Hello Palmetto Chapter and Friends
We hope you are enjoyed the busy month of December with holidays, hunting and of course our normal responsibilities!
The Palmetto Chapter had an extremely successful snake avoidance clinic. The weather Saturday Dec 8th was perfect and Bill Snyder, Steve Dickenson, and Jim Scheffner brought 72 dogs and their handlers through the snake obstacle course with great competency. Thank you to all that participated for the success of the event and a big thank you to Chad Bumb because facilitating these events takes a lot of time and organizing on his personal time that is often taken for granted. Thank you again.
Saturday and Sunday many members came out to train at Treasure Coast and had great outcomes along with some newcomers that we always welcome.December was the beginning of the chapter’s journey in training in multiple sites in Florida to optimize training for our dogs. As our dogs’ progress with their abilities they become conditioned to places and begin to lead themselves sometimes. One of our winter visitors to the Palmetto Chapter last year shared how when he tested up north his dog knew the blind activity perfect, they trained weekly and was flawless. Low and behold the day of the test she “knew” what the course was and what the game was and took it upon herself to lead her own way. As a handler this is disheartening because your score just dropped along with your heart into your stomach. All that hard work didn’t show up that day.We all need to take our dogs on different journeys so they are in tune with you the handler and your commands; not the location. Especially if you advance to invitationals –they need to work from your commands/expectations and not location.
We invite you to our next training weekend held at GMHT in Lake Whales Jan 12thand 13th! All Birds Must be pre-ordered in 2019, The pre-ordering will be online the week prior so more info will be sent out to order. For new members here is a link for more info. https://floridapalmettonavhda.org/directions/
February 2ndwe will be heading north for training Saturday only (no Sunday this time) to SS&J farm. This is an exciting opportunity as the owners welcome us and our northern Palmetto members (all members are welcome though) for the first time on their property.SSJ Farm is a privately-owned, licensed quail hunting preserve in northeast Florida that the owners have a passion for dog training also and hosts many events with other hunting dog organizations. We have several members that utilize their beautiful property currently and the hospitality is second to none. We look forward to hosting many training sessions at SS&J. For more details on their preserve you can look them up at www.ssjfarms.com
We will be sending out calendar dates soon for both training and annual meeting. As we look forward to this next year we have a lot planned already and will keep you informed. The Board of Directors would like to announce along with all the Chapter’s plans that they have appointed Melody Sweet, interim President and Gaylon Smith, interim vice president until election time in March so the club is not without those 2 positions since Bill Snyder stepped down as President and Steve Dickenson as Vice President. We thank both Bill and Steve for their years for hard work and dedication and look forward to them participating as general members as their knowledge is greatly appreciated.
We thank you the most, our members as this is a volunteer organization filled with ordinary people that have a passion for their versatile dog to become what they were bred to do and that is to hunt for us along with preserving the tradition of hunting and producing quality dogs. Without its members NAVHDA would not have the success that it has enjoyed over the years and our Chapter is part of that success as the fall judge told us, “Having all the dogs in a chapter prize shows the quality of the chapter”. Thank you all members we enjoyed a successful 2018 and look forward to continuing with you for an exciting 2019!
Spring Test
As of now we do not have enough dogs to test in March, We have tentative dates with no location set with the National Chapter of NAVHDA as of today. If you are considering testing your dog in March Please go to The website and Register and pay for your entry, if we have enough dogs we will have a test, if not we will refund your entry fees.
Sincerely,
