648 — Cody Sickle: Knowledge is the Key to Success
Famed Bulldog breeder-owner-handler Cody Sickle joins host Laura Reeves for the first of a two-part series on owner-handlers, dog shows, Bulldogs, breeding and camaraderie.
CHEROKEE LEGEND NOR’EASTER DEREK
Long Island Bulldog Club Specialty. Winners Dog & Best of Winners. Judge: Phoebe Booth
Sickle’s renowned Cherokee Bulldogs have quite a record. According to his records, he has bred or owned 256 Champions, more than any other Bulldog breeder ever in the USA. His dogs have won 99 All Breed Bests In Show and 591 Bests In Specialty Show, five National Specialty Bests Of Breed and 15 Westminster Kennel Club Bests of Breed. All of which rank as #1 all-time results in the breed.
Sickle says he knew he wanted a Bulldog from the time he was 5 years old. His parents said he had to pay for it himself. So he skipped going to the movies, did extra jobs, saved his allowance and finally was able to purchase his first dog for $60.
“I find the Bulldog people are terrific,” Sickle said. “They are just as you say. We go in the ring, we’re competing with each other and we’re obviously all trying to win. When it’s over, it’s over. We are all friends when it’s over. We are a good representative of what sportsmanship should be almost all the time. There are exceptions, but not very many.
“I’ve listened to people say, well, you know, the Bulldog people are good, but this breed is not. I’m not intimately familiar with the interactions of people in other breeds. But I am very into the dog people in general and the dog people in general are helpful.
Cody Sickle with CH. CHEROKEE MORGAN. Best In Show…Penn Ridge Kennel Club. Judge: James Warwick. August 1969
“I’ve never once in my life went up to any dog person and said tell me about this or tell me about that and had them say no, not ever. And when I was 13 years old, I used to hang around the handlers. Richard Bauer when Jimmy Mitchell was his assistant. Wendell Sammett when Paul Edwards was his assistant. Peter Green, the Forsyths, they were all terrific. They were all perfectly willing to share their knowledge. They’re perfectly willing to answer all my questions, and my questions were incessant.
“The Bulldog people were the same way. One of the benefits about the Bulldog people being good people is that, in order to learn I think it’s necessary to speak to lots of people. Because people have different views. Some people just can’t communicate what you’re trying to learn and sometimes whatever they’re saying, even though it’s just right on, it doesn’t register properly. So if you ask everybody and work at weeding out what sounds like nonsense and keeping what sounds like it’s valuable, you’re going to learn a lot more.”
495 — Amanda On… Owner Handlers, Winning, Losing and Fun
Amanda On… Owner Handlers, Winning, Losing and Fun
Amanda Kelly, breeder-owner-handler of Fwaggle Toy Manchester Terriers in Canada, joins host Laura Reeves for a pragmatic, insightful and realistic discussion on the challenges and assets owner handlers bring to the competition.
“You really need to examine how are you viewing winning and losing as a first step,” Kelly noted. “And secondly, in addition to how you’re viewing winning and losing, you also, I think, need to start with realistic goals of what you want to achieve.
“You are not being realistic if you have your very first show dog … you’ve never groomed a dog, you’ve never shown a dog, but you want to be the number one Cocker spaniel in the United States … that’s not going to happen. It’s just not. It could be the greatest Cocker Spaniel that ever lived and it’s not gonna happen.
“We all recognize that there’s a kind of an innate imbalance there (between professional handlers and owner handlers). Let’s talk about how people can fix it. Because if you didn’t have any hope of ever being able to overcome it, then why would you bother to enter and go to the show?
“I think the best thing that you can do is to find yourself a really great class. Find yourself a really great mentor. If there’s no classes in your area, there are tons of online classes and opportunities to be mentored by professionals at a distance.
FUN is job #1
“Your number one job is to make sure that, whatever it is that you choose to do in the ring with your dog, that it’s fun for your dog. I see so many people who are so concentrated on their dog being perfect that they practice them to death by boredom. The dogs just start to hate it. So my own tip for people whenever they ask me, ‘what can I do to help make my dog stand out,’ I always say make sure that your dog has an arsenal of tricks.
“Behavior training for the ring is just trick training. Every single thing that we want them to do when you walk into the ring is no different than you teaching your dog to sit, or rollover or sit up and beg or spinning a circle. They’re all tricks, (even if) some of them are a little bit more complicated tricks.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time…
“The greatest gift you can give yourself is, first of all, patience with yourself and the greatest thing (you can give your dog) is patience with your dog. The second thing you can give yourself is to find a good teacher who can help you teach yourself and your dog the behaviors that are involved in showing in bite sized pieces that you can actually eat and have some success with. If you try to do everything all at once you are going to get discouraged and you’re going to stop.”
332 — Secret to Success with Owner-Handler Matt Palmer
The secret to Success with Owner-Handler Matt Palmer
The 2019 Secret to Success award goes to owner-handler Matt Palmer winning Best of Breed at Westminster Kennel Club with his first show dog. Host Laura Reeves gets up close and personal with everyone’s newest hero.
A Missouri State Public Defender, Palmer discovered Golden Retrievers at the Kennel Club of Philadelphia dog show he visited on a whim. He took AKC’s advice on how to find a reputable breeder, winding up with “great mentors, breeders who took a chance on selling a nice puppy to someone they didn’t know.”
“It’s remarkable the number of people who have “scaffolded me” in this sport,” Palmer said. “People have been amazing. Everyone I’ve come across has helped me in one way or another.”
Palmer said his secret to success came when he was working his dog at a handling class. An instructor noticed the dog tensing up when he was hand-stacked. After working through the problem, Palmer said he realized he “was worried about my jacket riding up and basically mooning everyone.” He bought a pair of suspenders on Amazon and his confidence skyrocketed. The team’s success took off from that point.
“I now own 10 pairs of suspenders and have a couple pair of extras in my tack box,” Palmer said.
“I wanted the purple and gold”
Palmer said his high school sports experiences left him “competitive to a fault,” and gave him the drive to achieve more. While he competed in the National Owner Handled Series his first year or so, glad to have extra time in the ring to practice, “I wanted purple and gold, not the maroon ribbon,” he opined.
Missouri to Manhattan
Deciding to attend Westminster Kennel Club was sort of a lark for Palmer. “I thought it would be cool to go see it. I had absolutely no expectation of significant success,” he said.
As his case load was starting to build up at work, Palmer had planned not to go. After visiting with professional handler friends at the dog show, he finally decided to go ahead and make the trip with them.
Professionals, not adversaries
“I think there is a divide between owner-handler and professional handler when there doesn’t need to be one,” Palmer noted. “I tell people I’m happy to help, hold dogs, etc if they could give me a few minutes of feedback.
“Any chance to learn from professionals is invaluable. I try to absorb things that are second nature, reflexive to them.
“My (professional handler) friend came early to meet me at the Piers so he could be ringside for the breed. He could have been in bed, but instead he grabs a bucket and a towel and stands ringside and cheers me on.”
Poop strike
The most terrifying moment of the Garden experience, Palmer said, is his dog wouldn’t potty. “He grew up in Kansas and Missouri, he’d never seen all that concrete. He wouldn’t poop! I was mortified he was going to touch that green carpet and decide it was a perfect place to poop,” Palmer said wryly.
“Dog shows have been a great social outlet,” Palmer said. “We’ll keep going. It’s so cool, everywhere you go, you see somebody you met somewhere else…
“Sometimes we win, most the time we don’t. But when we do, it’s pretty fun.”
For more inspiring stories of owner-handlers check out some of these past episodes:
57 – Best in Show: How an Owner-Handler Competes with the Pros – Tricia Stanczyk
318 – Owner Handler Secrets: Make a Plan and Be Consistent | Pure Dog Talk
25 – Patricia Trotter: Legendary Breeder, Author, and AKC Judge – Vin-Melca’s Norwegian Elkhounds
238 — The friendships and journeys of a successful owner-handler | Pure Dog Talk