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© 2004 Ed Presnall Small, white and snuggly she carried a slight aroma that tickled the nose and the imagination. Named for the fragrance created in 1921 by perfume designer Ernest Beaux, Chanel, like her namesake, entered life with the desire, as the 5th Avenue marketing people stated to Share the Fantasy. 
She came along at the right time in my life. Spirited, animated and eager to please she dove into life, accepting challenges, taunting her littermates and forging forth with attitude to prove she could do almost anything. I was in the process of developing a new training program and needed another guinea pig to test my theories. My time to work with her was limited to periods during the week as I was notified that she would be working in the conformation ring on weekends.We started with a simple training program and within a month she had proven my theory and shown her grasp and natural ability in the tracking field. At ten months of age she bounced and plowed her way through her first full-length track. Tracking Judge Deb Duncan, exclaimed what a tracking dog, she follows the scent like she is on rails!". Moments later Deb signed her name on a certification form as qualified to enter an AKC Tracking Test. I loaded Chanel in the van and smiled during the drive back home.  A month later she flew though her show championship, easily defeating the competition and finishing under the esteemed all-round judge Dorothy Nickles. Leaving the ring, Dorothy stepped up and lovingly caressed Chanels face while she proclaimed I look forward to seeing this girl as a special when she matures. Those are the words that make a breeder-handlers heart flutter.Leaving the show site, I had plans to quickly earn her tracking title and then continue on to more advanced titles when life stepped in and threw a wrench into the program. A divorce, a move across the country and she languished in my mind like an unfinished piece of art. Almost two years flew by and one night my ex called to say she was looking for the right home for Chanel. I knew she had kept two of the littermates, just waiting for them to mature, to make a decision on which one of them would continue in the breeding program. It just so happened I had a tracking student who was looking for a Clumber Spaniel and quickly I called to see if there was interest in an older dog. There was. After a flurry of phone calls, emails and a hundred other items, one morning a few weeks later she arrived. I was teaching a tracking class when she jumped out of the motor home. After two days on the road, she was ready for action. I stopped the class, fitted her in a harness and allowed another student to hold onto the line and follow her on a track. Flashing through the tall grass, indicating and making each corner she cut through the track in a few minutes time. As I watched her work through the field I though how little she had forgotten and how nice it would be to work with her again. We heard the handler praising her and a few moments later saw Chanel, happily holding her glove and wagging her tail, come out of the field and march back to the class.  Phyllis Dorrough, her handler that day, and my co-owner of Dillon, CT Wildfire Smoking Gun NAJ, a wild-eyed Border Collie who had attained that magical Champion Tracker status proudly said you got a real tracking dog now as she handed me the lead.Over the next year and a half we worked with Chanel on the different aspects of tracking. Both field and urban or variable surface work. In each area she excelled. I decided to enter Chanel in a tracking test in Thunder Bay, Ontario I would be competing with one of my Field Spaniel puppies. I made the 11-hour drive to Thunder Bay and arrived to find nice weather with temperatures in the mid 40s. On test day we awoke to a billowing blizzard, temperatures well below zero and horizontal snow pushed along by 40mph winds. Not exactly a perfect day for tracking. Pushing away the negative thoughts of the weather, we prepared to head to the test site.  We arrived to find the ground frozen, snow and sleet blowing across the field and the grass so brittle it snapped and crackled when stepped on. Chanel was ready. She stood to have her harness attached and we approached the field. The Spectators, the judge and the handler all looked like refugees from an old Ice Station Zebra film. Bundled in parkas and gloves we marched to the field.A curt nod to the crowd, most huddled behind cars and vans to stay out of the fierce wind, a comforting have fun out there from Judge Erich Kunzel of Alberta who apparently thought it was a nice spring day, and Chanel and I headed to the start flag. Downing in the ice at the start, her tail started spinning. It never quit as she headed down the windswept legs, made three corners and with me bent over, following her into teeth of the blowing storm, and proudly sat, holding the glove.  By enduring the elements and following the faint thread of scent through a blizzard, she joins her playmate Howy (CH Erinveine Herald At Arms Am/Can TD) as the only Clumber Spaniels to have been issued tracking title certificates in Canada.Coco Chanel when developing Chanel No. 5 wanted "a woman's fragrance that smells like Woman." I wanted another dog that loved to track. Chanel although not exactly smelling like a woman, tracks with intensity and plays just as hard. She is now CH Epics Share The Fantasy Can TD. |
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