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Predecessors |
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Nikki
This is my Mo
Nikki,
was never meant to be a hunting dog. However, once he
acclimated to the far
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LOKI
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Nero
I
retired that next fall. I dug out some very old confiscated ducks
from my freezer that had lingered there long forgotten from an over
bagging case I'd made several years earlier. Within a couple days Nero was
retrieving them like a pro. He's shown here with Thea, a friends
lab mix, in South Dakota and again with Jay and Dan the next fall.
He's also pictured after 3 of us had a nice morning duck hunt in
southern WI. It was his first ever duck hunt. I was jump
shooting in waist deep water and heavy cover with Nero swimming along
behind me. He made some great retrieves on downed birds I
never would have found.
On
his first pheasant hunt in SD he could find the truck, that was about
all. The following year he figured it out and became adequate, well
worth taking along. On the last day of our hunt and still needing one
more bird to fill we wing tipped a rooster. With a good head start it
out ran Thea, Nero, and Jay's lab into heavy cover where it
disappeared. Both labs hunted frantically with no luck. I noticed
Nero was laying down looking at me. I walked over to check him out and
discovered he was holding down the live rooster with his
front feet--had been Three sad and shortened lives for our three previous poodles. Now you know why and how I became involved with poodles.
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m,
now passed on, with Lakeland's Saint Nicolas, aka Nikki, the genesis
of poodles in our lives. He was a Christmas present from me to
Helen after I left my lab, Gypsy, behind with a friend in order to
take a promotion to Minocqua. I knew he would better utilize
her hunting skills than the new job would allow me time for.
It was a hard decision to make but the right one.
north and discovered water he would have been
a duck hunters dream retriever. He swam like a fish and
absolutely loved water. He would stay in the water with our
son Jason (seen here with Nikki on a camping trip) and the neighbor
kids swimming endlessly without ever wanting or trying to get out.
He was tireless in water and
often dove trying to catch fish.
He died way to young at 10 when I found him in distress early one
morning. The vet was not able to save him. He said
it was kidney failure. 
Loki
came next. He was totally different then Nikki. He refused to get his
feet wet. He was simply a perfect pet; sweet personality, loving,
gentle to a fault.
Health
problems started at about 5 with epilepsy and he had to be put down
with cancer at age 7, a very sad time. 
Here's
Nero our new pup with Loki. Once we knew Loki's days were numbered
we started looking for another poodle. I had long settled
into the new job by then and decided I needed to spend more time
hunting. With that in mind and not considering a poodle for
the job I added Ole,
a lab, to our family. Ole lived
outside in a kennel. I'll never do that to another dog again.
In spite of my good intentions Ole did not get to hunt nearly enough.
When he was too old and arthritic from living outside in the harsh
Northern WI winters I had to let him go. Nero was then 5 and
I decided he would be a Hunting Poodle.
the whole time. Later in life Nero bloated and could not be saved.