Oh boy. This one. Where to even start with her.

We bred Emma Jane to a nice boy named Brody in 2018. We said we really wanted a girl out of Emma Jane, and she took us literally – we got a girl. One girl. And no boys.  Luckily for us, that one girl was very healthy and vibrant, and it soon became clear that she had the personality of an entire litter wrapped up in one fat little package.

And good lord, was she a fat little puppy. With no competition at the milk bar, Eleanor put on weight like it was going out of style. We were concerned that she was getting too fat, but that concern quickly fell away once she started learning to walk. She trimmed up, got really mobile, and she really hasn’t stopped moving since.

The name. Well, by now you’re probably thinking that we have a thing about cars; Ricky Bobby, and now Eleanor. Ricky got his name more from my love of movies rather than any fascination with NASCAR. Much the same goes for Eleanor.

Jen wanted to name her after a strong woman, to match her personality. She came up with Eleanor, with Eleanor Roosevelt in mind. She suggested the name to me, and of course my mind doesn’t go to Eleanor Roosevelt – it goes to movies. Specifically, Gone in 60 Seconds with the 1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 “Eleanor”. Still the most badass-looking Mustang in existence IMHO.

So, she became Eleanor. We felt “Gone in 60 Seconds” as a full name might not have the best karma to it, so we opted for “SoCo’s All About Speed” instead.

She grew up quickly and soon became the largest personality in the house. Harassing and wrestling with Ricky any chance she got, worshipping and harassing Patriot, and she seemed to enjoy testing TomBoy’s patience on a regular basis. TomBoy always established who was boss, and still to this day, when TomBoy comes over to visit – Eleanor tests her out, but always ends up knowing who the boss is – and it ain’t her.

She is a 4 month old puppy in a 4 year old body. She is pushy and loud and always happy and running around causing a commotion. Between her attitude and her somewhat smaller size, nobody that looks at her ever thinks she’s actually a fully grown adult dog.

Always happy, always excited to see anybody. And she’s got my dad whipped. Since I moved in with him in May, she’s grown on him to the extent that he now refers to her as ‘his dog’ She’s got a way about her, and she absolutely will not let you ignore her.

One of the best things about her though? As immature and silly as she appears, she’s actually a damn good bird dog and has been one of the easiest ones I’ve ever trained. She listens, she understands, and once she’s got the lesson down, she doesn’t stray from it much. She’s also about the most literal dog I’ve ever dealt with. Example – I trained her to retrieve from absolute scratch. She wouldn’t pick up a bird, or ball, or dummy, or anything, much less retrieve it. She had zero interest in carrying anything around. End of story. I started training her and, within about 6-7 weeks, she was retrieving shot birds to hand. It was one of the most fun processes I’ve gone through; every time I worked with her, she learned something new. She got a little bit better.

Anyway – as far as being literal. She understands that she needs to retrieve under very specific parameters. If I always throw a bird or shoot it 20 yards away – she’d only look 20 yards away for it. If it wasn’t there – Oh well, she figured, guess I don’t have to retrieve anything.  I mean, if that bird was 25 yards instead of 20, she wouldn’t go that far to look. If it was to the left and not straight out in front of her – nope.

If it was still moving – nope. It’s supposed to be dead, straight out front, and exactly 20 yards away in order to qualify for a retrieve.

Of course, we’ve worked through that. We’re not done, we’ve got a little more fine tuning, but she’s turned into a pretty capable retriever on quail. I’m really pleased with where she’s at, and I try not to pat myself on the back too much on my force fetching prowess, as I’m pretty sure I just had a really, really good student.

Pheasant might be another story – we’ll find out how she does next week. I’m fully expecting her to initially figure retrieving is not necessary when it’s a really BIG bird. I’m also fully expecting her to completely take to it once she learns that yes, indeed – we want the big birds to be brought back, too.

Finally, I have to wrap up this post with this picture. This is Eleanor and her mother Emma Jane. When I took the picture of Eleanor, it immediately reminded me of the one I had taken years before of her momma. I love how much they look alike.

On that note – stay tuned for an intro to Jack Black. After that I’ll hope to have some nice tales to share from South Dakota, and some pictures to go with them.

Until next time…