A Tail of Two Springers

I’m happy and proud to announce that Liddie and Cali’s story is featured in a new book, Mondo Cane - A Dogs World by David Latimer. Proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit English Springer Rescue America.

“Every year in the United States English Springer Rescue America Inc. (ESRA) assist over 1000 English Springer spaniels in distress. This book tells the stories of around 50 of these gutsy dogs.

We hope, through this book, that you will understand the plight of many of these dogs, and hopefully will be motivated to assist them - either through donation or sponsorship of Special Needs dogs or through fostering or adopting.

These dogs, and ESRA, need your help.”

This is a beautifully produced full color book full of photographs. You can preview the first few pages here. I have to warn you that all of the stories in this book do not have happy endings. It’s an emotional, but uplifting read. I’m a big softie I guess, cause I cried more than a few times while reading this, but I smiled and laughed a lot too. These are not only stories of dogs, but also of all of the wonderful people that make it possible to save so many of these dogs from euthenasia and give them a second chance at a good life in a loving home.

It’s hard to belive that Jack has only been with us for 6 weeks. It seems like we just got him a couple weeks ago! In that 6 weeks he’s doubled his weight, now 23 pounds and grown like a weed. I swear sometimes I can actually see him grow while he’s sleeping!

His breeder, Mary Young, described him to me as “Mr. Personality” in an email before we went to Texas to meet him. Well… he’s most definitely living up to that! He loves everybody… people, other dogs, even cats. The resident cats at the Vet’s office aren’t so fond of him though.

He’s actually being a very good boy considering he’s just a puppy. Thus far he hasn’t chewed up anything that he’s not supposed to, but teething should start any day now, so we’ll see how long that lasts. We try really hard to not let him get in situations where he can get into trouble. He has stolen a sock or two, but we think we’ve got that pretty well under control now. He knows what things are his toys, and pretty much leaves otehr object alone…. with teh exception of leaves and sticks. I don’t think there is a leaf or stick in the yard that hasn’t been in his mouth at this point.

Jack and the girls are getting along fairly well. By that I mean that they haven’t tried to eat him yet, even though he has given them every reason to. Cali will play with him a little, but at nearly 8 she doesn’t have much stamina. Jack doesn’t want to stop playing, so he unmercifully harasses both of them, biting at paws and hanging on ears and just being a general pest. But they seem to take it all in stride for the most part. I keep expecting one of them to flatten him and reallt tell him off, but thusd far all he’s recived is a few stern warnings from Liddie. Cali is such an omega dog that I don’t think she knows that she CAN tell him to stop, or just doesn’t know how. So we have to intervene occsionally when he gets out of control. When he isn’t in manic play mode, they get a long quite nicely, even sharing the big comfy bed downstairs for an afternoon nap.

Today was his first puppy socialization session at the Humane Society. It’s a drop-in hour on Sunday morning where you can bring puppies to socialize with other puppies in a safe, clean, well supervised environment. It’s a fantastic program and all the dogs just love it! Jack, of course, being Jack, took it on himself to be the center of attention… not a small feat when you have 20 puppies running around. He  was an instant hit when he made a bee-line for the wading pool and flung himself in, drenching a few other dogs and a couple people in the process. He then proceeded to roll, jump and frolic in the pool for the next 10 minutes, doing a fairly admirable job of emptying it. Once totally soaked, he then proceeded to run around dripping on anyone that he could. His energy level and exuberance was a a bit much for the small puppy group, so we moved him over to the big puppy section after that which was perfect for him. He spent the remainder of the hour playing non-stop with every dog that was willing, and finished up by performing a perfect belly flop with a full twist into the larger wading pool on the big puppy side. So I came home with a wet, and very tired dog. I’m really looking forward to making this a regular Sunday morning ritual.

Meet Jack, aka Windfall’s Perpetual Motion. So far he’s living up to his name.

I know he’s kind of a funny looking Springer.

Jack is a Flat-coated Retriever. We flew to Texas last weekend to pick him up from Mary Young at Windfall Retrivers in Lexington. Mary is one of the top breeders of working flatcoats in the country and we are very lucky to have the opportunity to get a wonderful dog with such high  potential from her. We had a fabulous time in Texas with Mary and her husband Tim, playing with Mary’s pack of flatcoats and some of Jack’s littermates.

Jack is now home with us in Tucson and settling in. He’s adjusting well and is being a very good little puppy. He can almost sleep through the night already and is doing quite well with housbreaking.

The girls aren’t so thrilled about him being here yet, but they’ll come around in time. Liddie is mildly interested, but Cali still would rather not have anything to do with him. He’s a little too high of energy for her right now, but she’ll get used to him.

Mary and her husband Tim provided a real treat for us on Sunday morning when they took us out  to do some field trial training on their ranch with Jack’s mom Karma and several other flatcoats and a lab. It was amazing to watch these dogs work hundreds of yards away with just a whistle and hand signals for commands. I’ve never actually seen field work in person before and I became an instant fan.

Someday Jack will learn at least basic field skills so he can earn his Junior Hunter title and Working Certificate.

After field training, Mary, Michelle and I took Jack and his littermate Mr. Orange (now named Bohdi by his new owner in South Carolina) to an indoor agilty trial to evalute how they handled all of the the noise, people and dogs. Bothy pups did well, though jack didin’t seem to thrilled about being barked at by “invisible” dogs in covered crates.

Sunday evening we took Jack and Mr. Orange to Houston with us. As a favor to Mary we agreed to take Mr. Orange to the airport to go off to his new owner. That meant a night in a hotel room with two 9 week old puppies their first night away from Mom. Eeeeek!!!! Fortunatly, with them both in one crate they comforted each other and slept most of the way through the night with only a little fussing. The fact that we wore them out to nearly tho point of becoming comotose before bed didn’t hurt either.

Now… we just have to survive the next few weeks of puppyhood….

Cali and Liddie will be getting a new roommate in May. We will be bringing home a new puppy on May 10th! Not a Springer Spaniel this time - our new boy Jack is a Flat-coated Retriever from Mary Young at Windfall Retrievers in Lexington, Texas. We are very fortunate to have first pick male from this exceptional breeding!!!
Mama Karma (CH. Windfall’s Karma SH WCX ** NA NAP) is the only puppy from the last litter of Hall of Fame dog Rumor (CH. Windfall’s Innuendo CDX, MH, WCX***). This is Karma’s second litter. Her first litter has excelled in every arena. Among its members are Sprint (Windfall’s Made To Run), Teresa Rodney’s world-class agility speed demon and a winner at the World Cynosport Games in her first full year of competition (watch the video of her winning run here). Others of these three-year olds are running at Senior and Master Hunt tests levels and another is preparing for Junior Hunter and wrapping up her championship.
The sire, Woody (CH. Zebulon’s Windy Tigertee JH) is a Sweedish import that Mary broght back from Sweden as an 8 week old puppy. As a puppy he went reserve to a major in Houston from the 6-9 month puppy group. He also took a four point major win at the prestigious Golden Gate Kennel Club Dog show in San Francisco. Woody has completed his Juior Hunter title and is currently doing advanced training.
Possible new puppy - this is Yellow Boy at 4 weeks. We don’t know yet which of the 6 boys will be our Jack. We’ll leave that to Mary to decide once the puppies have been fully evaluated and tested. Mary knows what our objectives are and will be able to pick a dog that will be the best match for us.

(Note: Yellow Boy is not Jack. Yellow  Boy is named Phil and will be staying with Mary for awhile. Phil is a little slower to mature than the rest of the litter and Mary hasn’t quited been able to figure out what sort of home he’s best suited for yet. So for now Phil is enjoying the good life at Windfall Ranch “Toddling around and eating”.)

Needless to say we are VERY excited!!!! We expect Liddie will immediately take to the new boy, but Cali may need a little time to get used to the idea that she isn’t the puppy anymore.

First… Michelle and I want to thank everyone for all of the thoughts and prayers and especially the reassuring emails in response to Liddie’s illness. There have been a couple pretty tough days in the last week, but reassurance from people who had been through this with their own dogs, and just knowing how many people were out there pulling for her helped us all get through a scary time.

Liddie’s pathology reports came back this morning. The tumors removed last week were mixed mammary tumors and were NOTmalignant! Margins were clear so it appears that the vet was able to excise all of the bad stuff and no additional surgery or treatment will be needed at this stage. We’ll just have to monitor for any new bumps that might appear in the future.

As far as Liddie herself… she’s doing very well. She had her drain tube removed yesterday and we’ve reduced her pain meds. She’s wagging like her old self and starting to play a little bit again. She’ll have her staples removed in a couple weeks. The vet doesn’t see any reason that she can’t make a full recovery and be back in obedience ring in a few months.

Liddie in her “redneck” tank top tee short that she has to wear to keep the wound clean. She is, of course, NOT amused. Queen Liddie is so NOT a redneck!

 The other is a much more dignified shot taken on Sunday evening. Even when in discomfort, she maintains her regal air. OK… the pain meds probably helped, as well as being out of that stupid tee-shirt for a few minutes.

At the ripe young age of 11 1/2 Liddie finished her CD this weekend in grand style, winning Novice A with a 186.5. Way to go old lady!!!! She also earned two more RAE legs in the Rally ring.

At the Superstition Kennel Club show at WestWorld in Phoenix this weekend Cali completed her RE title on Sunday. Liddie qualified in both Advanced and Excellent on Friday to score her first RAE leg.

Cali finished up her Companion Dog title on Sunday at the Phoenix Field and Obedience Club trials. She’ll be absent from the Obedience ring for a few weeks while we polish her Open Obedience exercises in preparation for working on her CDX.

Liddie finished up her Rally Excellent title this weekend as well with a stellar 2nd place finish. Not bad for an 11 year old senior rescue who competed in her very first obediennce trial just 4 months ago! 

Cali finished 4th in Rally Excellent, but needs one more qualifying score to complete her RE.