Home late

I got home late Friday after a long week in Chicago.  The little dog had been alone most of the day because Aki had left for California earlier in the day.

Larsen's head popped up in the laundry room door as I pulled into the garage.  He had been sleeping at the door in the belief that sooner or later someone would remember him and come home to him.

We played around when I came in, and he ran in circles, picked up his duck and ran upstairs where he placed the bird next to my pillow.  I love you too.

Saturday training

Larsen and I stopped by Tim's on a cool early fall morning.  We worked the field and then did some water work.  At the water, I pushed Larsen across the pond by following Susan's advice of ordering Larsen "back" every time he started to curl around or look back toward his home bank.  Susan said that she had to push Mazie across and that by the time the dog looks at you it is nearly too late.

Once on the other side, I had to handle Larsen back and forth to find the dummy.  Finally, and after Larsen had gone into the water and back out, he jumped on the dummy and brought it back.  What a great note to stop on!

Earlier, on the field, we worked Larsen on fly-off pigeons.  Larsen did fine and hupped himself before I hit the whistle.  We sat Larsen on blank pistol shots and on flush-and-fly-offs.  I worked on timing and thought about precisely when to hit that whistle.

Tim was ready with his blank pistol.

Carson held down the other side of the line with his toy shotgun.

Larsen enjoys the early fall the scene.

Get your motor running'

Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born
Born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die
Born to be wild
Born to be wild

Last days of summer

The water at Lake Alatoona was warm even on a cool day, ushering in the first day of autumn.  In the south, it takes a while for summer to drift away and you can feel it still in the warm afternoons after the cool mornings.

Training report

We beat the rain, but not by much, as Larsen and I ran the traps at Tim's.  I described last week's fiasco to Tim, including my notion that Larsen was ready to bust out just based on his behavior on Friday and Saturday when I tried to work him on dummies.  Tim elected to go train at the field just to get some different vibes going.  We brought Flick the ESS and Avery the flatcoat along and, of course, Carsen whose 6th birthday is tomorrow.

I quartered Larsen with no birds in the field.  Periodically, Tim shot and Larsen sat on the shot.  Tim had his training pistol as well as his field gun so he was able at times to shoot off a real volley: bang-bang - - - - bang, as occurs in a hunting situation often times (miss, miss, and then a hit by the other gunner).

Ultimately, Larsen flushed two pigeons.  Both times the birds flew back toward our home base which made for dog-Frank-bird situations that are ideal to enforce a sit.  While this situation is unlikely to occur in a hunt test (the gunner would not turn and shoot back from whence the group came because the gallery is sitting there), it provided the successes that are so very important to get.

I am going to work at being more relaxed and of good cheer and not anticipating a screwup.  These things will occur, of course, but now I will start expecting success.  Larsen can do this and I can put more trust in him and get the behavior that I want.

Larsen hunted quite close to me and it was difficult to get him to range out, in part, I believe, because we were rolling the birds.

Larsen did well on the hunt dead and the blind.  He is learning to trust my directions on the hunt dead (and the blind) and that obedience will lead to the reward, namely the bird.

Very heavy rain rolled in as we were leaving Bowman.

Clounds like these cover the sky from the Gulf to Canada as heavy rains move in.

WSSCA Hunt Test

The 2013 Welsh Springer Spaniel Hunt Test is November 16-17 in Clark's Hill, South Carolina.  This is a new venue, although many of us have had the opportunity to run a dog in practice or walk the land.  There is a limit of 35 dogs.  We will get a block of rooms at the La Quinta Hotel in Augusta, Ga at I-20 exit 199 (Washington Ave).  The field is about 20 miles north of the interchange.

The WSSCA HT premium can be found at the WSSCA website.

Chromecast TV dongle

I used some credit card points to get a free Chromecast.  Chromecast is Google's TV interface.  It plugs into the HD port on a "smart" TV (that is, a TV that is capable of processing IP signals).  It also requires a power source.  Then you download the Chromecast app on your smartphone or iPad.

After that, you use your iPad or smartphone to requests to view YouTube or Netflix videos on your TV.  Your iPad or smartphone acts as a TV remote, in some sense.

We tried it last night and it worked exactly as advertised.  We watched some silly Welsh Springer videos and a few gundog training videos.

My goal is to see if we can get some of the shows that we watch, such as News Hour.  If I can get that small number of shows via Chromecast, I can then drop cable either altogether or to the minimum package.  I would either reduce total spending or use some of the savings to increase my Internet bandwidth.

McDonalds is my kind of place

Larsen may think that this is his kind of McDonalds as he inspects the cargo of chukar on the end of Cathy's van while we wait at the Douglassville exit of I-20 for Al and Shoni.

A dream come true

First the dream, then the true part, and then you can decide whether there is a parallel universe.

In the dream, a chukar flitted out horizontally, enticing Larsen to follow.  I did not blow my whistle fearing that he would not obey the sit command.  However, on his own, Larsen stopped and sat and made some indication to the bird to do likewise, which it did.  Now bird and dog sat together.  I stepped away for a moment, but as luck would have it, I was at the Atlanta Braves stadium and there was a nearby camera operator who might have caught the action.  I asked whether I could watch the replay in order to figure out what to do next.  The camera operator said sure, but first I'd have to watch some commercials that were queued up.  He asked me whether the dog would sit that whole time.  I said the dog would sit, but I wasn't sure about the bird.  At that time, my dream flitted off and that's all I remember.

At Tim's Larsen flushed a pigeon, and I hit the sit whistle.  Larsen sat, but then so did the bird, about three feet away.  Tim and I looked at each other, and Tim suggested that I let him get the bird, but not to use his name, since his name command is a school's-out dismissal and one where I would never get him back under control.  I told Larsen to "go-on," which is his start-to-hunt command, which he was not totally sure about, so I said, "ok," which is pretty close to a school's-out command.  Larsen pounced, put the bird up, and sat to the whistle.  Tim shot the bird, and then we parlayed some more to determine if and when to send Larsen for the retrieve.  (We did, and the retrieve was good.)

You decide for yourself whether the dream was a premonition.  I didn't learn that much from it, except not to be surprised by the surprising.

Season-end tomatoes

By August the garden is parturient: anticipating the harvest of September and October.  Tomatoes ripen throughout the summer, and by August's end we are ready to get into apple season and, later, into squash,   sweet potatoes, and pumpkins of fall.  Bob & April gave us some of their mountain-grown tomatoes during a visit a few weeks ago, neat and as a canned salsa.  What a great way to remember the summertime and friends.

Bounty from Bob's garden.

Instant gratification.

Something for later.  

Black Balsam Knob

This trail is southwest on the Blue Ridge Parkway from Asheville at mile marker 420.  The hike is along a ridge to the knob, which provides for vistas to the right and to the left.  The trail is the 30 mile Art Loeb trail that links with both the Mountains-to-Sea (E-W) and Appalachian (N-S) Trails.

The gang stops for a breather on the Art Loeb trail near Black Balsam Knob.

SUV crate

Most SUVs have a sloped back to present a more streamlined profile.  However, this sloped back cuts interior space for your dog and gear.  Moreover, you want a setup with a front gate to prevent pup from bounding out when the rear hatch is opened.

Here is a contender from General Cage.  The price is around $200.  The crate is trapazoidal at about 32" at the bottom and maybe 24" at the top.  This permits you to have at least one rear seat up while also closing the tailgate of the car.

   The crate's 25" width means one crate per car.

Spring-loaded hardware makes assembly and gate use easy.  Gate opens with one hand.

You will probably replace this heavy, noisy metal pan with the lighter and more manageable ABS plastic pan.

A 55 lbs dog fits reasonably well, even when pouting.

There is room for gear on the side.

Reasonable headroom for a medium-sized dog and you can toss a towel or two on top.

A solid understanding

I let Larsen roam freely at the park on our evening walk.  The park has a mysterious valley cut behind the soccer field.  The poplars are truly gigantic and the canopy inhibits plant growth on the floor of the valley so that the vale appears almost apse-like, with the trees acting as columns.  A dry creek cuts through the valley, although the creek is running given our wet summer.

In a true act of insubordination, Larsen gave me a look, peed on a plant ("this is you!") and then took off into the brush that covers the steeply sloping sides.  He left me standing there for a solid five minutes.  I went looking for him.  I finally gave the whistle a peep or two and look who re-appears!  Hot, wet, muddy, and covered with burrs and briers.  I was beyond fury.  I grabbed his throat and looked into his eyes, knowing that it was too late for any type of thrashing that he deserved, were I of the sort to indulge in that sort of thing.

We heeled to the car without a lead.  I was almost half-hoping for another break so that I could have justified breaking his neck, but he was as obedient as he could be: heeling with his head at my knee and sitting promptly when I stopped walking.

Larsen was crated him in the car (no front-seat ride home), and this is where the solid understanding came in.  I told Aki about Larsen's escapade, and she completely understood that no hugs or pats were in Larsen's immediate future when I brought him into the house.  We both treated Larsen as though he was invisible.  No eye contact.  No pats.  Dinner was kibble with no cottage cheese or anything else.  No seconds.  No play after dinner.  When I walked upstairs or down I ignored him, even though he was bumping into me as he followed along.  When Aki worked on her computer, she ignored the dog at her feet.

No one looked into Larsen's eyes until right at lights-out at bedtime.

I'm convinced that Larsen knows he done wrong.  I'm hoping that his evening of excommunication lets him think about things.  I was called out of town unexpectedly and won't know until this weekend.  

Eating

Even the toughest little spaniel can have a sensitive stomach.  It can take a lot of trial and error to find a dog food that the dog eats and that sets well with him.  I look back with remorse on how I would doctor up his kibble to get him to eat dog food that simply did not agree with him instead of simply moving to a different type.  It took us a long while to find one that Larsen could really digest (Nature's Balance).  Some comments about an alternative had us looking at Frommes.

We switched to Fromm's (from Wisconsin) and found an even better fit.  One of our correspondents recommends saving the label from an early purchase so that if anything goes off later, you can check and see if there have been changes:

When trying/switching to a new dog food [I]cut out the ingredient list and nutritional stats from the bag and file it. That way if I ever suspect an issue or formulation change, I can refer back to this information. 

Noon, late summer, Atlanta, Ga

Impossible!

August

The end of summer means listless plants.  Larsen and I went to the nearby nursery to see if we could find something to brighten the back and front porch for Aki's company.  

Larsen finds a cool den under the flower pots on a hot Saturday afternoon.

Conformation class

Aki and Larsen continued working on their ringsmanship last Saturday.  The class was geared to puppies, but the principles remain the same: treat/enter - treat/position - treat/stack & present.  Aki got a chance to move around the ring again and keep her arms at her side as she did so.  We got some good canine health tips from Adrian and saw the some of the usual crowd of Kathy P. (Fire), Debbi (Rayne), and Susan (Rosey).

Aki and Larsen set about the ring. 

Aki practices the stack. 

Steady

Danny took us way back on his property - - the part beyond the single-file bridge of dubious integrity -- where it was ok with him if we used our barn chukar (a/k/a pigeons) for training.

Obedience.  I first demonstrated to Cathy Larsen's performance with the fetch dummy.  As is often the case, Larsen pretended not to see or find the dummy and used that as an excuse to tour the grounds.  I caught up with him  each time and corrected him by marching him to the dummy and commanding that he pick it up and hold it.  We engaged in this little battle of wills for a while and only stopped when he brought the dummy in smartly and sat.  This will endure for a bit until Larsen understands that he must fetch the dummy any time I request it.  It's boring work for a spaniel, but it's his job.

Quartering.  I still feel only partly in control with Larsen's quartering.  He wants to range wide, but I know that my ability to sit him on a flush declines with the square of the distance he is from me.  I try to hold him tight and he tries to wander and the display is messy-looking.

Steady.  On a good note, Larsen was steady to his last flush of the day.  It was a solid flush, and one pip from my whistle, and no shouting or arm waving.  The setup was me-Larsen-bird, with the bird flying away from us, and so not ideal for steadiness, which made the result all the more gratifying.

Larsen earlier had broken on a sucker bird that got away from his trap.  I did not hit the whistle because it seemed impossible to stop him.  He returned readily on my recall, however, which was good, but I'm not entirely sure whether he'd already started his return before I pipped.  I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt and chalk that up to a good practice day.

Retrieve.  Larsen tried to be sloppy with the retrieve, and got a firm correction each time for his effort.  I believe that this ultimately will pay off.  I think he is past the point where I need to be overly concerned that his lack of full retrieve is a fear of correction insofar as he absolutely knows why he is being corrected.

We practiced with Cathy (Bing, Zelda, and Humphrey) and Shoni (Sunny) on a hot Alabama morning buzzing with late summer bees.

  Larsen follows Cathy off the field after a good run.

The spaniel still has some gas in the tank as we leave the field.

Shoni is pleased with Sunny's advanced work in the field.

Sunny cools down after her outing on a steamy morning.

Honey & the 45s

Everyone has a secret life of some sort, I suppose.  When that secret life involves genuine talent it is notable indeed, and that's the case with my colleagues Kristina and Kim.  By day they appear absolutely normal (see photo #1).  On the evenings and weekends, they become part of a 5-piece band called Honey & the 45's (photo #2).  I can no more describe music than I can a fine wine, but I love it when I hear their overlay of close-to-the-ground country on a Chicago blues sound as in the "Trains Gonna Go" and "Believe".  If you like your Chicago-style neat, try "I Got the Need."    

Kristina and Kim hard at work.

Alter egos.  

British understatement

"Welsh Springers, particularly males, have immense energy and a strong nose for following game scents, even if that is not your interest."

-Welsh Springer Spaniel Club, United Kingdom