Copper was born January 2018 and is a typical ‘field’ Golden. She was bred by Hunter’s Goldstrike in Colorado. While Coppers parents did not compete her lineage is full of titled hunters.
Copper was a handful her 1st few years; full of energy and untrustworthy off lease. She wouldn’t run away but would run to any person she saw and was lightening quick when she did it.
She is the 1st dog I had that was banned from the daily outings with the other dogs. It took about 6 months of individual outings, a long leash, and training whistle… and most importantly… a job.
A dog training whistle works surprisingly well. Blowing it immediately grabbed Coppers attention when yelling wouldn’t. A long leash (50 ft) allowed Copper to kinda run free in the park and allowed me to work on recall and reacting properly to the whistle. Not supper useful after Copper was trained but you can get them for a reasonable price and will last forever.
The biggest change was learning that Copper had a huge retrieval urge. It shouldn’t have surprised me since she came from a line of hunters but she never showed much interest in tennis balls or sticks. However I pulled an old training canvas dummy that I used when I took the dogs to the lake and her job was created.
Copper is so focus on retrieving the dummy that she ignores everything else. She’ll do it for hours. It turns out she has a really good nose. The orange dummys are hard for dogs to see and she finds it mostly by scent. She is so attached to it that I can’t even go on a walk without her taking it.
Maple is are newest Golden puppy and inspiration for this website. Born November 23rd, 2023 she is almost 9 weeks old when this photo was taken.
We of course do not know what Maple will be when she grows up. She certainly has potential. We met her mom Maya several times and we’d be lucky if Maple turns out like her. Maple’s dad is exceptional: BISS GCH Can CH Malagold Wing-T We Can Work It Out MH WCX DDHF, Can. WC. If Maple has just a fraction of the talent that Brix has she’ll be exceedingly trainable.
Since I now work from home I hope to have a lot of time to spend training Maple. I’ll be documenting how it’s going on my YouTube channel.
Autumn is our oldest Golden. Born in 2013 Shaffers Princess of Fall lives with my son up at college but still spends a lot of time with us
You can tell from Autumn’s pedigree that her ancestors excelled in a variety of areas including agility, confirmation, rally, and hunting.