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.

Coco named Runner Up Champion at Southern New England Woodcock Championship!

Got the call from Robert Ecker yesterday that Fricke N Coco was RU at this trial after a 4 woodcock find and 1 back performance along with a strong hour on the ground. Named Champion was Chasehill's Little Bud who was over 30 CH/RU combined,  and a tough dog to beat in his back yard. I was thrilled to hear the news, this is her second title in as many months after winning a US Complete Championship in North Carolina last month.

Coco gets 2nd in Sandland Field Trial in North Carolina

Coco followed up her Championship win last week with a nice 2nd place finish in the Sandland Field Trial last weekend in North Carolina with a strong field of 34 shooting dogs. I think Robert said it depended on weather so it might be a little while before the next trial, most likely in early March somewhere. We are in the lull of winter here in Michigan hoping spring speeds its way up.

Fricke N Coco wins US Complete Southeast Regional Championship

Got the word the other day that Coco won her first Championship with 4 finds and a back, along with a nice forward race. A big thanks to Robert Ecker for carrying on with her after my free time has sort of shriveled up with the kids, and also the judges for the time in the saddle and giving her the look. We are  thrilled to finally have it all come together for her, as she has been so close so many times in the last couple years.

4 in a row

Last weekend Fricke N Coco landed in the top spot getting 1st place at the Mohegan Field Trial Club. Robert Ecker ran her as she is with him for the fall, and he said she did an awesome job and tallied 3 woodcock finds in her half hour at Dave Murphy's farm in PA. This ties a record for Robert, he told me 4 is the most times he has placed a dog in a row, so hopefully she can carry the momentum. Next they are planning on heading to the Arcadia FTC in Rhode Island, then to Maine for the Northeastern Grouse Championship, then to Michigan for the month of October. Thanks for reading, Johnathon

3 in a row

Coco was in the winners circle again this weekend at the  inaugural Bear's Head Trial in PA, getting 2nd place in the open shooting dog. This makes them 3 for 3 in placements this season so far, having a total of 8 finds in an hour and a half on the ground in trials. Thanks to Robert for running her and having her ready for the fall, hoping they can continue the success into the fall championships.

Some Summer Wins

So far this summer has been super busy, I have not had time to do much of anything. Robert Ecker ran Coco in 2 trials last spring and offered to run her this fall since I was quite busy, and while I hesitated as I love going up and doing all the work myself, I have just not had any free time this summer, so I took him up on the offer.  She went there early july and he has been getting her ready for the fall championships, along with hitting some early trials. So far she has placed in both trials she has been in, getting 2nd in the Freeland trials, and 3rd in the Dubois Trial with a strong field of 43 shooting dogs. Both trials were in PA. Robert has taken a liking to her, and I am pretty sure she is his new house dog. Hopefully we the success continues. I will try and do a better job at keeping this updated.  Good luck to all this coming fall.

Catching up from last spring

Ok here is attempt to catch back up a little on this blog. Last spring I hardly had time to run in any trials as we were expecting twins and time was limited as well as saving up some money for our new expenses. I did run Coco in 2 trials in Gladwin, she took 2nd in the 1 hour Amateur Classic in a very strong field of dogs which ended up having I think they said 15 dogs finish with clean bird work and nearly 30 dogs entered. It was a great win for her and she was beat by a strong performance by Terhaar's Elvis who is aging but still put down a bird finding clinic. I only ran her in one other half hour stake and it snowed the night before and had bad conditions of ice in the morning brace. I then decided to send her with Rober Ecker as he was in Michigan for the Grand National Grouse and Woodcock Invitational, and was heading to the Empire Championship and coming back in a couple weeks for Jimmy Cipp's Championship at Highland so it worked out well as I was busy with the new coming family. He ran her at Flannigan's Farm and said she put down a hell of a race and had a gorgeous grouse find, but also picked up a couple of non productive's which can happen in the spring, but still ended up being named closest to the winners of the Empire Championship. 

Amateur Classic winners Terhaar's Elvis and Runner Up Fricke N Coco

Coco in a spring workout at Ionia

And this is what has slowed my updates down. New twins with Luke, our new baby boy Liam Grant, and baby girl Reese Emerson. They are wonderful and keep me over the top busy. 

Back in action

Headed up to the Lake States summer trial this weekend. We were actually camping in Cadillac for the weekend and I got up early and headed over to Meredith for the day Saturday. I walked a few braces and the courses all looked good after the volunteers cut new courses and cleaned things up. I only entered in the Open Shooting Dog on Saturday since we were on a mini getaway camping. Coco did a nice job and had a woodcock in the last five of her brace earning her second place, her first action back since having her pups at the end of May. Dave ran Rogue and she also did a nice job racking up a few birds. I have to work next weekend so am not planning on going up for the Amateur Club. Just counting down until our trip to the U.P. for opening weekend. Also liking Mustache, the lil Elvis x Coco female that I kept, put a pigeon out for her and she pointed it for a lil bit before curiosity got the best of her.

Lil fellers

Pups at 6 weeks old

Pups are all pretty much ready for their new homes, probably next week for most, and a few are sticking around for transportation reasons. Coco is ready to get back in the woods, just needs to have some loose skin tighten up a little bit, and ready to rock and roll. Pups are all doing well on hard food and terrorizing the yard. Below the pups had reached the point of exhaustion and actually let me get a picture of them holding still.

Pups at 4 weeks

All the pups are doing great, got a round of wormer this week, and are all mowing down the food, and have been leaving momma out of there more and more. They are starting to explore life outside of their pen, and can get a little vocal in the process :)

Above: Male on left,female in front, male yawning, male with back to us, female with mark on lip, and male facing the right.

Above: Female on left, rest are all males. They say, "we are being good boss!)

Above: Male in way back left, female in front left with black tail, male next to her, female in back behind him, male in front right, male behind him, female all the way to right in front.

Above: Male on left female on right

Chow time

Male on left front facing left, female behind him with black ears, male next to her facing right, female behind him with black tail, female in front right wondering what its all about in her venture outside the box!

Rocko photo selected as finalist for Orvis Magazine Cover contest!

I think it was about 4 seasons ago now I snapped this photo of Rocko on the last day of our hunt in North Dakota. I entered it in a couple of more or less for fun photo contests and won both of them. The first one, the Coverdog Message Board contest, which I think ended up having nearly 400 entrants, and last year the No Limit Outdoors photo contest, which had nearly 500 entrants. This winter I was probably bored, and came across an outdoor photo contest for Orvis Magazine, and decided to enter it there. We have just been informed that we are one of 20 finalists for the cover, with over 13,000 entries. The final 20 photos will go to a panel of judges for a vote, and will find out in a month if we were fortunate enough to win. Either way, we are happy to even be considered, just goes to show how beautiful the outdoors is on a daily basis, especially when you are walking behind a setter!

Pups at 1 week

Luke is having a good time holding the puppies. He gets excited, but they are still secondary to tractors to him!

Below: The male pups, all 5 of them. Three have a tricolor even mask, one has a half mask, and the other one is pretty white with a few specks of black. Still have 2 unspoken for.

Below: The females, all 4 of them. Three have tricolor all on their face, and one is white with a black ring part way up her tail. Still have 1 unspoken for.