 This picture is awful, isn't it? However, it at least is very fresh from today 26/12 -09, only a few minutes old, and it fulfils its purpose to show how Sunnie has grown in height lately. It also shows that there are thousands of more things to do with Sunnie, for instance to train her to hold a show stand. Anyway, there is little doubt that she is an English setter, at least as far as appearance is concerned |
The midwinter darkness, the chill and the snow that surprised us, has made it difficult to take any decent photos for this part of the Sunnie story. Despite of that they had to be taken since Sunnie develops so fast now, both in body as well as mentally, so there were no alternatives. So as well as there has always been "forced training" of gundogs, there is now also "forced photography" of gundogs. Give me credit for that, will you!
 One of the preferred hallmarks of an English setter is the ability to relax completely when nothing happens. This is a skill that has to be learned and it usually comes with age. Only little more than a week ago Sunnie suddenly discovered that I could be useful for other purposes than only as a toy that can be played with at any time, anywhere. So this is the first time she really uses me as a pillow, as an adult dog always does. Unfortunately she has now again relapsed into the crocodile syndrome and my hope for hands and feet that do not bleed all the time faded away. Charles M. Schulz's beagle Snoopy, that once saw a cat that had relaxed into a state close to the inanimate, said: Amazing - they have finally developed the boneless cat! In due time we expect Sunnie to now and then, under appropriate circumstances, turn into a boneless setter. |
Even though the weather has not been in our favour since part 1 of the Sunnie story was written, its been raining and raining again more or less every day and then suddenly the winter fell over us with 2 feet of snow and -15 Centigrade temperatures, we have tried to obedience train Sunnie now and then. We have an obedience class for gundogs going on and we use it to train Sunnie a bit too, although she is too young to participate during the entire 3-hour sessions we have twice a week. There are 10 dogs of different gundog breeds, even two pet dogs, a Cocker spaniel and a small Basenji originating from Africa. To Sunnie this a valuable experience since she do not meet other dogs as often as desired.
  "Comes when called!" Yes, in this situation, left alone in a sitting position with the social pressure from 4 - 5 dogs on each side, she is more than willing to come when called and the other dog owners are impressed by the, here 4 months old, puppy. Little do they know how she has started to pull our legs at home. As I predicted in part 1 she today comes when called only if it pleases her. We have to fix that one way or another, one of these days. However, since she never runs away from us, only refuses to be leashed now and then, there is no hurry with that. We are sure that she do not even know the deeper meaning of the "Come " command, but I am not really certain of at what age it can be seriously implemented. Until then I just turn my back at her and walk away when she refuses to come. |
Sunnie loves other dogs and other people, she is very positive to any new creature she meets. She has made friends with our neighbour's young cat already and she has already been presented to horses also, meets them on a daily basis. Later she must make friends with sheep and cattle, when they are let out on the grazing fields in the spring.
However, as far as we could judge from her behaviour in this situation; had we had a number of birds to flush she would have started to back the other dog. Well, we had no more birds but we are confident that she will start to back as soon as she is given a decent chance to learn about cooperation with other dogs. |
Sunnie is a very cooperative setter. In fact she is so cooperative so I have started to "suspect that there are owls in the moss" as we say here in Sweden, when we think that something is not really the way it should be. I do not know the proper English expression for this, maybe they are "suspecting that there are pigs in the heather" in Scotland - who am I to know?
Now, Sunnie is so cooperative and playful so I suspect that there is a spaniel buried in her pedigree. Our late e-mail mentor in gundog training, Clement Walton in USA, would have loved Sunnie. It is indeed a great pity he did not live to experience her, through our electronic narratives and photos. The fact is anyway that Sunnie reminds me so much of Springer the Spaniel so I suspect that there must be a working springer spaniel hidden somewhere is her pedigree, perhaps even on both sides (fathers and mothers). Somewhere, in some book about dogs and their genetics, I read about genes that can pop up again after being inactive for 15 generations. 15 dog generations could be - say 75 years. Who knows what happened in those days around the year 1935?
I am sometimes very keen to speculate in history, just for the fun of it. This is my tale, I do not assert that it is the truth and I do not admit that it is a lie: Setters have been imported to Scandinavia from early 1850:s or something like that. In those days Edward Laverack had bred his setters so intensively on desire and stamina so they were really difficult to handle, they had become hammerheads in other words. Llewellin, who also founded an own line of more manageable setters, took over some of Laverack's better dogs at the end of Laverack's carrier as a breeder. However, the harm had already been done and Scandinavia was littered with hammer head setters that certainly could hunt all day, seven days a week but were at the end of the day difficult or impossible to get out from the hunting grounds. Compared to the Llewellin setters, tailored for the Scottish moors, the Laverack's were better suited for the Scandinavian environment but some biddability had to be installed in the lines or there was the risk of the mental hospitals being flooded by birddoggers who had turned into nervous cases after trying to get some order into too many hammer headed Laverack setters.
The situation was desperate, some trainability really had to be installed in the Laverack's and it had to be done without risking any of the stamina and desire in the dogs. One dark, cold and stormy night in February 1935, far out on the country side were none could observe the mysteriousness that was about to happen, a couple of Laverack bitches in heat met a couple of working springer spaniel dogs in an old, ramshackle barn, in the light of only the moon and a few candles. The rest is history, some minor adjustments in the pedigrees that none would notice and a new generation of working setters Type S (S for Sweden), Mark III, version II, were born. Unfortunately a lot of what was achieved in the form of trainability has been worn of during the decades that came. Still, now and then, some of the old genes created in this bewitching night in February 1935, still show their ancient, friendly faces in a few setters. Sunnie must be one of them!
She has learned to take the dummy from our hands and to hold it until told not to hold. |
...and to hold it when we go away. |
...and to continue to sit and hold the dummy for some shorter period of time. |
 ...and to come when called without dropping the dummy. |
...and to sit down in front of us and hold the dummy until we please to take it with the Swedish analogue to the British command "Dead". |
This fetch training use to be a testing period for most owners of young setters, but to our great delight Sunnie loves it! And that is the reason why I strongly believe that there is some spaniel blood in Sunnies pedigree. Roland, the breeder of Sunnie, is of course welcome to repudiate my assertion about the possible contamination of the pedigree. Whatever he says it is an indisputable fact that spaniels and setters were the same creatures until 200 or 300 years ago and only the invention of the predecessor to the modern shotgun separated them due to the new ways of hunting the invention created. |
Finally, before closing this part of the Sunnie story I have to enclose this photo that illustrates the difficulties we have had getting decent photos in the wintry weather. And under it Maud like to put a better picture of Sunnie from a side view, than the awful uppermost one on this page :-)
 The flash bouncing back from the snowflakes creates this kind of interesting art, when you actually are trying to get an explaining photo to illustrate something. Well, this photo could fit in the museum of modern art - perhaps... |
 Sunnie 26 december 2009 |