next day he might go out and it would be hard to believe it was the same dog. He just wouldn't seem to be with it at all. I can't remember any other dog of his caliber that was like that. Although Scud did get gradually better I wasn't 100% happy with his consistency while he was with me. In spite of this I still believed he could develop into a top American trial dog and become consistently outstanding, if he got to the right handler. Janet Christensen had asked us to look for an outstanding prospect that she could win the National with. Talbot and I were considering Scud as a possibility, but had not decided anything officially. Laddie we had long ago earmarked for another earlier order for a top dog. Sometime in the January when the shooting season was almost over we had word from America that the people who were getting Laddie would take two dogs if we had two really good prospects. Talbot suggested we send both Laddie and Scud together. I thought about this for a little while and was very doubtful Scud would succeed if we did this. I felt in order for him to reach his true potential he needed to go where he would have a one on one relationship with a handler that could develop an outstanding rapport with him. Also whenever we sent two dogs together one would outshine the other. I was pretty sure Laddie would come on much quicker and Scud would be left behind. I had seen it happen before. To take a dog from the U.K. and make it into a winning American dog takes time and can involve some trials and tribulations. I thought Laddie should be pretty straightforward and would be just a matter of time before he became a very competitive dog. Because of Scud's inconsistency it would probably take some perseverance and patience to develop him into a top-winning dog. I was confident he had it in him to be a winner. I was not confident that just anyone would get this potential out of him. "Certainly Scud and Janet must go down as one of the all time great teams in American Springer history." I said to Talbot, " Scud has outstanding potential, but he is not as straightforward as Laddie. He needs to go to someone who will get the potential out of him. I can think of no one more capable of doing this than Janet Christensen." Her record in trials certainly spoke for itself. Janet always seemed to develop a great rapport with her dogs and I had no doubt Janet would put 110% effort into making Scud a winner. I was confident she would overcome any trials and tribulations that might arise (if it was possible to do so). Talbot agreed without argument and we decided there and then that Janet would be sent Scud. Spitfire never came on heat during the shooting season. I expect it was because she worked so hard. She would usually come on heat within a few months after the shooting season. This year was no exception. Scud and Laddie were still with us when Spitfire was ready to be bred. ENG FTCH Saighton's Swing After some discussion we decided to use Scud rather than Laddie, as he had more of the physical attributes we were looking for. It was the only breeding we did with Scud. It is interesting to note that Slattery who was a litter brother to Scud's mother Sophie and his grandmother Silla sired Spitfire. This breeding produced an outstanding litter, which included Saighton's Scout. In my opinion Scout, with out doubt, was the closest to the perfect Springer produced while I was at Saighton Kennels. A great disadvantage from a breeding program's point of view at Saighton's kennels was that we exported nearly all of our top dogs. Once they left the U.K. we had no access to these top dogs for breeding purposes. For a number of years Saighton kennels was completely isolated from the British Springer fraternity, apart from Bill Llewellyn's Dinas Dewi line. This made it very difficult to find suitable related sires outside of the Saighton kennels. We relied on at least one top dog coming along each year to help keep the line going. I expect we would have used Scud on more than one bitch had we known what an outstanding producer he was going to be. It would certainly have been interesting to have bred Spitfire to Scud a few more times. In Talbot's Brynaddfed house he had portraits of several of the famous Saighton's Springers. Dogs like Sizzler, Slicker, Stinger, Signal, Swing, and Slash. When I went past the paintings of these famous dogs I often wondered if any of the dogs I would be involved with would one day become as well known as these dogs. I didn't have to wait too long. It was some months before we heard how Janet was getting on with Scud. I think it was towards the end of the summer when Talbot showed me a letter from Janet. Basically she said Scud had been going through the motions, but hadn't really switched on. She decided to run him at a fun trial her club was holding. She said Scud's Page 3 | Spaniel Journal | Next Page | Previous Page |