Just before Cydney ran off and disgraced me on the first day of the shooting season, she covered herself in glory. This seems to be the way of things with spaniels. They are a bit like children in the sense that, so far as their public performances are concerned, they either fill you with pride or plunge you into an abyss of mortification.
Before she decided to drop me right in it, the little dog performed a really difficult retrieve from a fast-flowing stream. A hen bird was wedged between some fallen branches underneath the current. The head of the picking-up team — who also happens to be the guy who bred Cydney and helped me train her — sent all three of his dogs in, one by one, but none of them could get it out.
The first dog, Cydney’s mother, a truly great gun dog who can usually perform any kind of retrieve, wiggled around in the water, stuck her head under, sneezed, shook her head, jumped back out.
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