Coco gets Runner Up Champion at Southeast US Complete Championship!

Fricke N Coco adds gets her 6th title, and reaches 25 total wins after gathering Runner Up honors down in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago. She turned 8 this winter, and is gearing up for the spring trial season after starting off with this nice win.

Catching Up, Coco wins John Hadaway Coverdog Classic

Got a little lazy with updating this over the winter, so will start there. Coco was with Robert down south for most of the winter, she picked up a couple of nice wins in some local trials down there getting a first and a second. She also put down a nice 9 find performance in one of the Championships down there but did not get used. A couple of weeks ago she competed in Marienville in the Grand National Invitational, which included the top 14 cover-dogs in the country from last season. From there Robert drove to Gladwin in Michigan where she bested a field of 36 dogs to win the John Hadaway Coverdog Classic hosted by the Lake States Field Trial Club. She had 2 woodcock during her hour and a beautiful grouse within seconds of the judges calling time, which was not needed for to clinch the win, but was still impressive to go along with a strong hour on the ground. She also did a nice job this weekend in the Beaverton finishing a strong brace with a woodcock find with temperatures flirting with 80 degrees. Next weekend she will be competing in the Great Lakes Championship at Highland Michigan, and from there I will be bringing her home for the year. All in all its been a great season, hopefully we can close it out with another win!

Coco continues roll, gets 1st at Michigan Brittany Club's Open Shooting Dog trial out of 30 dogs!

Coco tops a strong field of 30 dogs to gets 1st place with a 3 woodcock find performance in a 30 minute weekend stake. Has been a nice little run she has been on, especially since we have suspected that she is going through a false pregnancy and her nipples have swollen up and hung a bit lower. Next up are a tough bunch of championships from here on out.

Coco gets Runner-Up Champion at Northeastern Grouse Championship

A week after getting Runner Up at the Northern New England Woodcock Championship, Fricke'N Coco repeats the feat in Maine. A great start to the fall getting two titles in as many weeks. Coco and Robert will now head to Michigan for a solid month of stiff competition. Congrats to Joe Dahl also for handling the new Champion Fernwoods Cove Bella.

Fricke N Coco named Runner Up Champion at Northern New England Woodcock Championship

Got word this weekend that Robert and Coco were able to bring home Runner-Up honors to start the fall off on a good note. Exciting news as this is her 3rd Runner Up Championship title, along with one Championship. She now has a couple of titles on wild birds in the woods and a couple of them on quail in the open, making her a pretty versatile critter. Next up is the Maine Grouse and Woodcock Championship then off to Michigan. Hopefully this along with her RU CH from the spring will be enough to make her first trip to the Grand National Grouse and Woodcock Invitational.

                  Champion and 2x Runner Up Champion Fricke N Coco

New residents of Iowa

Well we just recently moved to the Iowa City area for a 3 year term in which my wife Erin is doing a hi risk OB fellowship at the university hospital. We found a nice little farm house a couple miles out of town on 4 or 5 acres with a barn and our landlord is great in letting us have the hounds here. Due to my inability to get to many grouse trials, I left Coco with Robert Ecker before I left. I do however hope to get a pigeon coup set up as I have a male pup coming from Scott Berg in Minnesota out of Frank Lanassa's Northwoods Nirvanna dog and a nice female Scott owns, and possibly another pup as well. We are planning on probably breeding Coco one more time, most likely next winter or possibly this winter, but less likely (sort of depends on if she makes the invitational, as she has a decent amount of points from her Runner-up championship this spring). Right now I am looking at either this Northwoods Nirvanna dog my pup is coming from or Sean Derrig's nice young male Erin's Hidden Shamrock who I have heard great things about. Both dogs are related, the first out of Houston's Blackjack, and the latter out of his littermate Ridgcreek Cody, who he himself is also an option. Waiting to see all of these dogs a little more and see who complements her the best. In the meantime I am staying with the kids and am looking forward to start a young dog or two. In other news I have also been asked to judge the Wisconsin Grouse Championship this fall and accepted, so will be spending the first weekend in October up there looking at the best the area has to offer in grouse dogs.