I was going through my basement bookshelves the other day and pulled down a book I hadn't looked at in a long time-it was Rachel Page Elliott's book about canine movement and structure. It was first published in 1973 as "Dogsteps, Illustrated Gait at a Glance", and then revised to "The New Dogsteps: A Better Understanding of Dog Gait Through Cineradiography" in 1983. I attended one of her seminars sometime in the late 80s, I think, and the whole idea of evaluating structure and movement were quite new to me then. I see on amazon.com that there is an updated edition published in 2001 called "Dogsteps: A New Look".  I'm actually surprised that almost 20 years after the book was revised, a third revision was released when she was 87 years old. 

When I attended my seminar with Rachel Page Elliott, she reminded me of a retired school-teacher. Certainly in her 70's by that time, she passed away in March 2009 at the age of 96. She was a Golden Retriever breeder for many years, raising about 50 litters over four decades under the Featherquest name at her River Road Farm in Concord, MA . At her memorial service, 50 Golden Retrievers  wearing tartan bandannas and accompanied by their owners comprised an honor guard. In the middle of the canine lineup walked Mrs. Elliott's 10-year-old golden retriever, Tammy  A bagpiper let the honor guard, marking the breed's Scottish origin. 

There is a Dogsteps DVD available, published in 2005, and you can also see Rachel Page Elliott talking about how she came to write her books. There are other resources online that talk about canine anatomy, but for the definitive and most understandable explanation, start with 'Pagey' and you will be amazed at what you learn. 

My favorite online retailer for hunting, kennel and yard needs and hard to find items is Gundogsupply.com by Steve Snell.  I've gotten all sorts of useful stuff from them, and they carry way more than hunting equipment. And whenever I've ordered from them, the service has been excellent, the prices fair, and they have some really neat products. Hey, now I see they are carrying game bird wings to attach to dummies! Perfect to start my hunt training this summer with the pups. Gotta get some puppy bumpers and wings on my next visit to the web site!

The product I like the most is the 3/4 in. Day Glow D-End Puppy / Small Dog Collar - it's the perfect size for my dogs. It comes in even neck sizes from 12-18 inches, which will fit neck sizes 9" to 19". The collar is a reasonable $8 and comes with a free brass plate with 4 lines of your choice. They also have it in a 1" width if you like a wider collar. The size of the dog's neck is the collar size, so make sure you measure before you order. They are long-lasting and having the ID tag riveted to the collar is a great thing. And it works! We had Travis the cocker take a tour of the neighborhood and invite himself to a backyard barbecue once, and because our name and phone number were on the tag, we were called within minutes of his going missing. Most recently, we ordered kennel sunscreen covers for the tops of our outdoor Mason runs. They work great, and also keep Kian from jumping out of the runs.

Do you have a fave online site you frequent, or a favorite piece of equipment that has stood the Welshie Test of Endurance? Let me know and I'll compile a list to add it to the Links section.

Traveling to dog shows reveals more about your personality than you'd really like to admit. It's like hoarding-no one knows you do it until they walk into your house or peer into your van and wonder 'How the heck did you get all this stuff in there?' There was the year we loaded up the Gray Lady (my trusty 2002 GMC Safari van) with 12 crates, 2 grooming tables, two sets of grooming tools and supplies (mine and Di's), and enough towels and crate rugs to handle anything from a little rain to Noah's Great Flood. Oh, and two hair dryers and two sets of extension cords because you never know how far away the nearest plug will be from your setup area at the show site. And that was without the suitcases, garment bags, dog food, cooler and snacks-or US! 

To lighten the load, we switched to soft-sided crates in the hotel-especially helpful when you have to trudge the stuff up the outside staircase to a second floor room. These are really worth their weight in gold-but like gold, they can be expensive, too. Remember the old PVC pipe soft crates that were made with maybe $20 worth of materials but cost $100 and were tall and ungainly and the dogs tipped them over? Then came the streamlined aluminum-poled 'Cabana Crates'and the 'It'z A Breeze Too' models, also expensive but lightweight. So imagine how happy I was when WallyWorld started selling the PetNation Dog Port-A-Crate! YES! That's what we need-soft crates at Walmart prices-Yeah! The WSS-sized (32"-Large) is about $34, and you can have it shipped right to the nearest store for pickup. The 36"-Extra Large crate runs you about $45. Are they as lightweight as the more expensive models? Nope. But they are sturdy, allow you to put stuff on top of them in the hotel room, and cost 50% of the aluminum models. 

Now, I just store them in the Gray Lady, and pull them out when we pull into the hotel. Oh, and a word to the wise-remember to load the soft crates and the overnight bag somewhere EASY to reach in the van, so when you pull into that first-night-on-the-road hotel parking lot late at night, you don't have to unpack the entire van to get your pajamas out and set up the crates...been there, done that. Now, if we could just figure out why we still pack as much stuff for a 4 or 5 dog trip when we're only taking two dogs?

I'd been involved with educating AKC judges and prospective judges for a while,even prior to the AKC and WSSCA Mentoring programs were initiated. Attending breed seminars on Welshies and other breeds allowed me to observe that all these seminars provide a laser-beam focus on teaching judges what they need to know to be successful in their judging. But, it was strange to me that the educational needs of the breeders and exhibitors who show dogs to these same judges are almost totally unnoticed. Hmmmm. Seems to me that if you want judges to do a good job in the ring, you have to a) give them good quality dogs to judge and b) give them knowledgeable breeder/owner/handlers who can become future mentors and offer judges helpful feedback to sharpen their skills.

I've attended seminars by the late Quentin Laham and Carmen Battaglia, who focus on teaching breeders and exhibitors structure, movement, and critical evaluation of breeding stock. And the content they provide is a good start for anyone interested in doing further self-study. But their programs are breed-neutral, and it's hard to apply their concepts to your own breed without a framework based on the breed standard, common vocabulary, and consistent points of reference. 

Then, in  the early-2000s Val Young (Glenevan WS) and I attended a national breed club conference sponsored by AKC in Cincinnati. One of the events I attended at that conference was 'The ABCs of Dog Breeding' by Claudia Waller Orlandi, PhD. Dr. Orlandi is a well known judge and highly successful Basset Hound breeder, and she prepared an entire course around this concept of educating breeders and owners. The idea she started with was to provide basic materials covering structure, function, genetics, movement and other components of dog breeding, and allow interested people to teach themselves what they needed to know to be successful. The content was aimed squarely at breeders and exhibitors and people with an interest in improving their own dogs. 

If you are intrigued by the idea of  a self-study program to solidify your dog breeding IQ, then go to the link I've provided above and read about her educational program. You won't be disappointed. Tomorrow, we'll talk about how we can bring this information to Welshie folks.

The photo at the top of the page is of Dalati Siarl CD, our first Welsh Springer. He came to us via Adrienne Bancker, way back in the dark ages - 1979. At that time Rich and I were attempting to obedience train our first dog, Brandy the ACS, at Town & Country DTC in Union, NJ. There were two of us, and only one dog, so Adrienne decided that we perhaps needed another dog to train. She approached us one night after class and asked us if we'd like to have a Welsh Springer Spaniel to own and train as an obedience prospect. "A Springer Spaniel, sure, we'll think about it" we said. "No, a Welsh Springer Spaniel" she repeated. After describing the difference to us, we went ahead and met Robbie, got permission from the landlord for a second dog, and brought him home to our 4 room apartment in Maplewood, NJ. So began our journey into Welshies. While Adrienne had sold him to us explicitly for obedience, he had been her hope for a show dog. Robbie had a brief foray into breed shows, appearing at the 1981 WSSCA specialty at Penn Treaty KC, and the 1982 American Spaniel Club show. He was the 4th place dog in the Open class at both shows, believe it or not! He had a lovely front, head and shoulder, so when a judge looked around the ring and needed another dog in a large class, he found Robbie. After his show career was over (much to Adrienne's relief), Robbie embarked on his obedience journey with me, and I turned over the Cocker's training to Rich. I eventually earned the CD on Robbie, Rich got the UD on that stubborn little Cocker, and the rest is history. So now you know why we always have a Cocker in the house and how we managed to get into Welshies. It's almost 35 years later, and we're still in the breed.

I took the plunge and created a brand new web site for our hobby - Welsh Springer Spaniels. It's embarrassing  really-we've got a site at Yahoo.com that I built in the mid-1990s first with Notepad and an HTML guide, then I graduated to FrontPage. It was easy enough to use, but if you were trying to make the site interesting it was a challenge. So, when M$ suspended support of the product and then the neat features I'd used to build the site became unavailable, it turned the whole site into a hot mess. In between FrontPage and the easy setup I found at this site, I experimented with teaching myself CSS and web design and using M$ Expression Web. Which would have been fine if I had the time to learn all the crazy features of that program in versions 1-4 AND keep a full time job. And now M$ has discontinued THAT product, too! So, deciding it was easier to stick with a simple program that I could learn easily, even if some aspects of site design remains a mystery to me, I arrived at Weebly.com and the new web site and domain were born. My current quandary is figuring out how to add multiple images to one page embedded in line with the text. I know there's a solution out there somewhere...In the meantime, I'm transferring photos and content from the old site to the new one. Oh, and check out the rest of the content at rysanwelshspringers.com. I update it frequently. Thanks for reading.