copper: a silver champion - Tennessee Valley Kennel Club, Inc.

C
THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2015
M
Y
K
Neighbors
THE STANDARD BANNER
8A
Ice cream
is good for
the soul
STEVE MARION | THE STANDARD BANNER
Jan Flaherty relaxes with three of her champion English Setters at home in Dandridge. With her are, from left, Raven, Maddie, and Copper.
COPPER: A SILVER CHAMPION
BY STEVE MARION
T
STAFF WRITER
he dining room table barely had room
for the accolades she’d won in only one
weekend.
Yet Copper was more interested in
her favorite game: playing dead.
“Bang, bang,” said Jan Flaherty, making a
gun with her fingers.
Copper lay gleefully on her back, motionless except for a swishing tail.
“I don’t think dead dogs wag tails,” Flaherty whispered.
The tail stopped.
That got Copper a good belly scratch,
which was exactly the way she had planned
it. The three-year-old English Setter didn’t
become a silver champion — one of the top
examples of her breed in the United States —
by lacking a plan. Flaherty, a relatively new
Dandridge resident who has bred and shown
over 50 champions, knew Copper was special
when she was only five weeks old.
“She was actually number two in the litter
for her body structure, but it was her attitude that got my attention,” said Flaherty, a
retired Chicago cop who does not impress
easily. “She has a flashy temperament that
makes her a natural for showing.”
Flashy describes the regal carriage of the
English Setter in action — but soulful is the
look in their chocolate eyes. The breed is old,
one of the oldest of gun dogs, with a history
stretching back to the Fourteenth Century.
The smallest of the four setter breeds, they
were bred for hunting birds, but their long
feathered coats, which come in two and
three colors, also make them attention-getters in the show ring.
Flaherty fell in love with the breed at a dog
show over 40 years ago. She was working as
a prostitute at the time.
Okay — not really.
“I worked undercover for the vice squad,
some of the time posing as a prostitute for
sting operations,” she said. “It was kind of a
fluke that I got into police work, but I ended
up liking it and staying with it.”
Her husband Bill was also a police officer,
and, when she brought up finding a job, he
suggested that she take the police exam —
“just to see how I would do.”
How she did was an almost perfect score.
“Why not go to the police academy and see
what it’s like?” she wondered.
Twenty-five years later she was looking
back on a distinguished career. Police work
is apparently in the family genes. One of the
couple’s three sons is a Chicago Police Officer today and proudly wears his dad’s old
star number. Both of Bill’s brothers are also
career officers, as is his uncle.
The love of dogs is also in Jan’s DNA.
“I’ve always felt that way,” she said. “At
the dog show, I fell in love with the English
Setters, but there were no puppies available,”
she recalled. “Bill wanted an Irish Setter
because he’s Irish, but we settled on a half
Golden Retriever, half Irish Setter puppy. I
thought at the time I might try training seeing eye dogs.”
She never forgot her interest in English
Setters, however.
“After we lost our first dog, I was down,
and we called five states searching for a
puppy. Nobody had one. Then we saw a
newspaper ad. My first English Setter was
a black and white, what we call a ‘blue.’ She
was from a backyard breeder. Later, I found
a really good breeder, and we co-owned a
brood bitch together.”
The breeder was Peggy Dunsmuir, who
became Jan’s friend and mentor. Dunsmuir,
who has 50 years of experience with English
Setters, later settled in Kingsport. Closing in
on retirement, the Flahertys started traveling in the summers, thinking about where
they’d like to live when they didn’t have to
report for roll call every morning.
“We went all over, but in the end we realized we were comparing everything else to
East Tennessee,” she said. “So we said, ‘Why
go anywhere else?’”
Five years ago, they bought a duplex on
Douglas Lake and turned it into a unique
home. Their big living/dining room — which
looks out over the lake and the mountains —
has an all English Setter decorating theme.
That’s fine with Paige, Willow, Maddie,
Raven, and Copper, the couple’s five English
Setters.
“I hope you like dogs,” Bill tells visitors as
the five girls gather round for greetings. English Setters love people. They are also very,
very smart. The Flahertys dogs are so well
trained they seem to calmly await instructions. They’re also bird dogs, so they keep
one eye to the sky.
Copper, the baby of the bunch at age three,
is an “orange belton.” Her coat is mostly
white with distinctive tannish-red ticking.
She’s the top dog from Flaherty’s years of
breeding experience, and she knows it. When
there’s a fight, Copper steps in as peacemaker, Flaherty says. She loves showing off, but
she does it with an air of refinement. She
had won 11 awards at a show the previous
weekend.
Maddie, age nine, is Copper’s mom and
counts serving as a therapy dog and winning
a hunting title among her exploits. Willow,
who also has a hunting title, is 11 and a
half. Raven is six and the darkest blue of the
group. All are champions. Paige, who is 15
and a half, is the senior member of the pack.
Flaherty’s dogs have appeared on the cover
of “Dog Fancy” magazine, on numerous calendars, and even the cover of the book “Just
Setters.” They’ve even walked the runway
with models at a high fashion show in Chicago. They wore Coach raincoats for the occasion. The most important thing to Flaherty,
however, is the future of the breed.
“Responsibility for the future of the breed
is a big deal for the responsible breeder,” she
said. “We want to make sure the dogs are
healthy for future generations.”
Flaherty, who calls her business “Blu’ Star
Kennel,” spends thousands of dollars for
health screening of her puppies, including
a special test to make sure they hear clearly through both ears. Only the most fit are
bred. Copper, for instance, will become a
mom next year. Flaherty is a member of the
Tennessee Valley Kennel Club.
English Setter pups are born completely
white, but they begin to develop their colors as early as three weeks. Besides orange
belton, there are also blue belton (black and
white) and tri-color (black, white, and orange).
Though Flaherty breeds and develops
champions, she also takes time to work with
everyday puppy parents. She teaches a puppy
obedience class at the University of Tennessee, open to any breed.
“We learn all the basics that ensure you
and your puppy will have a good life together,” she said.
You can sign up for a class on the Tennessee Valley Kennel Club’s web site.
Who knows? Loving a dog might save your
life. Twice, Willow has alerted Jan that Bill
was having trouble with his diabetes. Once
he had passed out in the bathroom, and
Willow jumped on her to say that something
was wrong.
You have to look out for the members of
your pack.
STEVE MARION | THE STANDARD BANNER
Copper, Jan Flaherty’s silver champion English Setter, scouts for birds in the back yard on a
clear spring day.
Everyone gets cranky at
times. Being out-of-sorts,
critical, and insensitive are
common human quirks. We
all have our moments. Some,
however, have more moments
than others. Or as Whoopi
Goldberg said, “I don’t have
pet peeves, I have whole kennels of irritation.”
Most of the time, being
irritable is a symptom that
someone is hurting, either
physically, emotionally, or
spiritually. Because this is
so, we have an opportunity
to deepen relationships when
we don’t react to the crankiness we see on the outside
of others and care about the
hurt
that’s
FAMILY
on the
MATTERS
inside.
Kindness and
understanding
go a long
way in
soothing
ruffled
feathers and
aching
Dr. William Blevins
hearts.
Here’s
an illustration of what I’m
writing about.
A mother took her children to a restaurant and her
six-year-old son asked if he
could say grace. They bowed
their heads and he said, "God
is great. God is good. Thank
you for the food, and I would
thank you even more if mom
gets us ice cream for dessert.
And Liberty and justice for
all! Amen."
Along with the laughter
from the other customers
nearby, a woman coldly remarked, "That's what's wrong
with this country. Kids today
don't even know how to pray.
Asking God for ice-cream!
Terrible! "
Hearing this, the boy burst
into tears and asked his
mother, "Did I do it wrong? Is
God mad at me?" She hugged
him and assured him that he
had done well and God was
certainly not mad at him.
As she was saying this, an
elderly man approached the
table. He winked at the boy
and said, "I happen to know
that God thought that was
a great prayer." Then in a
whisper he added (nodding
towards the woman whose
remark triggered this whole
issue), "Too bad she never
asks God for ice cream. A little ice cream is good for the
soul sometimes."
At the end of the meal, the
mother bought her kids icecream. The boy who prayed
for this looked at his for a
moment and then picked up
his dish and without a word
walked over and placed it in
front of the woman. With a
big smile he said, "This is for
you. Ice cream is good for the
soul sometimes, and my soul
is good already.”
It doesn’t have to be icecream. There are many ways
to care for those who are
hurting. Being kind-hearted
is especially good for the
soul, for both the one who
receives the kindness as well
as the one who offers it. As
the Dalai Lama said, “If you
want others to be happy,
practice compassion. If you
want to be happy, practice
compassion.” Random acts of
kindness can work wonders,
even when someone is bent
out of shape.
FAMILY MATTERS is presented as
a public service by the Blevins Institute for Spirituality and Mental Health
at Carson-Newman. For information
about our Certificate in Spirituality
program, visit our website at www.
cn.edu/blevins or call (865) 471-3311.