Champ & misc

April, 2003

6 months past and no commentary! Sorry about that. Guiding this past year was very busy.

Here's a brief update on the past six months.

Bird numbers in some parts of Texas were up in general and hunters attending our wild/early release upland shooting preserve were extremely successful! We had a lot of fun and hopefully you did too!

Things are happening here at Chief's Brittanys. My male dog Nubbin gets better every time I hunt him, as if it is possible to improve upon greatness (patting my self on the back here!).

Nubbins son Champ went to a home that hunts and dabbles in AKC field trials. Champ has won several field trials as a 10 month old pup! According to the Champs owner, He really runs big and blows away the competition. Champs mother is 'Peanut'. We are surely excited for them.

My old dog Chief mostly stayed home this hunting season as I didn't want to overwork him due to his age. He has gotten fat and that's ok with me as I kept him lean his whole life. I figure he's allowed at least one vice prior to moving on to great quail pastures in the sky.

Speaking of Chief, I need to say for the record that my kennel was not named for him. A lot of folks think that. When I was promoted to Chief Petty Officer about 11 years ago, Chief was a puppy. I named him after me!

We've got some new upstarts coming along this year as several of my other dogs, including the infamous Rocket, are getting old too. So this next year will be truly fun trying to get everyone started!

For those of you who knew my dog Dot, I have sad news. Dot passed away early this year due to severe pneumonia. Fortunately, She had delivered 5 beautiful puppies to us sired by Nolan's Last Bullet just last year. One of them looks just like Dot and we are very pleased. We kept two females from that litter and named them Betty and Dottie.

A friend of mine named Steve, has a pup named Sniffers out of Dot who appeared with me on Animal Planet's 'Breed All About It'. Sniffers looks like her mom and is awesome in the field. Steve reported to me that some very good field trialers got a look at her and were aghast at the thought of him not field trialing her. Lots of folks don't understand why Steve won't compete with her but Steve is like many of my friends/clients, they just want a fine companion gun dog and don't feel like they have to prove anything to anyone!

We have some very exciting breedings coming up in the next year or two and we are anxiously pacing the floor over the idea.. We will be doing some line breedings on some very great dogs. We are particularly excited about Sarah - more about her another day.

I'd like to personally thank one my friends and client, Tim Lupia. Tim and I have become friends (as do most of my clients!) and he was very gracious this past Christmas. He had asked a while back if I could train his pup (that he got from me) like mine to which I told him 'sure!'.

After I completed training on Tim's dog Jimmy, Tim came down and hunted over his Jimmy at Christmas. Tim presented me with a new 20 GA. Berretta Silver Pigeon (just like his!) and I was stunned. What was equally pleasing was that I always guided Tim and he asked me to hunt along with him with my new silver pigeon. We had great fun, Jimmy did well and good times were had by all. Thank you Tim!

My mother and father's health has not been so good this past year. It is very troubling to see your parents become elderly and think about losing them. But they both seem to be ok for now in spite of emergency cancer surgeries, diabetes, stroke, falls, etc. God Bless my parents.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention our fine troops over seas. God Bless our Troops!

That's it for now. I'll try to get more commentaries out now that hunting season is over.

Y'all take care and give your dog a fancy treat for me!

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