Mike
Congrats on raising the NSTRA Oklahoma Region Elimination Winner, Bo'Darc CW Cooper. He won the first trial he ever ran. That was in November of 08. Five months later he wins the regional. Very impressive.

Thank you Chad.....Kenny Crosswhite deserves the credit. Kenny has done a great job with all the dogs he has gotten from me over the years. I am very proud of both Kenny and Cooper. Cooper turned 2 years old in October of 2008. I don't recall all the details but like you said he won the first trial he ran in and I think he has placed in every trial he has ran since, which is maybe 5 or 6, with the exception for maybe one. Great young dog and what is so awesome about him is his cooperation level coupled with a desire to please, they are off the hook.

Kenny's only concern about Cooper is, that he is SOOO happy to retrieve a bird back to him, that after the delivery takes place, Cooper tries to do a back flip of sorts out of his excitement and sometimes hits the ground on his back or side with a thud. Kenny's afraid he's gonna hurt himself. A dog doing flips out of excitement from completing his job, pretty amazing and a testament to your work Chad on Cooper's retrieve. I suggested to Kenny that he pop the bird's head off real quick and pitch it out on the ground to see if that will keep Cooper from "flippin out". He may very well try and retrieve the bird's head.

Cooper is also showing us to be a very intelligent animal. I watched him cut up a big pasture this past season with his nose stuck up in the wind the whole time. He never dropped his head once to hit ground scent as a matter of fact his head was pointing more upward as he ran. He learned to use his nose and the wind at a very early age. Something else Kenny has noticed with Cooper is if a bird whistles in the field, Cooper starts homing in him. So he's already made the association of a bobwhite's covey call to finding birds in that area. No big deal for us to figure out but when you see a dog cock his head a little to the side and then make a bee-line to the area where that whistle came from, then comes in from downwind and points that bird, pretty impressive especially given that he is 2 1/2 years old right now.

We just bred Cooper for the first time last week. He is bred to my Fiddlin'rail Lou gyp. She produced some real nice dogs off her mating to Hoss, so I am excited to see if this stellar son of Hoss can do the same. This mating looks to be a real nice balance of Fiddler, Guard Rail and Slate Creek Doc.

Thanks again for the tip of the hat Chad, I do appreciate it....




"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."

a quote from Lee Iacocca

Mike
I have got to watch Cooper run twice he is a truly nice dog. Could you post a pedigree on him?
Thanks
Dave

Here are a couple of pictures and a pedigree on Cooper. I dont have any current pics of him. These picture were taken when he was still pretty gangly, just a little over a year old. Cooper is a son of Hoss out of Babe. Babe was the dog that was accidentally ran over on a hunt a couple of Christmas' back.













"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."

a quote from Lee Iacocca

Thanks Mike
The draw sheet for the Sharon NSTRA trial shows Kenny running him this weekend.
Dave

Cooper go a 1rst place on Sat with a 5-5
Dave

Got some bad news from Kenny Crosswhite today, in that Cooper died. Kenny ran him at a trial this last week-end and he started going downhill thereafter. Kenny took him to Oklahoma State University and there was a finding of infection that was determined to be internal. Kenny's best guess is that Cooper busted something up while running in the trial...who knows, the bottom line is...no more Cooper.

"Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it."

a quote from Lee Iacocca

I was disappointed when Kenny told me Cooper had to be put down. He was a great dog. I was looking forward to Kenny taking him to the dog of the year trial. Stuff like that always happens to the good ones.