend the wind chills once again were below zero, yet today’s forecast high is 52. These first sunny, almost warm, days of spring are nearly magical with their effect on the people and animals in this part of the country. Of course we will be slammed back into reality on Thursday when the wind switches back to the north, the temperatures plummet and snow returns to the forecast…but it will be days like today that give us hope that better times are indeed just around the corner.
There truly is something eternally rejuvenating as winter eases its grip on the earth and spring slowly inches closer and closer. One of the spectacles that I greatly enjoy during this transition are the magnificent sites of migrating waterfowl. This year I hope to once again be in the field capturing images as the birds head north to their breeding grounds. In anticipation of this event, I’ve uploaded a gallery of images from previous years’ waterfowl migration:
CLICK HERE to view.
Well, after making promises that this month would be the month that I kicked off a more regular schedule I’ve clearly dropped the ball. I was on the road for continuing education for two weeks with spotty internet access and spent last week feeling like my head was going to explode with a late-winter respiratory infection.
I have most of my planned content completed and will be posting new stuff almost daily this week to make up for the lack of updates for the rest of the month. Stay tuned to the main page as the updates are posted.
Last night I added a new video to the video podcast series. One of the simplest tasks an owner can do at home is to trim their dog’s nail; however, I would say that a vast majority of people are intimidated by that task. In this newest installment I hope to take away some of the fear and make you more comfortable managing the nails at home.
A couple of notes on the video. It does require Quicktime in order to view it, and there is a link on the video page to download the latest version. Also, it is again a very large file and so if you plan to view it from your browser I would recommend hitting pause and allow the video to load for a couple of minutes to allow seamless playing. The video is available in the iTunes store as a free download, and if you have the iTunes software this may be the easiest way to handle the video.
Link to Video Podcast Page
Link to Nail Trimming Video Page
Most of the snow in the area has finally started to melt after accumulating much of the winter. This has helped open up more areas to training, and we’ve been taking advantage of it. I’ve been slowly returning Maggie back to action and she’s been loving every minute she gets in the field:
She’s definitely still a little awkward and sore in that rear leg, but unless you watch closely she isn’t missing a beat. By far one of the most stylish dogs I’ve ever owned, I never had the heart to “break” her to be completely steady. For whatever reason she is easy to make steady to wing and shot, but when the feathers drop watch out:
All the dogs got to work, but with Belle and Lily I’m trying to work out steadiness, which meant it wasn’t practical to carry the camera in the field. Both dogs are doing great and as long as I stick with it I’m hoping to have a couple of steady youngsters by hunting season. It seems like I make that statement every year and never see it through, so we’ll just have to see. Lily is progressing and it has certainly been an exciting process to train her, essentially in reverse, from any other dog I have ever owned. She has been remarkably steady and obedient through her early training and now that we are introducing birds late in the process I just need to stay ahead of the curve:
I’ve posted some of the best pictures from the morning (the light was fantastic) in the photo gallery on the site. For more pointing dogs in action CLICK HERE.
I’ve been out of town most of the last week at a Continuing Education meeting and my internet access has been sketchy at best. My hope had been to post some ramblings from the meeting but there just wasn’t wireless to be found at the meeting facility. I was able to get some site updates before leaving last week. The most significant is a new podcast:
In this episode we talk with Dr. Vicki Wilke, a surgeon at the
University of Minnesota and a prominent researcher in the field of
canine knees. This is the first in a two-part interview discussing knee
injuries. In this episode we discuss the different types of cruciate
injury, the current popular surgery techniques, and what to expect from
the recovery process. This is a very informative interview and a
must-listen for any dog owner. In addition we feature our Ask the Vet
section and some website updates. CLICK HERE.
We also added a new Ask the Vet question:
Q.) My six-year old setter developed a hard
lump on the inside of his leg, above the dewclaw, at the wrist. It
didn’t seem to bother him at all but of course we were very concerned.
Our vet x-rayed, and recommended a biopsy, which we did The report came
back as a organizing hematoma. Our vet has never seen one before. Since
the biopsy the dog licks the bump, and limps a little after exercise.
The entire joint is thicker now. Any advice on what we should do next,
if anything?
A.) Each year I
seem to gain clients at the clinic who comment that they bring their
dogs to me because I’ve been through most problems with my own dogs. I
guess this is good for my clients and website visitors, but bad for my
dogs.
CLICK HERE for the rest of the answer.
I did some updating to a couple of sections on the site this weekend.
This week’s Ask the Vet: 
Q.)
My seven-year old wirehair ate a deer carcass and got very sick. Her
blood tests showed she had elevated pancreatic levels. They put her on
amoxicillin for two weeks and a bland diet. She is a week into this and
is good one day and then has no appetite the next. She drank a lot of
water this morning before vomiting it up. I noticed she has a slight
yellow color to the whites of her eyes, her ears and on her belly. Is
the amoxicillin causing this or does she have a liver problem also?
It’s the weekend and I’ll be taking her into my vet Monday morning.
A.)
I would strongly suggest that the blood work be repeated, and that
further diagnostics will also need to be performed, such as x-rays and
an ultrasound. With the yellow change to the eyes I would be very
worried that the liver is now significantly involved in the process.
The amoxicillin should not have anything to do with these new changes. CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
up photography. These displaying prairie chickens are what drove me to
invest too much money into a bunch of camera equipment. CLICK HERE
As a teaser I actually have started an actual editorial calendar which will kick off in February with some exciting new podcasts, articles and more.