Background and History

         I am a dog lover.  Dogs have been a part of my life since my earliest recollection; Grandma’s Poodle; my Boston Bulldog and Fox Terrier as an infant; an Airedale as a school boy; an Irish Water Spaniel, Lewellen Setter, English Pointer, with a couple of mutts thrown in, as I grew from a boy into a man.

            I had a Black Labrador who served with the Marines in the South Pacific during World War II.  Her war record was better than mine.  Then, when in college, I bought my first English Springer Spaniel. I have been a breeder and trainer of Springers—off and on—ever since.

I can hardly wait to get the St. Louis Regional Sporting Spaniel Club going and growing in membership, so I can meet a lot of you other dog lovers out there.

Dog loving and the out-of-doors are also in my grandchildren’s blood.  Here is a picture of my granddaughter, Erynn, to whom I gave my best 870 Remington shotgun on her 16^th birthday.  She promptly shot a deer and bagged a 27-pound wild turkey. Erynn is as comfortable in her cameos as she is in a pretty dress. 

 





Erynn is currently a freshman in college majoring in speech pathology.  She developed an interest in this specialty as a high school babysitter of an autistic child.

             Here is a picture of my grandson, Ethan, and his best buddy Brodie—the pup who looks like he got hit in the face with a paintbrush. Brodie is also a very close friend of my Vet’s autistic son, Seth.  I can still see Brodie, as a young puppy, chasing Seth around and around the coffee table in our TV room. It was through struggling to express his love, while hugging the pup with the painted face, that Seth improved his ability to speak dramatically.  In fact, it was Seth who insisted on naming his dear friend Brodie
       

                                                                

Ethan is one of the better drummers in Central Illinois.  Music Educators around the region frequently invite Ethan to join them in Jazz and Traditional music concerts.










            In addition to Brodie, we have Abby, Sunny, Lulubelle, Maggie and Dudley.  Lulubelle will present us with a new litter of Springer's on, or about, November 1 or 2.  And, then, there is Ginger, our toy poodle who keeps the Springer's in line.  Dinny Dog, as we call her, is 105 years old in dog years.  Like my wife, Mernie, and I, who are in our eighties, Dinny Dog refuses to act her age.

                                           Dinny Dog In Her Favorite Sack!!!

    NEWS FLASH!!!                           NEWS FLASH!!!                          NEWS FLASH!!!    
           

Last weekend, Brodie passed the Junior Hunt Test requirements twice, and Abby passed them once during the Missouri Hunting Spaniel Club Hunt Test at Horsecreek Ranch in Southwestern Missouri.  Two more passes for Brodie and three more passes for Abby and both dogs will be titled by the AKC as Junior Hunters, with JH after their names.  We give many, many thanks to Danelle Oliver for handling our dogs in this event while Mernie and I recover from pneumonia.  See the St. Louis Sporting Spaniel Club blog for pictures of Abby and Brodie in action at the Missouri Hunting Spaniel Club AKC Hunt Test in Southwestern Missouri last October 1 & 2.

There was a lot of oohing and aahing at the Hunt Test when Brodie took to the field.  People said he just looked like a hunting dog.  Some inquired about his bloodlines.  He qualified easilly both days.  Abby messed up  her water  test on Sunday.  She is used to swimming in a clear lake and could not cope with  the algae on the pond.  We'll correct that problem for next year, of course.

What pleased me so about Abby's overall performance, never-the-less, was the fact that she is one of the few Junior HT dogs--if not the only one--that scored 10 on bird finding ability at this event.  And, during the Sunday land series, she made two very long and complex retrieves in a row that were unusual for a young dog of 16 months.  First, a bird dropped in the timber on the left of the course.  She spent several minutes in the underbrush searching out and finding this bird, which she promptly retrieved.  On the very next bird, the guns shot it four times, droppng feathers after each shot.  Abby searched each pile of feathers, one at a time; then, finding no bird, continued on her line of sight to the edge of the timber on the right to also retrieve this bird.  Few Junior dogs would have the innate ability to perform these retrieves back to back.  We have high hopes for her in competition later on in her life.

More pictures of  Sangchris Abby & Brodie and other dogs and members of the new St. Louis Regional Sporting Spaniel Club can be found at the following link:

http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=1348855&CategoryID=38578&view=1


                                                                  MORE NEWS!!!

Sunday, October 30, Sangchris Lulubelle gave birth to 10 little Springers, 8 boys and 2 girls.  Mother and babies are doing fine.  Mernie and I are doing about as well as could be expected.  By the way, the same Sire that produced Brodie and Abby out of Lulubelle is also the Sire of Lulubelle's new litter.

Here I am looking out over Sangchris Lake at Sangchris State Park 3 miles south of Edinburg, Illinois--the village I call home.  We have a Dog Training Permit at Sangchris Lake and do our water retrieval training there.  This State Park, and its lake, includes parts of Sangamon and Christian Counties in Central Illinois.  Edinburg is 20 miles southeast of Springfield, the state capital.