Introduction

Welcome to Audrey the Field Spaniel's blog! I will try to update as much as humanly and doggedly possible. For starters though, I figured you were all in for an introduction post.

No, I never planned on getting a Field Spaniel, but when opportunity knocks, at my house anyway, we answer that door (some of us even bark and run wildly out the door to greet Opportunity). So when the opportunity presented itself that I was being offered a show quality/show potential Field Spaniel, I answered the door with puppy food, chew toys, and leash in hand.

We've always been a dog-loving family, but up until recently that's all we were. Our dogs obviously got good food, regular vet visits, toys, etc. But then my senior year of high school, I got accepted to Cornell University halfway across the country and I was leaving everyone and everything I had ever known. While I was living in New York (all alone, yet surrounded by people) I started wanting and needing a companion, a sense of family. After many months of research and a solid stack of information, I convinced my parents that I needed a puppy. For Christmas of my 2nd year of college, I got the greatest puppy the world had ever known. This blog is not about her, but she is such a huge part of my life that she needs her own part of the intro.

Mackenzie changed my life. From the moment I got her, we had this thing. This connection. It gets hard to describe without sounding a little bit crazy, but we have this relationship that is unlike any I had ever had with another dog before her. Like I said, our family always had at least one dog at any given time and we loved and took care of it. But with Mackenzie I wanted and needed to do more, I wanted the perfect dog. Because she was the first dog who was really mine. We got her at 8wks and she was on her first cross-country plane ride before she was 3mo. As a young dog on a college campus, she got to do some amazing things. From picnics with the President of Cornell, to lacrosse games with our Big Red Pep Band, Marching Band practice on our astroturf football field that she peed on, running off leash around the quad of one of the most beautiful college campuses in the country, and of course quality time spent at our Ithaca home. I raised her the best that I could while still concentrating on papers, exams, friends, parties, road trips and everything else that comes along with going to a really tough yet continually exciting Ivy League University. Despite the craziness of having a young puppy during the hardest part of my college years (or perhaps because of it) Mackenzie turned out beautifully and our relationship is incredible.

After I graduated from Cornell in 2006 with a B.S. in Communication, naturally I accepted a job as a dog trainer. Mackenzie comes to work with me 2-3x a week and loves everything and everyone at work. Since our graduation from college, we had a little bit more time to pursue other activities. Shortly after I accepted my job as a dog trainer, I met a woman who started a Therapy Dog organization in our area, so a few weeks after meeting her, Mackenzie and I become Delta Society registered Pet Partners. I knew that Mackenzie was destined to be a star from an early age, so we also began training for competitive dog sports. Being severely limited by our geographic location, we did the best we could and prepared for a "local" (2.5+ hours away) dog show in August of 2008. We competed in Obedience and Rally and came home with one Qualifying score in Rally (which was one more than I thought we would get).

At the time of the show I was a few weeks from being 25yo and had never in my life been to a dog show. My parents, both in their mid-50s had also never been to a dog show. Now none of this is for a lack of dog-show enthusiasm, but simply because there aren't any dog shows nearby, and Mackenzie is our first "performance" dog. And although for the past 15+ years we've only had purebred dogs, Mackenzie was our first to be able to compete in AKC events (she has her ILP/PAL number which means she is identified as a purebred Dachshund even without AKC papers and able to compete in all events except Conformation).

Obviously we've still got a lot to work on, but being in the ring with Mackenzie for those few minutes was electrifying. We are absolutely addicted to it now. We hope to continue to compete as long as she and I are having fun, and hopefully manage a few titles before she retires.

That being said, our first experience at a dog show was spent entirely on the Obedience side of the convention center. I have zero experience watching even a millisecond of Conformation, because I was too busy watching the Obedience dogs (and freaking out about when it would be our turn). My parents, who I banished to the complete opposite side of the convention center so that I could concentrate, did manage to watch a few breeds in the Conformation ring and my Mom the always popular chat-magnet, spoke to a few Conformation competitors about the trials and tribulations of dog showing.

Going on those few minutes of experience, we are now plunging headfirst into that world. I've always dreamed of owning and exhibiting a show dog, but honestly I've got no clue as to what I'm doing. Now I've got this crazy biting, running, yelling, absolutely breathtakingly stunning puppy who I'm supposed to turn into a show dog - Audrey the Field Spaniel.

A few weeks ago a client of mine asked me to temperament test a litter of Field Spaniels that she had bred. When I was evaluating the "white" puppy I said "This would definitely be the puppy I would take home today!" As it turned out, when we went over the temperament test sheets "white" puppy scored the best. After the temperament test on the litter, the breeder/owner drove up to see Pat Hastings so that she could evaluate the litter. Pat Hastings rated the "white" puppy as the "Pick of the Litter" and rated her as having the best conformation for the show ring.

And then, surprisingly, they offered her to me. My first AKC registered show potential puppy, of course I said YES.

So here we are.

It has officially been one week since I brought her home. She continually bites our ankles, toes, and pants, she sloshes around in the water dish for minutes on end, she chews on our wooden coffee table, and the metal legs of our computer chairs, every toy in existence is strewn around the living room, and perhaps her greatest claim to fame is that she has tried repeatedly to rearrange all of our dog-furniture (beds and bowls).

We've done very well with housetraining (only a couple accidents so far) and she has been introduced to the clicker. We've worked on attention, a loose show stack, her name, watch (me), look (at the food in my hand), sit, down, and come. She will be my first entirely clicker-trained dog (Mackenzie would be considered a crossover dog) and I get giddy at that thought.

This blog will primarily be about Audrey's training, my research and training about what I need to do and what I need to teach her, our daily adventures in socialization, pictures, and questions.

While this blog will be primarily about Audrey, I can't promise that our other two dogs (April and Spencer) won't make surprise cameos. Especially seeing as how Audrey just got here a week ago and already she's got her own blog. But I'm sure they're all just dying to steal the spotlight away from Mackenzie for once.