Franchi - Allevamento Hillshire

This story was written in november 2000. We couldn't imagine that Michi was going to become RCI Club Champion in 2001, again RCI Club Champion in 2003, and Field Trial Champion in 2003 in Italy and in 2004 in France.

We decided to buy a golden retriever four years ago, because our children wanted a dog.

We have a piece of land where I have some sheep (8 to 10), lots of hens, ducks, rabbits , turkeys, and at the time I did not want any other animal, in particular not a dog.But one day we went for a walk with some friends of ours, who had a nice, well behaved dog that never once jumped onto our sandwiches, a golden retriever, and my husband supported the children in the fight for a dog; they won, and the family decided to buy a golden.

So we started touring among golden breeders, until we found a girl we liked, Maddalena Gambini, owner of the kennel Royal Silk. She was selling the puppies of one litter, but we fell in love with the other female she had, and we waited for a puppy from that female. So far, so good, and when we had our little golden (sept 1998) we somehow tried to follow the suggestions we found in some books on golden rearing, but I’m sure we made all the mistakes one can do with the first puppy.

She spent her time with me and my animals, and she learned to help me in putting the sheep in the stable, to stop them and let them out one by one when the vet came, and she loved eating chicken food among our chickens and playing wild with my 80kg ram.

She walked in the hills with us always free, very seldom on the lead, but when she was on the lead it was like going water-skiing with her as a motor-boat. She loved to play hide and seek with the children in the woods, and searching for my husband’s cap hidden in the forest. Never saw a dummy or game. We are not hunters. Her breeder kept in touch with us, and persuaded us to take her to some show, which I thought I would never do, and Michi started getting good results. But we still didn’t know what a retriever can do. We read about retrieving, but could not figure out the real thing.

When she was ten months old we entered a course organized by the Retriever Club Italiano and we discovered a new world. The course was held by a Danish team: Sergio (my husband and boss of the dog) was in the beginner class with Leif Andersen, and I was in a more advanced group with Ole Nielsen, as helper and interpreter (sadly without a dog!). In a few hours we learned that we had the worst dog of the course, and moreover people were saying to us that we could not go much farther with such a show line dog!But it was so exciting learning how to build a proper relationship with a dog, and learning how to train. In October 99 Michi and Sergio entered another course, Danish team again, and it was Kaj Falk Andreasen who explained to my husband that goldens look like soft and mild dogs, but they are not. And our golden was definitely pulling our legs! From October 99 till now, working hard with our trainer Emerico Mancuso,  things went very fast. Sergio brought her to picking ups, and she discovered she loves game and she is never tired, she never gives up a search, she doesn’t mind thorns or steep hills or anything. We are learning together with her and we really discovered something we like to do.

Michi entered her first field trial in January 2000, and she was out (never seen a duck before, except my ducks that must not be touched, like my hens!). We tried again in april: out again (this time she rolled herself on a beautiful and smelly male pheasant, in the warm countryside near Rome, and Anke Bogaerts, dutch trainer, helped us with some very good advice on how to stop this). Every time we spent hours talking about how to get Michi do the right things and organizing tricks like hiding my son Pietro high on a tree to blow a terrible horn at Michi when she tried to be stupid with a nice smelly male pheasant. She was quick on the uptake and was never stupid again!

We have been through phases of enthusiasm and despair, panicking because we had to learn everything before we could teach the dog, but we made it: in may 2000, after we attended a course with Iris and Frank Wright, Michi had her Very Good on a FT, in September had a Good in a working test “C” class in Switzerland, and was 5° exc in FT in October, after a week of training with the Gunilla Lundin’s team (I was helper to Elisabeth Sahlin). In november, 5° again in FT, with a Very Good issued by Mrs. Darton (UK).

We know we still have much to learn, and we know we will make other mistakes, but we like it all so much. In the meanwhile on show she collected three RCAC in open class, and she is a winner in working class (which is easier, because working class is never very crowded!). We know that our dog is not likely to ever be a show champion or a field trial winner, but we are proud of her, and happy to be able to move around with her in competitions in very actractive country places!

A little information about us: both my husband and I are chemical engineers, but I chose to be a farmer (small farmer) after the children were born Pietro ( now 14) who plays guitar and cello, and  Margherita (now 12) who plays flute.