The Sand Spring 2019 is in the books, it’s time to reflect back on all our accomplishments and special moments.

The special moments started off on January 31 with the birth of Slammer. This was a long awaiting breeding using my soulmate Norman. We did an surgical artificial insemination between Norman and Guilty. Guilty delivered 9 healthy puppies in which one special male was staying at Sand Spring.

Gambler took over having the most titles awarded to a Sand Spring dog this year. He was a title whore or maybe it’s just that him and I work so well together and he aims to please so I do more events with him. He is retired from hunt tests since he has his hunt test titles so he doesn’t get to train anymore so doing other performance events is something we can do together in order to spend time together.

In January he received his AKC Rally Novice title.

In May he received 3 titles starting off with his AKC Therapy Dog Advanced title. He received this title after completing 100 therapy visits. I can’t tell you how much Gambler loves his therapy work.

He then received his AKC Trick Dog Advanced title.

Last title for May was his UKC Rally Obedience 2 title. Rally Obedience was fun this year as we trained and competed with our friends enjoying our time together and titling our dogs together. Some great memories were made.

In June he received his UKC Rally Obedience 3 title.

Lastly for Gambler in July he received his AKC Farm Dog Certified title.

Glory had an huge accomplishment in August. She passed her last UKC HRC Finished test to receive her Hunting Retriever Champion title (HRCH). She is our 4th Sand Spring dog to receive this title. We are very proud of her. She is now retired from hunt tests and will be our hunting buddy.

Glory’s daughter Guilty is the next in line for receiving a hunt test title. In August Guilty received her AKC Senior Hunter title.

Then in September Guilty’s son Slammer went 4/4 to receive his AKC Junior Hunter title. He is the first Sand Spring dog to go 4/4. Norman was our youngest dog to receive this title until his son Slammer came along and beat him out by 3 months. Slammer was only 7 months old when he got his title, Norman was 10 months old. We are very proud of Slammer and his work ethic. He has big paws to fill by following in his fathers pawprints and I think this guy can do it. He also has to be as good as Gambler as Gambler is a Norman son too.

Our last special moment for 2019 was the birth of Gertie. We bred Guilty to Moses and we knew we would be keeping a girl puppy to continue the Sand Spring lines. On November 6th Gertie was born. This was bittersweet as on this day 6 years ago we said goodbye to our foundation stud Norman. Gertie is one special girl that I feel will go places.

This year I also became an AKC CGC, Temperament and Farm Dog evaluator as well as an Alliance Of Therapy Dogs Tester/Observer.

I want to end our year in review with a couple more announcements. First I want to say thank you to Tom at Crawfish Chesapeakes for all the time, money and love he has put into his Sand Spring pup Josey. Congrats on all your accomplishments that you two have done this year which as been a lot. Thank you also for picking Norman to breed Josey to, we were hoping for a big litter of Normie/Josey pups but we got one very special Dieter. I can’t wait to watch this little guy grow and have him and Gertie compete together as they grow up.

Second the biggest accomplishment for a Sand Spring pup happened to Trish and Roxy. Roxy is Guilty’s littermate (Glory and Bear 2016 litter). Trish and Roxy compete in different performance events. They rock at scent work. Unofficially Trish and Roxy are the first Chesapeake team to receive the AKC Detective title. This is outstanding for them and especially for me that Sand Spring bred this dog to make it to this highest level in scent work. They have put a lot of time and practice into scent work. Roxy is a sniffing fool, she loves to sniff and is very good at it. She also completed the Master level in which only 3 dogs have completed this title so that to in itself is a huge accomplishment. I am over the moon with what my puppy buyers have done with their dogs and I can’t thank them enough.

Thank you for following along with all the Sand Spring adventures. I hope you continue to follow along in 2020. We have big plans again that involve hunt tests, therapy work, rally, dock diving and anything else that comes up. We will be campaigning Slammer and Gertie so keep a eye out for these rock stars.

We hope that you all have a blessed and wonderful New Year and accomplish all that you set your mind to. It’s not about winning or loosing it’s about the time spent with your dog(s).

Peace to all!