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Callie |
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| Labor day, Monday, 2006 started out with Gary and Helen leaving for Oregon pulling their new, but used travel trailer purchased only a couple weeks earlier for the trip. Four days later we arrived in St. Helens, OR at Jac Harbour's home. Jac met us at her front door holding Callie, our new 8 week old female black standard poodle born July 10, 2006. |
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| The next morning Jac set up a training day a few miles north of town. Dogs present beside Beau and Scout were Sur, Callie's sire, Cheers, and Tugs. Sylvia with her poodle Katrina (named prior to the storm) rounded out the group. We all had a very productive water training session. |
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| We camped in the Harbour's field for 3 nights getting to know Callie, Jac, and her husband. We left for home the following Sunday morning arriving back in Minocqua Wednesday evening. The trip home went extremely well. Callie quickly accepted riding in her crate without a lot of fuss for the trip. She even slept through the night in the trailer her first night out. It wasn't always that quiet but for the most part we all had three good night's rest. | |
| Callie is now officially AKC and UKC registered as Tudorose Blk Forest Calla Lily and doing her best to take over the house. She knows she's the Queen. She's been completely accepted by Beau and Scout although she does drive them nuts at times chewing on their ears and tails. She has picked up right where they started as pups, retrieving and loving birds. She has no fear of water, loves it, leaping entries, lots of speed, style, perseverance, and is marking well on triples and doubles. |
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| She went along with Beau and Scout this fall,'08, hunting in South Dakota. Once she realized what was up I gave her the chance to hunt alone. She scent trailed, flushed and retrieved her first solo rooster in short order. After that Beau and Scout were lucky to get a retrieve. You can also read about Callie's first experience hunting at a WI shooting preserve on the Journal page under Big Rock, 07. In the picture to right at that preserve she learned that birds are not only fun to flush but also neat to carry and retrieve. Callie with her Chukar. |
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Since then she has learned
all the basic obedience rules, the ground work needed for a well
mannered field poodle. As you can see from this old photo she
still needed more
training. Since this TP episode she finished tied for 3rd.
in her first obedience class consisting of 12 other dogs. Not
bad for a year old pup. She's now, as of Apr. '08, 21months
and heavy into hunt training.
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Our goal in the coming
months and years is for Helen to train Callie and trial her in
Rally, Obedience, and possibly Agility while Gary gets her passing
beginning Hunt Tests and handling for the more advanced tests and the real thing. To date Callie has earned a WC
(working certificate) and one UKC leg toward a SHR title-- Started
Hunting Retriever. To earn the WC and her Started leg she had to
mark well and complete back to back retrieves of a duck on both land
and water.
We believe and have been told by those in the know that Callie definitely meets the conformation standard and would do well in the show ring but for now that's not in the cards. We plan to breed her to Beau during her next season, July or Aug '08, depending on the results of health testing. If you are intrigued by the thought of owning a great house dog without having to fret about shed hair all over everything, that retrieves downed waterfowl plus hunts/retrieves upland game, it's not to late to get on the puppy list.
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Roll mouse over and watch Callie retrieve at 3 months old (I.E. only try below for other browsers |
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Click above
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Here, after a Feb. training session in FL, '07, Callie was 7 months old and already doing well with her field training. She goes nuts over live pigeons and has no problem retrieving ducks or pheasants. I'm still in the process of transition training, force to pile, double T, swim-by, etc. This winter, '08, in FL, she was doing long single and double water marks with leaping entries; triples on land, marking them well, showing style, drive, and hunt perseverance.
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