Hi Don,
I promise I will stop sending you photos of gunny after this one! This is his first merganser retrieve in fast water..This was part of a double that he handled very well..
Regards
Rod
This is a Pat/Storm pup, born 28 Jul 11 now owned by a great fellow in Newfoundland!
Good morning Don
We received your newspaper article on Monday regarding L.L. Bean Freeport.
Certainly brought back memories of our visit there with yourself.
We do not have anything like that here in Australia.
All is going along OK here. Jill had another treatment last Monday, all her bloods were stable and the readings were OK.
We have had some very wet weather recently. This winter has been our wettest for 21 years, and two weeks ago we had our windiest week for 47 years with winds up to 146 kph, YES I have had more than enough of the wind. We lost the big silver gum in front of the dog shed, luckily it fell straight across the gate out into the next door neighbours paddock, a small part of the concrete flooring was the only other part damaged other than the gate, I’m still cleaning up the tree after cutting it up into firewood. We lost the tree that you helped me cut up a branch from while you were here – a branch off one of the trees near the dog yard gate – and one of the bottle brush bushes at the front also blown over – and a large blue gum on the neighbours property was blown down near where the other one came down last year. So there is an abundance of firewood around. The local Shire Councils are still cleaning up all the fallen trees along the roads.
As a result of the wind we were without electricity for 3 days, the portable generator did a super job keeping us powered up, freezers working etc., we did miss the hot water though.
John Stott and ‘Millie’ are on the Championship Retrieving Trial circuit. Millie finished 3rd in the South Australian C’ship 2 weeks ago, then 2nd in the Western Australian C’ship last weekend, and the National starts on Friday – there are 3 Kadnooks entered in the National this year being conducted in Western Australia.
Hope this finds you both fit and well.
Regards
Wayne.
KADNOOK LABRADORS
Mets lots of people and have had her in many an interesting woods and water. Not swimming yet, but goes in up to her belly. She's 75% coming to the whistle, has chased down and retrieved live Quail (Sorry I couldn't get on film, but didn't come together..soon maybe)Starting to get Heel and Stay..always hungry and lots of fun!!
Cheers,
Peter
Here is a link to a facility in Australia that now has Puck’s mother and three of his litter-mates. I visited them, and couldn’t have been more impressed with them. Kadnook has been very involved in guide dogs for the blind, including the failed attempt to breed a good dog by crossing a lab with a poodle.
http://www.righteouspups.org.au/AboutUs.aspx
Don
Below is the account of Keough's unfortunate encounter. We sill miss him. The new pup Key is wonderful...very attentive and already responds to his name and some basic commands. We sense that he will respond well to training. He seems a bit slow on the bathroom training ...but that will come. Fatal Porcupine Encounter
On Friday August 24th we were entertaining company on our back deck and our (barely) one year old black Labrador, Keough had joined us and was getting acquainted with our guests. We live in the country and our house is surrounded on all sides by forest and streams. Wildlife is quite common around our house and we regularly observe animals nearby. It was late evening and dark when Keough decided to go down the steps of the deck. He was only out of sight for a few moments and returned whimpering; full of porcupine quills. Quills were embedded in his nose, chin, face, chest and abdomen. We immediately brought Keough into the house and began removing the quills using needle nose pliars. The dog was very cooperative at the start and seemed to sense that we were trying to help him. We removed at least 150 quills but as his initial shock wore off and the pain began to intensify, he became increasingly agitated and we decided to call emergency veterinary services. We were able to bring him in for treatment immediately. The vet sedated Keough and removed more quills. While sedated and he was carefully examined, it was determined that some quills had penetrated deeper into his chest area. Several quills were surgically removed from his chest. After approximately 2 hours at the Veterinary Clinic he was sewn up and we took him home.
Keough seemed to sleep okay that night and appeared to be himself the next morning. However, as the day wore on, he became less and less mobile, would stand motionless and would not eat. Saturday night was rough for Keough as he did not seem to be able to get comfortable by lying down, and consequently, he did not sleep. We attributed this to the tenderness of the surgical wound. Sunday was much the same; he would not eat and could not lie down. We did manage to get him to drink some water. He was very tired and was falling asleep on his feet. After lunch we decided to take him back into the vet. Chest x-rays were performed and if was determined that some quills had penetrated the lung wall and his lungs were filling with fluid. The vet consulted with a specialist in PEI, who recommended that Keough be put down as the likelihood of further surgery saving him was not good. The specialist indicated that Keough would likely not make it to PEI for the procedure. It was a very sad day to lose our great friend and companion at such a young age. We still miss him very much.
The following day we called Don at Doindogs to inform him of the unfortunate news and tell him what a great dog Keough was. As our luck should have it, we were able to obtain a new 8 week old black male pup the very same day. We named him “Key”.
We have learned from this experience and are beginning to control the porcupines on our property. Additionally, we will not be allowing the dog in the yard off-leash after dark given that porcupines seem to be more nocturnal as opposed to coming around during the day. Although the recall command would not have saved Keough as we did not see the encounter developing, perfecting recall may very well prevent similar encounters and we plan to diligently instill this command with our new pup.
Regards;
Denis
Hi Don
We got Gunny’s first duck retrieve under our belt! He picked up this Teal hen like an old pro..The bird flushed from a gully and fell in thick cover on the opposite side..Gunny had to cross the gully, exit on the other side to find the bird and cross the water again for the return. Not an easy retrieve for a young dog but he handle it perfectly!
Best Regards
Rod
Hi Don,
Joanna here. Thought will drop a quick line to tell how Hugo’s doing. We couldn’t be happier with him. He’s adjusting well to our family, loves to chase Jack around J. He almost doesn’t cry at night. We let him out around 12 am for last pee and he holds it till 6 in the morning. Hasn’t gotten into any trouble yet but we keep a close eye on him, otherwise he’s in his crate. Down to half a bag of food, so will probably stop by sometime this week to pick up more if that’s ok. Will call first.
Thanks for everything,
Joanna
