Cali and Liddie’s Story
When Sherry Lankin lost her rescued Cocker Spaniel Willow in 1999 she and her rescued English Springer Spaniel Coco were devastated. Coco and Willow were inseparable. Sherry truly thought that Coco was going to die without her friend Willow. She decided to get another English Springer Spaniel to help fill the void for both herself and Willow. Sherry’s vet referred her to Marsha Ambrose, a local breeder in Phoenix Arizona.
Marsha had a new litter of puppies, and after a bit of pleading agreed to allow Sherry to come see the litter. When she arrived at Marsha’s she met a beautiful tri-color English Springer Spaniel named Liddie who was nursing 9 puppies, barely a week old. Sherry visited the pups often and eventually bought two of them; a female she named Alexandra, and a male named Nicholas. As Marsha was signing over the registrations to Sherry she noticed that the pups were born December 15th, the same day she had lost her beloved Willow.
Sherry stayed in touch with Marsha for a while, but Marsha never seemed to be very interested in what happened to Liddie’s puppies. She would run into Marsha at the vet’s office once in a while, but never had much more contact with her. Alexandra and Nicholas grew into happy, health, beautiful dogs and fit right in with Coco at Sherry’s home.
Marsha Ambrose passed away in the summer of 2006 after a long battle with cancer. She was home alone with four of her dogs when she passed away. When her body was discovered Liddie, now 10 years old, Liddie’s 6 year old daughter Cali, Bisbee, another senior female and a young dog named Timmy were with her. Marsha had no immediate family or friends who could take in the dogs, so they were taken to the county shelter.
Sherry, who was now the Phoenix area coordinator for English Springer Rescue America, received a call from the county animal shelter. They explained that they had taken in four English Springer Spaniels, and had them in quarantine because they had been exposed to bodily fluids, but would release them to rescue if Sherry could take them. Then Sherry’s vet called and told her that Marsha had passed away and her dogs had been taken to the shelter.
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| Dr. Nancy Murbach reunited with Cali & Liddie (and Michelle) at Westworld in Phoenix, March 2008. |
As Sherry was making arrangements for these four dogs, she got another phone call from veterinarian Dr. Nancy Murbach. Nancy knew Marsha and her dogs and upon hearing about her death, immediately began taking action to take care of the dogs. Nancy also knew Sherry and knew that she was involved with Springer Rescue. Nancy had already made arrangements to pick up Marsha’s dogs from the shelter and have them kenneled at Alta Vista Veterinary Clinic. The dogs had been kenneled at Alta Vista for some time while Marsha was in and out of the hospital over the past several months. So the dogs were at least in a safe place they were familiar with, and with people they knew.
Sherry immediately went to Alta Vista to check on the dogs. “Honestly, I think Liddie recognized me. I knew it was her immediately and I knew Bisbee, who also remembered me.” Sherry recalls. Of course, she took them into the ESRA rescue program and began the process of finding them new forever homes. Liddie, Cali and Bisbee went home with Sherry for foster. Nancy Murbach took Timmy home with her and ended up adopting him.
Eric Christensen and Michelle Boytim fell in love with Max, a friend’s Tri-color English Springer Spaniel, when they first started dating in 1995. Ever since then they had wanted Springer of their own. At the time they lived in Northern California where Michelle was a graduate student at Stanford University and Eric was a computer consultant. Their busy lifestyle really did not allow them to have a dog, but Eric became involved with the Golden Gate English Springer Spaniel Rescue group and fostered several rescues.
After Eric and Michelle moved to Tucson Arizona in 2005, Eric contacted ESRA to let them know he was available to help if they needed volunteers in Tucson. Sherry Lankin got the message and returned his call. While talking to Sherry he mentioned that if, by chance, a tri-colored Springer happened to come into the rescue program, he might be interested in adopting.
Several months later Eric got a call from Sherry. She told him she had a 5 year old female tri-color in foster and wanted to know if he was interested in fostering or adopting her. The dog she was referring to was Marsha Ambrose’s dog Cali, Liddie’s puppy. Eric quickly agreed to drive to Phoenix to meet Sherry and Cali that weekend.
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A gaggle of springers at Sherry Lankin’s house |
Meanwhile, Dr. Nancy Murbach was busy. She knew that Liddie had heath problems that required medication, and that she hadn’t had any of her medication since Marsha had passed away. She was able to make arrangements to gain access Marsha’s house to recover Liddie’s medications as well as the dogs’ AKC registration papers and records. She also collected Liddie’s veterinary records from Alta Vista and several other veterinary practices where Liddie had been treated over the years.
Sherry called Eric and explained to Eric that Liddie had some serious health problems. Valley Fever, Hyperthyroid, high blood pressure and most alarming, had been diagnosed with Cardiac Myopothy, a condition which is usually fatal within a few months. In spite of the dire prognosis, Eric and Michelle couldn’t separate Liddie and Cali. Even though they knew that they were taking on a hospice case with Liddie, they believed that it was best for both dogs to stay together. They resolved to adopt both and give Liddie the best care they could to make her remaining days happy and comfortable.
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Adoption Day! Liddie and Cali at Sherry Lankin’s |
Liddie and Cali went home with Eric and Michelle on September 30th, 2006. Liddie was ten years old and Cali had just turned six. It didn’t take long for a strong bond to begin to develop between the girls and their adoptive parents. In spite of the difficulties that they had been through, both girls were warm, loving and eager to please. They enjoyed walks in the local park and cuddles in front of the TV at night.
Eric took the girls to Tucson veterinarian Dr. Mary Ann Bolser at Canada Hills Animal Hospital. While Dr. Bolser was at first alarmed when she reviewed Liddie’s records, her examination indicated that Liddie was relatively strong and healthy and in no pain or discomfort. She ran a series of tests, made some small adjustments to the medications, and agreed with Eric that they would do all they could to make her as happy and comfortable for as long as possible. Cali was also examined, spayed, and determined to be in reasonably good health.
The girls settled into their new home and quickly become cherished members of Eric and Michelle’s family. Liddie responded well to her adjusted medication and seems to be revitalized with all of the love and attention she received. She showed no outward symptoms of her illness and began to respond to her Valley Fever treatments. Cali rapidly worked her way into Eric’s heart and would often spend her evenings cuddling with him on the floor in front of the television.
During the Christmas vacation of 2006 Eric read “Remembering to Breathe”, by Phoenix obedience competitor Willard Bailey chronicling his introduction to AKC obedience competition and his journey from rank novice to attaining the coveted Obedience Trail Champion (OTCH) title with his Golden Retriever Honeybear. Eric already knew from researching his adopted girls pedigrees that they had come from some very impressive and highly titled blood lines, but had not had the opportunity, due to Marsh’s illness, to train and earn any titles of their own. Eric and Michelle decided to try to train the dogs for obedience competition with the hope that maybe they could help the girls earn some sort of title.
In March of 2007 Eric and Michelle began training the girls at a local training center. With Michelle handling Liddie and Eric handling Cali they began a 10 week course that included a weekly class and an hour or more of “homework” every night. It was a difficult and demanding program. While the girls did well in class, they did not respond well to the training methods being taught at the school. But they demonstrated a good aptitude for the competition obedience skills that they were learning and were happy and eager to train every night.
After graduating from the training class, Eric and Michelle decided that the training methods they had learned in class were too harsh for the girls. Especially for Cali, who got stressed in class and was clearly afraid of being corrected. They began researching alternative training methods and discovered “Clicker Training”, a positive reinforcement training method developed by Karen Pryor while working with dolphins. The Clicker Training method is based on a psychological learning model known as Operant Conditioning where learning comes from desired behaviors being “marked” with a clicker, and rewarded with food or play. The animals learn that performing these behaviors results in rewards. Then the trainer teaches them to perform the behavior on command. Finally sequences of behaviors are connected together, or “shaped” into a complete exercise.
Using clicker training the girls blossomed. They rapidly gained confidence and their eagerness to work and train was multiplied. Cali was no longer stressed in training, quite the opposite. Both dogs learned quickly and within a few months were performing all of the AKC novice obedience exercises well enough to consider entering them in a trial.
During the time they were training for novice obedience, Eric and Michelle learned about another form of AKC competition called Rally Obedience. Rally is a course consisting of 15-20 stations. At each station the hander and dog perform a designated exercise before moving on to the next station. The teams are scored on the accuracy of their performance of each station with the highest scoring team winning. The teams are also timed through the course and the fastest time is used to break any ties in the judges scores (which is common). So speed and accuracy are both required for success in Rally.
As they learned about Rally they realized that the girls, thanks to their obedience and clicker training already knew most of the exercises, and already knew the foundation behaviors which could be “shaped” into the remaining exercises. So they began training the Rally exercises to add a little diversity into what had, by this point, become a fairly boring and repetitions obedience training routine.
On November 16, 2007, just a little more than a year after they had been rescued from the county shelter by Nancy Murbach, Liddie and Cali made their American Kennel Club competition debut at the Coyote Classic in Tucson. Co-hosted by the Tucson Kennel Club and the Greater Sierra Vista Kennel Club, the Coyote Classis is a three day show which allowed the girls three opportunities to earn the three qualifying scores required to earn a title in both Novice Rally and Novice Obedience.
Obedience turned out to be a challenge for the girls, who are very attached to each other and easily distracted by the other’s presence. Liddie managed to earn one qualifying score in Obedience, but Cali came just short of qualifying twice. Eric and Michelle, as novice handlers in their first AKC event, made their fair share of mistakes too, which undoubtedly cost both girls qualifying scores. Though not great performances, it was still quite a debut for a couple of senior rescue dogs in their very first obedience trails.
While the obedience results were less than spectacular, both dogs absolutely shined in the Rally ring. In her very first weekend of AKC competition, 11 year old Liddie finished 2nd, 1st and 3rd to secure her first AKC Title – Rally Novice. Not to be outdone, Cali also posted a 1st and a 2nd on the way to her own Rally Novice title that weekend.
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Judge Eilieen Jaffe presenting Liddie and Michelle |
Eileen Jaffe presenting Cali and Eric with the |
While thrilled with the results in Tucson, Eric and Michelle now had had a problem. Earning the Rally Novice title enables a dog to move up into the Rally Advanced class. But Rally Advanced includes jumps, and advanced moves like pivoting in place and backing up with the dog maintaining heal position. They had not expected to earn the RN titles their first weekend and had not trained the dogs on any of the advanced exercises yet. But the next trial – a 4 day trial in Yuma Arizona, was less than 2 weeks away!
Over the next two weeks the girls and their handlers trained every chance they could. Eric worked the dogs in the mornings before work and again at lunchtime. Evenings were spent at the local park with both handlers working on rally exercises with their dogs. Again the foundation and structure provided by clicker training allowed them to quickly shape the more complex advance Rally exercises. Both girls learned the high jump, bar jump and broad jump. As the weekend of the Yuma and Imperial Valley Kennel Club shows approached, Eric and Michelle made the decision to bump the girls up to Advanced class believing that it would be a good learning experience and maybe they could earn a leg or two toward the RA title. Liddie and Cali had other ideas.
In Yuma, both girls earned their Rally Advanced titles. Liddie scored two 3rd place finishes and Cali scored a 4th and a 1st with a perfect score of 100 in rally advanced. She may be the only Springer Spaniel to ever record a perfect score in Rally Advanced. Liddie also earned her second qualifying score in Novice Obedience that weekend.
At their third trial in January 2008 Liddie finished 2nd in both Rally advanced and excellent. Liddie’s advanced run, in the rain, scored 98 and nearly won. She was edged out by the last dog to run who pulled out a perfect 100 for the win. Cali won rally excellent and also scored her first qualifying score in novice obedience with a 4th place finish.
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| Eric and Cali competing in Rally Excellent February 2008 |
Michelle and Liddie competing in Rally Excellent February 2008 |
The girls have gone on to complete their AKC Rally Excellent and Novice Obedience titles. They are working on their Rally Advances Excellent titles, the highest level of title in AKC Rally. Cali and Eric are training for Open Obedience. Cali will make her Open class debut at the 2008 ESS National Specialty. Both girls have also become TDI Certified Therapy Dogs and work with children.
In less than 18 months Liddie and Cali had gone from homeless dogs with serious health issues to being active therapy dogs and stars in obedience competition. At 11 ½, Liddie is now in good health and no longer shows any symptoms of heart problems. “Don’t write off senior rescues”, Eric says. “The seniors have a tremendous amount of love to give and can be vital and active members of the family. It is tremendously rewarding to give a senior dog a fresh start and a happy life, and they return all of the love tenfold.”
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| Cali and Liddie - Together Forever |
