After we found Maggie, we became intensely interested in Springer Spaniel field trials and field bred dogs. I had an interest in finding a good field trial dog and potentially getting into this sport. We went to countless field trials whenever and wherever they were within driving distance. We found a breeder we liked in 2005, Fast Tracks kennels, (Tim and Billie Edwards), of South Windsor. Jack was a breeding of their championship dog, Indy (AFC HELLFIRE’S FAST TRACK SH AX AXJ CD). Jack was a sweet dog, but was not the best hunting dog, and he didn’t turn out to be a very good field trial dog at all. I don’t recall who the dam of his litter was, but while Jack looked almost EXACTLY like Indy, he shared little of his temperament. From the start, Jack was very high strung. He was very well socialized as a pup, and we took him for professional training, to a professional trainer that Tim and Billie recommended. The trainer (Pat Perry from Athol MA), had the dog for three months. We went up to visit with the dog, and see the progress that was being made on his training. The first visit was great, and I got to shoot some birds over Jack. The second visit, it seemed Jack had made no progress, and on the final visit, when we were taking Jack home, we had real issues. For whatever reason, Pat has left the dog in the kennel and ignored him as well as neglected to feed him. When we got Jack back, he was covered in feces, had mange and was 10 lbs lighter. Ten pounds is VERY significant when you went to the trainer weighing 50 lbs and come back weighing 40 lbs. Jack never recovered from that experience. Where he was high strung before going to the trainer, he came back absolutely neurotic. We did our best to train him, and give him a good life. Needless to say that experience turned us off to field trialing. Jack also had a number of health problems, predominantly with his eyes. He almost went blind at one point when he was about 5 years old, and were ended up regularly taking him to a special veterinary ophthalmologist to have cortisone shots in his eyes. That pretty much ended his hunting career, as the conditioned was worsened by exposure to sunlight. We tried to teach Jack to wear goggles (doggles) to protect his eyes from the sun, but he wouldn’t have it. As it turned out, for various reasons I was yet to realize, Jack was my last hunting dog. He passed away from cancer in 2019.
