Two weeks ago, Casper became the first Kooikerhondje to compete in UKC hunt tests when we entered Etowah HRC’s Upland Quad in Calhoun, GA. We had a great time despite no passes: Casper’s newfound “steady to flush” behavior broke when the cold quail flushed in his face and sat right back down again. While he impressed the gallery with his tenacity and insistence on bringing home dinner (he climbed a tree to get his bird back… instead of sitting and watching it fly away forever) he did not earn a Q because of it. We’ve repeatedly run into the contradiction between “behaviors that work when hunting” and “behaviors that work in a hunt test” and while we have had a great time and met some amazing people in AKC and UKC hunt tests, we don’t need to try these again!
The day of the hunt test, we got up early to drop off our foster puppy with his new forever family. Over the past few weeks, we have been bottleraising a pair of shelter pups whose siblings froze outside in the cold and whose mother had no milk for them. Unfortunately due to their rough start and infections, one of the puppies passed away at a week old. The remaining one stayed with us for tube feeding and every-3-hours syringe and bottle feeding for a few more weeks before he was strong enough to go to his forever home, where he is now named “Pibbles.” The Kooikers were very concerned about the babies but not sure what to do with them, until Maaike began cuddling and play bowing with little Pibbles once his eyes opened. While it was a very stressful fostering experience with little sleep, I am grateful for the opportunity to use my skills, equipment, and dogs to help with needy community puppies.
The final update is that today we had Casper’s entire hind end X-rayed. Now that he is ten years old and still very active, I wanted to see what everything looked like in there. He received a clean bill of health – normal spine, hips, knees, legs and feet. His hip X-rays were OFA Excellent 8 years ago, so it is interesting to see his 10-year radiographs, which I posted here as I won’t be submitting them to OFA. Feeling blessed to have a sound and healthy dog despite a very active lifestyle with multiple stresses on his body over the last ten years!