Not a biscuit eater

Some years ago George and I came across a movie called "The Biscuit Eater". Originally a short story, it was made into a movie in 1940, and remade by Disney in 1972. The 1940 version was so full of stereotypes it made us cringe, but the curious title stayed with me. Despite the definitions currently available for "biscuit eater" when doing an Internet search, in the movie the term was reserved for a dog that ate and took up space in the kennel but didn't perform the work it was bred for, which in this case was competing in field trials. A quick review of the short story reveals "A biscuit eater wouldn't hunt anything except his biscuits and wasn't worth the salt in his feed."

I confess upon occasion I have teasingly referred to Lark as a biscuit eater because when compared with her over achieving mother, Lark has seemed rather lackadaisical about retrieving in general. It look me a long time to realize that Lark has both talent and drive for fieldwork, she was just waiting for me to put the work in, which I finally started to do last fall. Then she whelped her second litter on April 2nd of this year so we only had two weeks to train for the WC at the BYC after her litter left. This was not quite enough time for us to prepare and she went out on the first mark. However, we trained hard this summer and I'm pleased to report that Lark qualified in the WC on Oct. 6th at our National Specialty in Syracuse, NY.

Lark's work in the WC was very nice. She marked all of her birds very well, and picked them up without a fuss, returning directly to me. I was especially impressed with her work on the second land mark, as I saw a lot of dogs appear to run right over it and hunt far and wide of the fall. During Lark's second mark on water it was raining so hard I could hardly see her but she came through.

 
Lark's WC completes her requirements for the Rusty Jones award. She joins her mother June and littermate Eta in earning this award. Lark has informed me I may never refer to her as a biscuit eater again, but that should not be confused with a lack of desire on her part to eat biscuits.