Don’t look back…you’re not going that way…

Perhaps this heading answers the question I’ve heard from several people about the long space of time since my last post on this blog.  Not sure.  Maybe it’s just ’cause I’ve been lazy.  I think that many hobbies (not just dogs) are marked by acknowledging accomplishments and that’s much of what I’ve posted here has been since I started.  And, yes, the accomplishments have still been happening for me and the friends I’m connected with in this sport and I’ve shared many of them in the more transitory format of FB.

However, there’s also been some general head-shaking that I’ve experienced while watching what’s happened around me in the sport that’s made it somewhat less important that I put those things out there publicly.  Other reasons and even a bit of a change in focus has also dampened my posting enthusiasm .  Where to go from here?  I’m thinking it’s time to catch up on some of the cool things various people have done with dogs I’m also connected to.  And, there’s even a few things I’ve done myself .  And then, because I’m really a bit dismayed by the direction that my breed has taken in terms of breeding and judging I’m feeling like sharing some of my opinions on that.  But maybe I just want a chance to ramble.  So expect some dribs and drabs to surface . If it’s of interest, stick around.  If not, well, you’re probably not someone that noticed I haven’t been posting for awhile and that means it likely doesn’t matter to either of us!

Blooming in Alberta

Interesting day I had.  Wanting a break from the winterscapes of the view from our windows, a dear friend and I went on a plant-outing.  First stop was the Muttart Conservatory where each pyramid provides a unique experience – escapes to tropical, arid, and temperate climates.  Not everything was in bloom but there was still an abundance of greenery and bright colour.  A real day-brightener.  From there, we headed off to a local greenhouse, where I found a lovely cactus/succulent arrangement and my friend picked out some little pots of bright blooms.  A quick way to bring the cheeriness of our day home.

Winter in Alberta?

It struck me at the time that most of the plants we saw, left to their own devices here, would be either dead or dormant.  However, with care, the proper environment and loving attention, anything is possible.  So much can be accomplished when people care enough to make it happen.  Brightly flowering plants in the middle of an Alberta winter are just one example.

So it felt like no real coincidence, that, on the same day, I had a very enjoyable visit from Logan (Erin’s son and Denham’s father) and his owner Laurie Foster.  What an incredible transformation!  Just one year ago, when he arrived at the Fosters, I was stunned to see the skinniest Gordon ever – a darling dog but painful to look at and very, very unsure of himself.  At 8 weeks of age, I’d been in awe of this puppy.  He was just what I hoped the breeding would have produced but, here I was a few years later, cringing at this poor little guy that was a shadow of what I thought he could be.

Now, flash-forward a year and this happy dog was in full, showable, weight and looked magnificent (well, ok, he could have used a show groom) .  A hunky, solid, well-constructed dog with a waggy tail.  Not totally confident in our house, he still was willing to try out a few of his newly learned tricks in this strange surrounding as well as go exploring and he definitely knew that Laurie was “Mom”.  His confidence grew with the length of the visit and it was wonderful to hear how comfortable and secure he feels and acts at his home.  He’s now becoming the dog he was meant to be and it just made me smile.  Here’s a few of the pictures I took (next round we’ll do some groomed ones).

Enjoying the view from the dog perch

I'm the king of my domain

Again, confirming…. With care, the proper environment and loving attention, anything is possible.  You just need to make it happen.  Thank you, Laurie, for taking Logan under your wing and bringing out the dog that was always within him.  He’s now blooming in Alberta.

All's right with my world

Something Beautiful Remains

from the song of the same name:
“Hey now, what we had is gone
But I still remember you
Just like a rose after the rain
Something beautiful remains”

Something beautiful remains...

Erin, Ch.Rokeena Downunder Delite, AgN, AgNS, AgIJS, NCC, O-NJC-V, TG-N-V, OAC, VADC, VSGDC

“Heart Dog” – only dog people seem to know what that means… a dog you feel totally in sync with, appropriately reacting to each other before observable signs, always being aware of each other’s presence and absence. Yes, love. Not like feelings of love for other people but, nevertheless, just as real. To have that connection to another species is not only remarkable, it’s unquestioned in its truth by anyone that’s had a dog they saw that way. A lot of dogs have come and gone here and I’ve loved them all and missed them terribly. But Erin was my ‘heart dog’.

Erin arrived from Australia over ten years ago, a few short weeks after the arrival of her beautiful brother, Swagger. Although the trip isn’t short at the best of times, tons of paper screwups and other airline missteps made hers even longer. By the time she was released from her crate, her barking could be heard for blocks. I always felt that she attached to me much like baby geese imprint on the first person they see. Sure she’d known other people before she flew to Canada but I think the opening of that crate door was not unlike the cracking of a too-long-endured egg.

She was a really fun and courageous puppy and very, very pretty! At a mere 9 months of age, Erin earned her Canadian Championship in one whirlwind weekend. In addition to the Gordon Setter Club of Canada’s National Specialty and a regional Specialty, two all-breed shows (where she took WB, BOS at one, then BW, BOS at the other) capped off the weekend.

One of her puppy wins

There we were, with a baby dog with a new title and a ton of prizes to bring home. One week later, we were off to the Alberta Kennel Club shows, where she topped the summer off with a Puppy Group win. Erin had nine group placements to her credit during her first year as a special, all owner-handled, making her the top Gordon bitch for 2002.

Our early "specials" look.

Showing wasn’t her only accomplishment though. We got hooked on agility when we thought it might be a good activity to try out while waiting for her to mature into a showgirl. Looking back, I realize how much potential this very high-drive girl had. Unfortunately, I was too new to the sport and didn’t have the knowledge I have now that would have harnessed her skills into better performances (it’s really a shame to waste a great dog on learning the ropes). She still managed to accumulate several titles as well as more than her share of embarrassing moments. And we enjoyed being together.

Loved to jump

I attempted a few times to breed her and, unluckily, decided to start off with more flamboyant breedings (you know, the kinds of breedings that always work for everyone else but never yourself). After two frozen implant attempts, time was passing us by and she finally had her first (and only) litter in 2004, using the old fashioned methods . A lovely litter resulted: her daughter Mira, Can Ch. FCC Ch. SureShot Chosen One, CGN, followed in her mother’s footsteps picking up her own group placements and becoming top Gordon bitch in 2007. She also produced an exceptional litter last year that we’re very, very excited about. Erin’s son, Logan, who lives with the Fosters nearby, has sired a litter, resulting in my promising youngster, Denham. Another son, Clay (Bluewin’s Redifined by SureShot) is pointed in the US with very limited showing and we hope to see him back out in the rings soon. A daughter, Afton, SureShot The River Feels, has the same drive as her mom and, if we can finally convince her owner, might actually make her agility debut this year. On the one hand, it is a bit sad that she only had the one litter but, as these things turn out, we sure would never say that she didn’t make her mark.

Erin was so smart it was scary. She could open any door in the house (no matter what kind of handle or which direction it opened). Once, just last year, on seeing that a door to the outside was ajar and Erin was missing, my husband and I combed the neighbourhood with me in hysterics. On returning to house after an hour to put the others away for a more extended search, I called the other dogs in, only to find the count being one more dog than I expected. There was Erin. Somehow she’d opened three doors, one that I thought had a child-proof lock on it, to go frolic outside with them. Child-proof didn’t necessarily mean Erin-proof.

She had a most-quirky personality. Non-stop barking when she couldn’t see me was the norm. For the first year of her life, I tried every bit of training I knew (after all, I wasn’t a novice to dogs), determined that I could solve this. I would arm people near my benching area at shows with clickers and treats to try to work on keeping her quiet. Time to go to the bathroom and get lunch was measured in nano-seconds. I still can’t believe the number of people that willingly participated in this and we actually did achieve a little success.

Unfortunately, when we started agility trials, it was like starting all over. I couldn’t leave her in a crate without suffering the glares of other exhibitors as her incessant whining would start up. One tent-mate could help keep her quiet long enough for me to run another dog but it really made volunteering very difficult. As the number of dogs I wanted to run in agility increased, the difficulty of keeping Erin in the same building did as well. Because of her late start at agility, she was also starting to slow down and I decided that I would focus on my youngsters. I had always had a plan to take her back out as a vet for a nadac trial (which is the only place I could have had her running at 12″ jump heights). But, like a lot of plans, it never happened. I’d become quite fond of my “quiet Erin” at home and I wasn’t really sure I wanted to stoke the barking-fires again.

So why, in this celebration of my most-loved dog ever, would I tell you about this? Well, I think it explains our connection as well as the valuable lessons I learned from Erin. I had always believed that most dog problems were really owner problems. And that proper training would solve anything. After all of this, I would still say that most dog problems are still really owner problems but that proper attitude is what solves everything. Training is a good place to start but sometimes ‘ya just gotta go with the flow’. Eventually, I stopped fighting her need to know where I was and be with me. Obviously, if she was with me, it would no longer be an issue. She became our all-time, always there, house/bed dog. And the tension just melted away. We started to learn tricks and do fun things together. We’d talk to each other. She’d snuggle up to my husband on the couch. She’d alert us to things of importance and of non-importance. She was just there – where she wanted to be – always. Some people have said she suffered from separation anxiety but I don’t really think that’s it. When I’d leave for work, she’d be happy all day with just my husband for company. If he left, she’d also stay quietly in her pen. But, if I was trying to work outdoors at home, nope. If I was available, I was to be right beside her. If I was no where around, she’d wait until I was. And, every night, about two minutes before I’d come through the door, she’d be whining at the back door, knowing that I’d soon be there. Perhaps she recognized the sound of my car but that seemed unlikely. But, for the 8 hours that preceded that, she was quiet.

All I know is that accepting her demands of what our relationship needed to be, I gave up trying to change her, accepted that this was going to be a very unique relationship, and from there our bond grew to be more than with any dog I’ve had. I have always been pretty intolerant of people complaining about their dog’s behaviour. That’s partly because I do believe that changing it usually rests on their shoulders. But, now, Erin has taught me that it should also be because the solution may lie in acceptance. The ten plus years I had with her were way too short. She taught me much. Everyone deserves that at least once.

Good-bye sweet Erin.

My beautiful girl

Many thanks to Robyn Wallis of Rokeena Kennels in Australia for entrusting Erin to me in the first place.  Lastly, here’s a little video of Erin and I.  You could probably ask, who’s training who?

Rah Rah Rally

It’s a bookend title for Barrett!  I always think that every dog deserves, at a minimum, a title on both ends of their name…. one to recognize their good looks, another to recognize their good brains.  Although he reached this goal a month ago, a mis-directed email left me in the dark about this accomplishment until today when we can proudly announce that Brenda Juskow and the lovely Barrett added the backend title of Rally Novice to his name, making him proudly known now as Ch. SureShot Privateer RN.  While there will no doubt be more to come, this first performance title is a wonderful start.  Here’s a picture of Barrett and Brenda enjoying their moment in the spotlight.

We dun good, didn't we?

And, while he had to share the spotlight with his roommates, the infamous Shelties, he does look like the light shines a bit brighter on him, doesn’t it? (OK, so I know I’m biased).

Ya, so they did alright too...so what?

Training Challenges

Although I’d love it if every single dog I tried to do agility with was a fast learner that always got it right on course.  But such is not the case.  In fact, although it makes agility trials frustrating on occasion, I do find the challenge of unlocking the brain of an independent or ‘untrainable’ dog quite fascinating.  The break-through moments can be so rewarding.  However, there are certainly times I question my own abilities.  One such time was on Canada Day when we took in a local parade and I saw this exhibition of fantastic training.  Talk about someone that must have skills. (Sorry this picture isn’t clearer but I had to catch it from a distance on my phone.)

Yes, that's a real live buffalo!

Here was a car (with its roof chopped off) and a live buffalo riding ‘shotgun’ surveying the crowd.  How did they get him in there?  Better yet, how did they convince him to stay?  Wow.  Oh, and the dog that calmly rode on the trunk was pretty smart too.

I’ve got this pic hanging in my training room.  No matter how frustrated I may get with my training, I’ll just look at this.  After all, if someone can put a buffalo in a car and get it to stay there for an hour-long parade, I should be able to convince a Gordon to stay at the bottom of an A-frame for a second.  Right?

My Uncle Jim

This week, my uncle Jim passed away.  He’d had a very long and much love-filled life so it should have been a time of celebration of his  time on earth.  However, I have been unable to shed a small sense of melancholy ever since he died.  

In the annuls of history, he probably won’t have left a huge record.  But in the hearts of the people that he touched, his accomplishments are legion.  To be around him was to feel his general happiness with life and the sense of comfort he had with the roads he had taken.  I remember both laughing in his presence and feeling that I could say whatever I wanted in an atmosphere of acceptance.  

This week, though, I was thinking about more than that.  Perhaps my melancholy sprung from a sense that my priorities aren’t always the best. For that matter, I don’t always make it a priority to actually set priorities.  I do love my life but I don’t always pay attention to it.  My hobbies are based in art and I love the part of my job that’s focussed on teaching.  However, like many others, I get caught up in the economics of life and the do-this-do-that lockstep that can become day to day living.  Today, I was thinking about his contribution to my understanding of art and beauty, something that I feel I can put into words because of what I saw him do.  

Jim was a folk artist (among many other things he did).  He was always busy with his hands but years ago started to build hand-crafted furniture pieces from diamond willow.  The pieces grew until his whole house seemed unified in diamond willow decor.  Perhaps this theme would never make the pages of Home and Gardens but it was uniquely and lovingly crafted.  Selling it was never a priority but, on occasion, a piece or two would move on to someone else’s home.  Once the physical labour of building furniture became too much, he transferred his attention to ‘cone-crafting’.  

Some of James Henderson's cone menagerie

Starting with a larger than life “Cone-man”, the cast of whimsical characters grew over the years to fill his garage and other nooks and crannies in the house.  A local mall had him display the latest creations each year and the local media found reason to cover the ever-expanding cone-critter population on a regular basis.  Strangers would bring him bags of cones and the variety was used to good effect; little ones making tight curls on tops of heads or in horses’ manes, larger ones sculpting muscles, varying colours providing definition.  But most of all, the cone critters made people smile.  They were never sold.  They were created simply because it gave him joy and allowed him to pass that joy on to others.

And they grew in numbers....

So why would this be something to ruminate about on my dog blog?  Well, it has simply made me question what art is, in the context of the old adage that dog breeding is both art and science.  People not involved in the hobby won’t understand it and we also know that, even for many involved in the hobby, it is often neither art nor science.  It just seems to me that, if one chooses to be involved in dog breeding, you have a picture of perfection in your mind, you spend hours and money researching and fine-tuning your ‘eye’ for a dog. You go to shows to hold your dogs up to the scrutiny of others.  You trust in what you do and take joy in what you see as a result.  You ask nothing in return other than that personal satisfaction of work well-created.  And you hope others will share in the beauty.

If your part of the dog hobby is agility, or hunting, or obedience, or grooming, it’s no different.  Enjoy the process.  Enjoy the many hours of work that leads to the perfect run no one else sees as much as you enjoy the run that makes other people smile.  Enjoy the well-kept coat that gleams.  Enjoy the dog that welcomes you with a hearty tail wag and a knowing look (even that didn’t happen by accident).  

My uncle Jim did something a lot of people wouldn’t understand.  He spent hours collecting cones, learning about them, and putting the pieces together.  He knew what he wanted to see at the end of it.  And he enjoyed the process.  He also enjoyed the pleasure others, particularly children, got from seeing the outcome.  He didn’t need to explain it.  It just was. Perhaps others didn’t see the art in what he did.  I doubt if it mattered to him.  If he’d chosen, I think he would have been a successful dog breeder.

Perhaps that’s the lesson I can take from his life.  Enjoy the process.  Trust the outcome.  If this is art, approach it as an artist.  There’s no room here for considering the process a chore.  There’s no room for people who do it for financial gain or to fill puppy sales.  That’s when it becomes a business.  Perhaps it’s just a difference of opinion.  Or perhaps it’s a fundamental choice to build your life on art and celebration rather than the mechanics of the marketplace.  However, for my part, when I’m gone, I hope my legacy, like my Uncle Jim’s, will be for the art I produced, not for the business transactions.

On my walk  back from the gravesite to the reception, I saw a small pine cone nestled in a snowy drift on the side of the pathway.  I smiled.  What a wonderful gift.  To make people smile.  Thank you, Uncle Jim.