Welcome new trainees and their owners to the Missouri Kennels training.
Meet Gus.
A male yellow Lab with a heart of gold. He is just getting started but is doing well. His owner Cindy Finney is in Europe while Gus is in school.
Meet JD (Jack Daniels), I love the name.
JD is here for some serious hunting retriever training and has all the assets to put it together. He loves the game and has been doing great work.
Meet Khloe. 
The Sansone Family just sent Khloe to obedience training. As pretty as she is apparently she is a bit rambunctious. A little schooling will take her a long way.
Are you the type of person who gets out and works your dog in
all types of weather all year long? Does your neighbor tell stories
about you at the community picnic concerning your training at I:00 in the
morning? Did he ever ask you why you can’t just walk your dog like a normal person? Is
your car or truck cluttered with bumpers, check cords, loose blank .22 shells, and various
training devices? Worse yet, does your vehicle smell like a duck? You can always tell a person
is a retriever fanatic when you walk in their house and two retrievers greet you with big
sloppy tongues and noses. It’s a dead give away when their house is festooned with ribbons,
puppy pictures, and all the art work features at least one dog. If this sounds like you, don’t
start flipping through the yellow pages for counseling services. You are part of a growing
number of people who share in the appreciation and devotion to their canine companions.
People have asked why we spend so much time with our dogs and I’ve tried to come up
with a sensible answer that doesn’t sound too extreme or may even make some sense to
the dogless world. I first tell them it’s just a hobby. It is a hobby, but it is definetly not “just” a
hobby. Hobbies are something you do as a past time and then put away and go on with the
rest of your life. our dogs seem to be part of our total lives.They are with us every possible
minute, some of us are even lucky enough to be able to take the dogs to work and there
are some who even let their dogs sleep with them. That’s not just a hobby. our dogs are
more valuable to us than family heirlooms and I’ve even rationalized with myself that I’m
doing this as an investment.
I’ve heard a good seasoned dog will bring a handsome sum but money can’t buy the feeling
of satisfaction we get when the dogs we have trained so long and hard make those impossible
retrieves time after time. An investment? Maybe, but the cost is high, the return low and
even if you sold a dog you had trained and doubled your original investment you are left
with an empty feeling like a member of the family was taken hostage or something. You don’t
get that feeling when you cash in your IBM stock.
There are other reasons for spending so much time and effort on our dogs …. like, I’m a
hunter and I’m doing this because of my hunting. I wonder how many of us have our dogs
because we are hunters, or is it, we are hunters because we have our dogs. Several years ago
I was invited to go duck hunting and couldn’t take my dog and although our hunt was successful
I swore I would never hunt waterfowl again without a dog. There is something missing
in the total scenario without the dog. It’s like playing baseball without a catcher. Our
dogs are definetly part of our hunting paraphernalia but it is not the total reason for our
devotion to training and our affection for our dogs. Their hunting skills are only part of what
attracts us to these fine animals.
When I’m done trying to explain our dogs to a person not in the club I realize that the dogs
are really a part of ourselves.They are an extension of our personalities and an elongation of
our physical self.We use their eyes to mark falls, their ears to detect whistling wings or
someone approaching, their noses to find game both dead and alive. and we use their company
to comfort us. They are as important to us as the guide dog is to the blind or the support
dog to the handicapped. The dogs are more than just a hobby or an investment and I’m
not sure when they become more than just pets but the evidence is there that they are
definetly more than that. It is this extension of ourselves which urges us to do more than
just feed our dogs. We belong to this club because we are associated with others who share
our feelings and thus we become somewhat of a subculture. spending our weekends at Hunt
Test and club functions like some folks attend church. It is with great satisfaction that we live
our lives with these magnificent animals. knowing we become more humane because of our
canine counterparts. knowing we are fulfilling our dogs and ourselves through our involvement
with them and knowing that the people who are without dogs are missing a part of
themselves that cannot be replaced with stamp collecting or a bulging stock portfolio. Our
dogs are part of US.
Joe gave me some of his articles from past club newsletters and I thought this one should be
shared again. We should all remember why this club was founded and why we are apart of it.
THANKS JOE!!
