Mister, Mister…. B…. The Burb…. those are the many ‘love’ names we call this boy. He’s every bit his name- Neat, No Ice. He’s all that- and a sweet, sweet boy.
He gets along with everyone, loves to retrieve, and is very willing to learn and accommodate. He’s a little goofy now and then, but never a foot out of place and this boy uses his body with ease. He’s got a big future and watching it unfold is so much fun for us all!
This pedigree is special- Bourbon and his sisters are sired by a dog named Trouble, who took my breath away when I first saw him moving in the Junior Showmanship ring, when he was about 14 years of age. This dog moved effortlessly, yet covered lots of ground quickly with beautiful foot timing. And his outline- it was a thing of beauty. I sat and watched- found his owners, who happened to have a scrapbook of Trouble from the time he was a wee one through current days. As I said, he was about 14 years old then- old for a dog- and he moved like he was a practiced 2 years old. His topline was level, strong, and his shoulder layback was as near to perfect as I’ve seen.
Trouble was bred by Ellen Manke of Amberac Golden Retrievers, producer of many AKC Champions and most notably, breeder of Am/Can CH Amberac’s Asterling Aruba OD SDHF who is the top producing dam in breed history. Trouble was born in 1990. His owner, Beth Walker, owner-handled him to his American and Canadian Championships as well as his Working Certificate GRCA field title. Trouble was OFA Excellent and had a clean eye exam at 139 months- and he lived an astounding 17 ¾ years.
We bought Trouble’s frozen semen from Beth in 2005 or so, and we held onto it until we felt we had the perfect girl to breed to him. That entailed several moves in nitrogen tanks and much transport, making our AKC file quite large by the time we decided Molly Bloom was the girl for it.
This long storage time also factored into one of the three straws we owned being cracked at thaw, and the poor numbers of living, swimming sperm in the remaining two on thaw. As heartbreaking as it was to see only 10% of Trouble’s sperm were alive, we hoped for even one precious baby from this breeding we’d waited many years for. And we got three! Naturally, we kept all three and are excited to watch them grow up and accomplish much.
Bourbon was Winners Dog at the Tarheel GRC Specialty and began his show career with Janice Granda of WAG. They made a gorgeous pair and she quickly finished his AKC CH with a 4 point major at the Atlanta cluster. He’s going to start on obedience next and then will go to field events so we can have that Versatility title we so admire!
