SAM’S STORY

Sam died quietly, under a veterinarian’s care, on Friday, March 16, 2007. He had been diagnosed with a lymphoma almost a year to the day of his death. During his last year he became a house dog and was indulged with canned food, chicken tenders, ground beef, steak – whatever he’d eat and could keep down. We never thought Sam would be a good house dog; he was a classic male English Springer Spaniel; handsome, heavily built, aggressive in the field, hard headed and particularly masculine: if it moved he wanted to breed it, if it stayed still he marked it. But he was a gentleman to the end. He never had an accident in the house, even when he could barely walk to the door.

Sam’s story really began with his older sister, Charlie. I was about to retire from business in the early 90’s and wanted a gun dog. We considered several options, but I had shot over a bitch of Kevin Battistoni’s and when she had pups we went and had a look. Looking for a pup that way is somewhat like shopping in a glassware store: if you touch it you own it. We came away with Charlie and discovered she was special only when we took her at twelve months for training. She had been sired by the great 1987 National Champion, “Lefty” (Pondview’s Left In The Light) and she was beautiful, birdy, biddable and bright. Unfortunately, after her first puppy stake in November of that year she was lost, strayed or stolen from our farm in Pine Plains, New York. We never found her, but Kevin Battistoni offered us another Lefty pup at the next breeding and, with Charlie still in mind, we named the pup ”Crosswinds Play It Again Sam”.

Sam was never an easy pup. Mary’s daughter, after puppy-sitting for a week while we were away, dubbed him “the puppy from hell”. He was our first real field trial dog and I knew even less than I do today about training champion dogs. We went to Pondview once a week to train and I worked with Sam at home as best I could. As a puppy he won his first two puppy stakes and may have won his third, but the judges in presenting the placements admitted it was too close to call and gave first place to a professionally handled dog. So, prematurely, we moved Sam up to the Amateur Stake. I didn’t keep close records in those days, but I believe Sam placed in almost every trial he finished; the problem was that he finished few trials. For example, in the Kansas National Amateur, before he ever had a bird of his own in the first series, he chased a bird from the other beat without even breaking stride. He was a speck in the distance before I could blow the whistle, not that he would have listened anyway. In Sam’s early years I put eight hard-earned points on him. Then, one day in training Sam broke one time too many. Exasperated, I said to Mary that it was the last time I was ever going to run Sam. I was as good as my word; I never ran Sam again, but Mary said that day in the field that she’d run Sam if I wouldn’t. After I stopped guffawing at that, I agreed that Mary should take Sam to Dan Lussen to see what could be done. That’s when the miracle began.

Dan knew Sam and his breeding well. Dan had trained and handled BarDan’s Drifting Shadow, “Drift”, to a double championship. Drift was another Lefty puppy and had most of Sam’s hardheadedness as well as his abundant talent. Dan sized Sam up and suggested a method of training that would make Sam responsible for his mistakes. Mary entered into the program and took Sam to train with Dan two or three times a week. They made progress together almost immediately. Then, during a training session, Sam was sent on a retrieve and cam back lame, almost unable to walk.

We took him to our local veterinarian that day and it became clear that he’d torn the equivalent of his ACL. I wasn’t at all sure that we should invest in knee surgery for Sam, but Mary was sure and we followed the recommendation of our local vet to consult with Dr. Whitefield (since deceased), who had developed an innovative method of coping with torn ACL’s. Once we’d met with Dr. Whitefield, there was no question about the surgery. Dr. Whitefield got down on the floor and played with Sam, and he showed us a mechanical model of the knee joint before and after his surgical technique, which required cutting the bone and re-pinning it to change the angle at which the two bones met. He said that he’d done some sixteen hundred of these operations, many on performance dogs, and that several had gone on to championship careers. However, the flatter angle at which the bones met would only be stable, and the operation successful, if the owner were devoted to lengthy rehabilitation to build up the muscle supporting the joint. Mary made the commitment and Dr. Whitefield performed the surgery in July of 2000 - with the caveat that, in all likelihood, the other knee would have to be done in the not too distant future.

Mary and Sam were religious about the exercises and the swimming that were essential to Sam’s recovery. Several times a day Mary got down on hands and knees to flex Sam’s leg, and several times a week she took Sam to a local pond and flung batons into the water for Sam to fetch. It seemed endless, but eventually it was evident that Sam was progressing. We had no idea how he’d perform in the field, but Mary kept at it all through the summer and into the fall when we resumed light training on live birds. She entered Sam in one field trial late that fall and Sam performed remarkably well; he could well have been placed if the judge had had his wits about him (have you ever heard that before?). Mary was encouraged because Sam not only had run well, but had remembered his recent training. He was rock steady, attentive and obedient with very little whistle.

We took Sam to the National Amateur in Texas as an observer that fall. He was on hand to watch both his son and daughter run in the fifth series and complete the water. Neither placed, but somehow it seemed that Sam took heart. He continued to recuperate over the winter in Florida and in the spring back in Pine Plains, New York, he continued to train using the method that Dan Lussen had prescribed. We trained him at home and visited Dan once a week to make sure that Sam – and Mary – stayed sharp. There was never a question of Sam’s bird-finding, flushing or retrieving; it was just a matter of keeping him steady to wing and shot, bird after bird, and praying that his knee would hold up under field trial conditions.

That fall we entered Sam in the first trial of the year that we ran, the Mid-Penn trial near Altoona, Pennsylvania. In Sam’s first series, under Billie Jo Hopkins, Sam ran well, covering his course and finding his birds quickly. He had one particularly difficult retrieve, a bird that fell into a block of standing corn that harbored numerous extraneous birds. When he went into the corn, birds flew out. Mary couldn’t see Sam, but she held her breath and good old Sam came out of the corn with his bird as if nothing else had happened. In Sam’s second, under Martin Bell, Sam drew a portion of the course that was tightly bounded by woods with very little wind circulating. Martin said later that all the dogs that covered that part of the course only found three birds all day and Sam found two of them. He had another difficult retrieve back behind the gallery into a corner of the woods, which he completed as if it were a forty yarder in the open field.

Only seven dogs were called back to the third series of the Amateur Stake. Sam had two very quick and sure finds, the second only one cast from the first, and two short retrieves. The judges huddled. Mary prayed she wouldn’t get the dreaded third bird. The judges said “Thank you” and Mary and Sam came off the line. The dog that seemed to be having just as good a trial as Sam, Rich Siciliano’s “Buster”, also had a nice third highlighted by a long retrieve back into standing corn.

The trial had been run in alternating series, so the placements were held all together at the conclusion of the Amateur Stake on Sunday afternoon. Our wonderful little bitch, Lulu, took first place in the Open Stake and then Mary and I sweated out the Amateur placements. We didn’t want to hear Sam’s number called for fourth, third or second and magically we didn’t. After second place was awarded to Buster, I knew Sam had won the trial. The tears flowed like champagne when “dog number 27, Sam” was awarded first place, the blue ribbon and a very handsome permanent possession pewter bowl.

Finishing Sam’s championship with two more points was almost an anticlimax. I suggested to Mary that Sam not run the next week, but she couldn’t wait and Sam didn’t place. Although he ran a creditable trial and stayed steady, he seemed a little off on his bad knee. After resting up, he trained well the following week without any limping, and we piled all the dogs into the van for the local Bushy Hill trial on September 28, 2002. The trial was run in very open cover, not Sam’s forte. There was nothing to set Sam back and Mary had to apply liberal whistle to keep him in the game, but she did and Sam was one of twelve dogs called back to the third series. Unfortunately, it seemed like all of the other good dogs in the East were also called back in the third. But one by one they ran and one by one they fell, bringing Sam back into the mix.

Mary and Sam saved their best for last. Male judges tend to patronize female handlers, and when Mary went to the line with Sam the tapping judge asked her if she had ever been in a third series before. Quick as a wink Mary replied “Yes, and more important, he has” pointing to Sam. Sam put on a nice show in the third and finished the trial. When the placements were made Sam needed third place to finish his championship and that’s what he got. Right on the nose.

Sam retired after the Bushy Hill trial. He stayed healthy until his diagnosis of lymphoma in 2006. He trained with us and remained incorrigible in the field, and he never had to have the other knee done. He was kind and gentle with all of his grandpuppies who hung from his ears, and he and his consort, Lulu, presided over a kennel full of their champion pups and champion-to-be grandpups.

We are grateful to Kevin and Betsey Battistoni, Sam’s breeders, to all of the judges who looked beyond Sam’s frequent bobbles into his champion’s heart, to Dr. Whitefield the genius doggy orthopod, and to Dan Lussen who knew just what to do to re-steady Sam. Most of all we’re grateful to have had fourteen years with Sam, a dog with enormous talent and even a bigger heart, who worked a miracle after I gave up on him.