2 part journal story strikes a chord…

I am really surprised at the personal e-mail/ phone calls from friends regarding my recent articles on ‘age range expectations’.  I guess I thought it didn’t need to be said out loud.  I was wrong.  My friends tell me that it needs to be said over and over so that folks don’t get disappointed.  In this ‘me too’ and ‘I gotta have it now’ society, many are disappointed in a pup that progresses normally which to them, is slow.

The one common response among friends who talked to me about the 2 articles laughed and said ‘yes, that’s it exactly’ or something along those lines.  Its funny how we start out with our first dog and have an idea of how it will go only to find out later that it was exactly as others would say it would be.  The other thing I heard was that learning realistic age range expectations ™ with their first dog made training and hunting over their subsequent dogs easier and more enjoyable.

Of course there are always special exceptions.  There are dogs out there that are what I refer to as ‘Willie the wonder dog’ and with no training, care or concern, the dog just does it like it has been doing it that way its whole life.   But those dogs are not the average from any line.  Excellent lines will consistently produce good to great dogs but ‘Willie’, well, he’s not the average.  He’s probably an extraordinary expressor of the breed which few folks have the priviledge of owning, ever.

One thing a lot of upland dog purists use to do was keep an upland journal of their exploits afield.  They would add photos to their entries to preserve each hunting memory for life.  I like that idea and recommend it.  Mine are kept on this site.  Perhaps you can keep an online blog / journal or a private handwritten journal like yesteryear… I invite you to just think about it.

Thanks for the visit and give your dog a treat for me.

Dave